This discussion took place a while ago, at the end of February. I wasn't sure it had enough content to merit posting, but as it turned out, BPG found it to be a breakthrough. We've done an intense further session about that, which is tied into the Boiling Pitch seminar and you'll see it, or a text version, soon.
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Consulting
CONSULTING
Here's where I post about my current role-playing game design consulting, with the permission of the clients. Sometimes it's a text piece, sometimes it's video or audio. Sometimes it's a discussion, and sometimes it's a playtesting session. Check out the Testimony and What I Do items below to see what it's about.
- If you want to become a client, please click on the "Come into the Lab" link to contact me for initial discussion. If we agree it's a good fit, then the fee is $100.
My current clients are: BPG (Directions Storyplaying System), Tor Erickson (5th edition D&D OGL), Bill Burdick (Death of the Vele), GGstudio (BE-Movie), Jeff Slater (House of Spiders), and Petteri Hannila (Tales of Entropy).
Posted by: Ron Edwards
17 Apr 2018
Games: Directions Storyplaying, Lasers & Feelings, Spione, Sorcerer, Durance, shock:, Apocalypse World, Fiasco
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That illustration is just about exactly perfect for my character, Zocchi Scurlato. (artist is Nicholas Kay)
Posted by: Ron Edwards
16 Apr 2018
Games: Tales of Entropy
3 comments
My latest consult with Tor brings us his working title, "Belitsunnu's Manticore," and extensive discussion of winning/losing, procedures for player input into preparation, and improvised tactical play.
Please add the collective intelligence to this one. We raised tons of questions and I tried not to drive toward answers - help me round out and deepen the questions so Tor's muse and/or subconscious can surprise him with the right answers for his game.
Posted by: Ron Edwards
20 Mar 2018
Games: Belitsunnu's Manticore, Empire of the Petal Throne, Hackmaster, Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition, Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition, Rune, Legends of Darkurthe
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We met again to keep playing Tales of Entropy, and I think we're getting a good look at how "story" happens, or perhaps, an exercise in whether fictional events are or are not a story. It won't surprise anyone to know my position: that the more we anticipate and compose a story, the less we do create one.
Posted by: Ron Edwards
20 Mar 2018
Games: Tales of Entropy, With Great Power
18 comments
I’m spacing out the discussion of Tor’s project post by post, because it’s in such an early stage that each chat we have turns into a big block, or stage, of the process. If I’m not mistaken, this one is pretty much the turning point from “playing D&D 5th edition on purpose” to “his own actual game using the 5th edition OGL.”
Posted by: Ron Edwards
08 Mar 2018
Games: Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition, Torchbearer, Burning Wheel, Sorcerer, Shahida, My Life with Master
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With great thanks to Petteri, Santiago, and Paul, we enjoyed diving pretty deep into the game, with more to go. Given four briefly-described choices from Petteri for our starting short-story piece, we used From the World of Old, which concerns a dragon who wakes into the developing civilized world (not really historical, but symbolic thereof) and decides to make his way there in human form.
Posted by: Ron Edwards
06 Mar 2018
Games: Tales of Entropy
18 comments
I first encountered Be-Movie during Modena, a gaming convention in the city of that name, just about one year ago when I was running little consults at the Narrattiva tables. I confess I was suspicious about it. For one thing, the term “B movie” in hobby culture is almost always parodic, in the sense that making fun of something stupid is the automatic meaning or use of this medium and content.
Posted by: Ron Edwards
06 Mar 2018
Games: Be-Movie, Extreme Vengeance
3 comments
Who could have asked for a better inadvertent experiment in comparative design? Four consulting clients, one specific historical ideal of role-playing experience, similar influences and familiarities with games and ideas, resulting in four non-converging, distinctive games. Directions Storyplay, Tales of Entropy, Be-Movie, and this one, Jeff Slater’s House of Spiders.
Here’s a summary of some of their comparative features.
Posted by: Ron Edwards
06 Mar 2018
Games: House of Spiders, Amber
4 comments
Tor and I continue our discussion of his embryonic, not-5th-anymore fantasy adventure design. We talk about inspiration/behavior mechanics, the large context for play I call the Crawl (with juicy game references), and the importance of making it your own, gloriously embarrassing fantasy.
Posted by: Ron Edwards
19 Feb 2018
Games: Dungeons and Dragons 3rd edition, Dungeons and Dragons Mentzer 1985, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, Torchbearer, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Tunnels and Trolls, Elfs
2 comments
Here's the first consulting session with BPG, author of Directions Storyplaying System, of two sessions we've done which includes a pretty detailed amount of "let's play" across two of them. I found working with this system simultaneously with Tales of Entropy to be a little challenging, as they share the rhetorical philosophy of design and play, but fortunately they turn out to be rather different.
Posted by: Ron Edwards
17 Feb 2018
Games: Directions Storyplaying, Hillfolk, Malandros
9 comments