Adept Play
Adept Play
Author: badspeler
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Keep to the Path
This is my most recent experiment in playing a system in pure referee-style, six three-hour sessions of Knave in the famous B/X module Keep of the Borderlands by Gary Gygax. Previously, I attempted forty hours of a 5e West Marches Campaign which was a mixed experience. My sense of “referee style” is to stick adamantly…
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Persona, Problem, and Procurement – Contradiction in Character Creation
Character Creation is both creative, collaborative, tactical, and a signal for one’s expectations from play. Can a definite procedure help people to approach the game in the right way? Recently started a new campaign for Living Alchemy. Living Alchemy uses modules- characters are introduced into a setting with a few elements. You can read about…
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Silent Night: Storytelling from State
How can we make emergent storytelling more accessible? This was my goal with Silent Night, a module for Living Alchemy, a game I’ve talked about before. We played a game online in Tabletop Simulator and it was recorded here. My presentation will focus on a few concerns people have shared. These include: “How can you get…
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Death Marches: A Conditional Failure
Over six months, I scoured the internet for West Marches resources. Ultimately, I produced something that could be played with a rotating cast of players in a persistent world using D&D 5e rules. 5e was chosen for its popularity and perceived accessibility. I used strict GM-as-neutral-arbiter style play with little to no punch-pulling. After nine…
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The Story Module (Part III of III)
I have to say, I feel a bit like Charles Marlow, relating a series of half-real half-imagined events to an unknown audience. "'Try to be civil, Marlow,' growled a voice, and I knew there was at least one listener awake besides myself." So far, we’ve seen the creation and reification of Laurence the Innocent, a self-hating…
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The Story Module (Part II of III)
(This is a continuation of this post.) My campaigns are always electronically documented. After each session, I make entries for new elements and do a write-up of the session’s events. This was the only preparation I did. Unfortunately, against my hopes, the write-ups don’t capture the experience of playing Living Alchemy. So instead of writing…
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The Story Module (Part I of III)
Living Alchemy I've been working on a roleplaying game for half my life. I started it in the summer before college, sitting in the empty campus of UNL. I was about to leave for a another state, bitter about my life, bitter about leaving it. But this isn't about that. I recently finished an eight…
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The Search for Blackbird
For the past year and a half, I’ve been running a meetup group in my town for roleplaying games. Every few weeks, we run one-shot events intended to be accessible for new players. I’ve introduced a few people to roleplaying games, and many people to indie games. My favorite experiences have been seeing people become…