Adept Play
Adept Play
Author: Ron Edwards
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B stands for Best
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…
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Lies, patience, and creepy grit
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…
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Dungeon is as dungeon does
Our fourth session concluded the Major Quest and neatly fulfilled the requirements for leveling up. Regarding that latter, I’m using the generalizing rule that doesn’t count experience points finely, but instead sets a level-up equal to a set number of “your level” sized encounters. The default quantity of encounters is ten, but it’s also stated…
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Finding D&D 1: The Stand Alone Complex
Here’s part 1 of my series “Finding D&D,” or rather, my first pass at working it up into a formal presentation. I’m looking forward to a fair piece of response for it. There’s some history, based on several discussions at my old Adept forum, and a lot of private correspondence since then across a number…
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The way we roll
Kickers aren’t confined merely to their initiating events. They’re what those events become, measured in human costs. Alain found his bid for tenure challenged by his mentor’s bitterness. Maxine’s band landed a sweet record contract. Michael’s criminal enterprises brought danger to his family for the first time. Nothing anyone armed with demonic forces couldn’t handle…
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To Crawl or not to Crawl
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. About this point, you may be asking, “What kind of game consulting is…
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Finding direction
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…
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Crystal psychic revelation + slimy explosive mayhem
Deeper in the vortex, confronting the diseased visions infecting memory and legacy – yes, it’s 4th edition D&D, played with guts and glory. Eneku, Runt, and Ezhelya get to the center of it all. I was embarrassed to realize, while reviewing the video, how sincere some of the content was for me. I can hear…
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To get a diamond, you crush the coal
I’ve stitched together two consulting sessions with Petteri Hannila, the author of Tales of Entropy. The first part is audio only, but please view rather than listen, because I’ve filled it all with visual content. I’m beginning to make these sessions work both privately and publicly. This client is a little different because the game…