Adept Play
Adept Play
Category: Authorities
“Authorities” is my term for how people say things which are honored by others in play. Using an authority often means including some constraining factor such as a dice roll. Authorities are organized very differently system by system, and often group by group.
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Not Content
Whatever the case, Earthdawn failed to capture a large enough audience and the game, even though still produced today, is more an oddity than a functional system. ~Art of the Genre Blog, July 24 2013. I do not think that it is controversial to say that the above quote is consistent with how folks feel about Earthdawn.…
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Workshop: In/Over
We did it! This is about the authorities in play, which I put together both to form a single solid reference, and also to develop it past the basics and into practical use. The title refers to the distinction between authority over people, which is often a source of fear and pushback against the word,…
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Why things are the way they are
Mark Wallace contacted me for conversation about role-playing mechanics and emotions or the resulting content, among many other people. He’s written and published a lot about creative developments just outside or underneath the acknowledged media; see The Mark Wallace Experience for examples and enjoyment. He began the conversation with a bigger, relevant question: why role-playing…
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Tinfoil hats, everyone!
We continued the perils of small business management (and confronting the possible paranormal) in our InSpectres game, playing by screen due to schedule delays. Which turned out unfortunately in a failed sound recording, so a rather excellent and important play session is not available to view. I’ve provided my summary which I hope the other…
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Engine Trouble
We played Canyon’s Vampire game, online, me and Canyon. Here are the rules: Victim creationYou think of yourself as a victim. You have admitted this to yourself, at least once. What are you a victim of? Something keeps you going, for now. What? After the victim has made their character, read it out. Then the…
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Para Int’l and so many beetles
InSpectres! Real play, not just a convention one-off. Here’s my preparation, in this case useful for discussion because I wrote content from play directly onto them. The core content, or backstory, or “what the hell is going on,” of a given situation is not prepared. It is stated into play in bits and pieces whenever…
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Friday Night Firefight
Friday Night Firefight David, Christoffer & me are playing Cyberpunk, first edition. When sharing our « inspiration list », David, Christoffer and me has always a very similar list. If there’s a jungian inspiration ocean, we’re surfing on the same wave. Also we enjoy playing together, although it didn’t happen much. I played my most functional and…
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Egalitarian Design
It has recently occured to me that my game, In the Realm of the Nibelungs, is rather egalitarian, at least compared to other RPGs my group has played. I specifically introduced #4 to prevent discussions of tactics that (a) could get quite long and (b) were largely dominated by two players in the prior campaign.…
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Callers for the Nibelungs
Greg asked me about the role of caller in my game *Im Reich der Nibelungen* (“*In the Realm of the Nibelungs*”), so here are some reflections. I know the concept goes waaaay back, but I have never used a caller before. Now I have seen it in action for 25+ sessions. The caller has a…