Adept Play
Adept Play
Category: Character death
Death is a common event in fiction but has a difficult history in roleplaying. This section concerns the procedures and the experiences of characters dying, and how the event relates to continuing to play.
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Towns are scarier
I’ll stand by that claim even though we lost three (3) characters in the dungeon. This post is the sequel to The architecture in this town, playing B/X at Spelens Hus. I’m trying to catch up with the editing as we’ve played six sessions total at the time of this writing. Session 4 This session…
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Irresponsibility and integrity
I’d like to celebrate the virtues of my game Fantasy for Real, especially the phrase I hit upon at some point in its latter-day development, “irresponsible adventure,” and what that means. I’ve been playing the hell out of it during April through various events I’ve attended. The brief history is that I worked on two…
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In the Face of the Shining Lords
It’s been a few games since I posted any updates about play in my post-apocalyptic space opera game, in the Shadow of the Shining Lords, so I thought I’d drop in with what’s happened since then. (note: if you’re one of my players, there are spoilers below, please hold off reading this for a couple…
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Excess and excitement
At the Happening, I played several games which share some features: characters at extreme risk and at least some are not expected to survive, circumstances which pit them against or with another as players decide, formal shifts in immediate content or theme, a lot of backstory content created during play, and a lot of inspiration…
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Workshop: No, Not Blackleaf!
Workshop #2 is now available here. If you’re a patron, be sure to check the recent Patreon post first, to get your discount code. Many thanks to the wonderful participants and all the points you raised: This space is for participants and, I hope, for people who get the recording, to continue discussing the topic.…
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Blackbrain Tea
I’m not completely certain, but I think this is in the realm of our activity. Whether it is or is not is a valid topic of discussion for this post. Some way or another, a year or two ago I became aware of the existence of a book called Top 10 Games You Can Play…
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We Crossed Off Death
This post is about D&D and the tendency of DMs to go through acrobatics and contortions to (seem to) challenge the characters while taking care to not actually kill them – or let them fail. I’ve been playing in a group for a few years that’s made up mostly of my old high-school friends, so…
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Ecstasy and mortality
The above graphic shows the games I played during the Happening, whether organized by me or by someone else. The total games played by everyone there approximately doubled that number of titles. This post is about the two I’ve circled, which are part of my Cantos set of four games. They are weird, arty, intimate…
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Climax & Endings & Rolemaster Thoughts
A few weeks ago the characters encountered the nemesis who has been behind the situation since the beginning. And it has me thinking about how “The End” of a situation / adventure can affect the prep and Play in a game. I will also muse a bit on how System Matters. The final confrontation between…