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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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…
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Närcon 2024
As with past years, my particpation at this convention was tied to Spelens Hus, and now also allied with MiFF, the equivalent organization with our local SiN, with a Spelens Hus of their own in Göteborg (Gothenburg). Based on last year, I concentrated on workshops, offering two sessions of “Understanding Role-playing” and one of “No,…
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It always goes to the arena
The conventions and events of the summer have interfered with my tidy editing and posting habits, but we have indeed continued playing Dark Sun with The Pool, as first discussed in Dark + Sun + Pool. I’m finally getting around to presenting the recordings here. This link goes straight into session 2 in the same…
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Old School Essentials – Planescape
I have been playing Old School Essentials for about a year with four people I know from the punk scene in my city. There is one experienced role-player in the group. The others had some familiarity with D&D fantasy based on video games and pop culture. Our first play experience was a dungeon crawl using…