Adept Play
Adept Play
Category: Consulting
Here’s where you can see my role-playing design consulting, with clients’ permission. Please comment at any post that interests you.
I am available for consulting! I do not insert my own design, writing, or editing into others’ games. I engage with your goals and your aesthetic priorities to help you see your way through the questions or struggles you may have, to provide new information or perspectives, to play a little bit, to listen, and to ask the tough questions.
Check out any of the posts and videos to see how it goes, and use the Contact link above. If we agree it’s a good fit, then the fee is 1200 SEK + VAT (300 SEK) for three sessions.
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The Darkness is winning
This has been a great consulting experience. Watch the way Dustin considers what I say about using the overall game/realm conflict as the rating for the power for replacement characters, internalizes it, but then completely makes it his own (and much better) by using the adversary’s current “win” score instead. I say “this is a […]
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When how and who
Here's another discussion of Quella Volta Che, aimed at the nuts and bolts of "what happens" in play, due to player choices and statements. We couldn't have done this without the previous session which focused so intently on content. Part 1 (the video below) addresses character creation steps, a topic I'd love to get into […]
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Change, die, change some more
Dustin was intrigued by my statements in our first consulting session about character improvement, as well as being suspicious that I would start maundering about relationships as reward enough. I was able to surprise him a little, and the discussion was able to expand quite sensibly into his more general design regarding character death. A […]
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More than one kind of Dark
Dustin isn’t a naive game designer, having produced Synthicide and generally navigated modern publishing. He asked me how to promote a game which did not fit neatly into “trad or indie,” “OSR or story game,” or any other dichotomy which people presented to him. Which is a perfect opportunity for me to stomp upon those […]
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Hell/Heaven is other people
Game Chef – boon or curse? I’ve been wondering since its very first days as a one-off “hey why not” by Mike Holmes at the Forge. So far, in official consulting, when someone shows up with “this was in last year’s Game Chef,” or even more so, “won last year’s Game Chef,” my count is […]
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In the trenches
This was my first scheduled consult session at Lucca. As usual, I had no expectations, but if I did, they would have been challenged by the degree that people came prepared. Francesco brought a deck of cards that looked ready to print. The title in English is “The Trench,” so my first question, as I’m […]
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Tea and sympathy, or failing that, monstrous retaliation
Contrary to a lot of play culture right now, I’m not too invested in single-session, highly staged play. I don’t mind the technique itself and have myself written some games along those lines, especially It Was a Mutual Decision, but there are so many of these at present, I find myself attracted mainly to “hey, […]
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Boundaries
When I finally got to the Indie Palace area at Lucca, in the Palace Hotel, Beatrice Da Vela and Filippo Zolesi, the latter a.k.a. our very own Pippo Jedi at the Patreon, came to see me with their game Quella Volta Che. It’s not funny or cute, but head-on, headlong into the thick of sexual […]
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Gore spattered blossoms
This post is a bit complicated: Daniele and Giulia brought Emanuele Galletto’s Blood Red Blossoms to me to look at, and I roped them into playing a little. The next day, I asked Emanuele to talk with me about it. So it’s not really a consult but more like Actual Play in one video with […]