Adept Play
Adept Play
Category: Game Master
This is a legacy term (also, Dungeon Master, Referee, Guide, and others) which should not be mistaken for a fixed concept or role in play for all roleplaying. Different game designs present different ways to concentrate authorities and to conduct systemic tasks. It makes more sense to speak of “game mastering” in terms of this variety, in the understanding that the concentration varies in its extent and specific feaures.
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Lincon 2025
Gothcon was tough without Helma, and Lincon even more so. Over the past few years, I’ve relied on her entirely for many things: logistic reminders of all sorts, a welcoming presence for people while I’m setting up, opinions and observations which aren’t mine, her own experiences of other things at the convention, and basically understanding…
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Playing prepared
I think I have internalized ways of playing prepared enough to be able to describe what I do when I play. This is the simplest description of what I learned about how to play situationally. This text assumes by default a traditional role of a GM who have NPC and backstory authorities. This partly describes…
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GMing For Iago
I’ve been running a game using Story Engine for a couple of months now. We’ve had some scheduling bumps, so it has only really been three or four sessions. The setup involves an idea I’ve had for years that I casually describe as “Frank Miller’s Three Musketeers”. Essentially, a kind of neo-noir underworld game set…
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Lace & Steel, Continued
Noah recently posted about our Lace & Steel game, and my response was to summon everyone for a video. We have me, Noah, Sam and David, but unfortunately Greg was sick and couldn’t participate — hopefully we can schedule some time to chat later, since his perspective is valuable and I fear we weren’t able…
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A frustrating second venture
This was the second session and venture in my Circle of Hands group, I posted about the first one here. I was frustrated after the opening scenes of this session, and at times afraid that the game was falling apart. I’ll try to write what happened and how I felt and then end with some…
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One bad harvest
We’re finally playing Harnmaster for the long game, with four sessions so far. You can see my slow and deliberate prior uptake in Dialing down the fantasy and Grit and focus. If you’re not familiar with it (people seem to be 100% or 0% with hardly anyone in-between), Harn is a set of isles at…
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The Great Claim
(said somewhat defensively) I have never seen an episode of Dallas and, back then, I managed to avoid most information that seeped around as cultural references. You might have heard that it was a terrible flop, implied to be poor design, and the financial disaster that led to the publisher’s demise. However, the actual business history…
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Workshop: What Went Wrong
Here’s the beast: all the things I think we should collectively consider as the social and commercial platform for role-playing’s history … and content, and emotions. Distribution, political context, money matters, subcultural effects, and more: presented not as momentary justifications, but as a layered history with a deep structure of cause and effect. Many thanks…
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A Few Sessions Later in the Shadow of the Shining Lords
General Catch-up and Oh Wow We’re a Party Now The game described in this post has made it through to the fifth two-hour session, playing about once a month or so. One of the four players mentioned above never ended up showing up for the next couple games, and when I came to an understanding…