Adept Play
Adept Play
Category: Hobby culture
Roleplaying emerged from a historical meeting-point among wargaming, literary enthusiasts, and counterculture in the 1970s, and it has interacted strangely with pop culture and commerce.
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Historical technique
I’d like to start some group effort toward institutional memory of the historical role-playing activity. Here’s the D&D diagram I’ve been using for years, which I absolutely insist must be used rigorously by anyone who wants to use those syllables in a conversation. It helps to keep the title from bearing every imaginable generalization, along…
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A little me time goes a long way
My job affords me a lot of downtime lately. With this sudden excess of time, I’ve started doing many creative things I love.
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Kulturnatten 2023
Kulturnatten is a major event in Sweden, during which any and all activities conceivably identified as Kultur throw open their doors or set up stalls and bandstands, and everyone roams around checking out whatever they want. I participated last year both at Spelens Hus and at the game design event at the city library, as…
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Närcon 2023
I’ve attended the third and last of the primary Swedish conventions for me this year, excluding the big one, Nordsken, which I might consider next year. Närcon is not specifically about games as such, being, simply, all about the fun, emphasizing cosplay and music. Spelens Hus Norrköping has an ongoing presence there, recently under review…
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July 2023 Q&A
I see much underlying unity across these questions, and I hope you can too. The central concept is situation in play, which certainly needs more practical clarity among us as it relates first to texts, and also to straightforward behavior. Oddly, too, it matches with the final question concerning explicit role-playing references in music, as…
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Normal People
On the discord, Sam said: “I am yearning for a game where it would be out of the ordinary to see a fist fight, let alone someone die. I think I want to play a game about ordinary people doing things no one could possibly call an adventure. What games have you played that do…
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Inclusive Design
Here’s an interview with me and Thomas Munier, who has been developing materials and ideas in the Francophone-Anglophone overlap. The title term is his, and its meaning is quite broad. He prepared the ground as follows: I would say that there are three parts to deal with which show an approach to inclusive design which…
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February 2023 Q&A
Lucky 13th time – I hope you like it, because this was a beast of a question series, across a wide variety of topics. I even get to revisit the Finding D&D series regarding current IP/OGL shenanigans. I promised Alessio a couple of links so here they are: Presentation: Why Glorantha (and its games) and…
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December Q&A
This set of questions spans a wide range: some Forge and Story Games history, using traits or rules involving “Destiny” without railroading toward a specific thing, and plenty of resolution-type topics regarding how characters fight. Here’s the file summarizing our discussion at the Patreon. As always, I’m hoping for continuance and more development here.