Adept Play
Adept Play
Category: Settings
A setting is best conceived as a much broader scope than the situations in play, whether conceptual or geographic or cosmic. This section concerns how they are experienced in play, as opposed to direct textual references.
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The far east! which means what?
Sean Hillman and I met to talk about his game, or proto-game, just notes really, Empire of the Dragon Lotus. For me it’s a callback to about … fifteen years ago, into the hothouse of the Forge and Sean’s participation there. I think his original notes on the game from back then are in one…
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Presentation: Why Glorantha (and its games)
I’ve finally realized how regularly people ask me to explain RuneQuest, HeroQuest, the Chaosium, and Glorantha, specifically because they’ve bounced hard off the apparently extensive setting and apprently impenetrably insider-oriented fanbase. It’s usually private, and they often present the question as if it’s their last fatigued try at finding out what “there” is there. After…
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Expanding a setting
We’re two more sessions into the RuneQuest game since the last time, and as I’d feared, the material is demanding a further effort to live up to its tantalizing hints. I find myself creating things, especially cult writeups. One of them was completed for session 6, for the Cult of the Buried Dead, so it’s…
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The Sodden Lands of Sian Mer
I’m gearing up to run my second game of Sorcerer and taking my first stab at the Sorcerer and Sword variant. On the GM prep side, things are a bit more involved. For Sorcerer, I created one statement about demons, one about the setting, defined Humanity, and collected a couple pictures for inspiration. At that point,I was good…
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Cities as player characters
If a city or state were a character how would you express it? What would the attributes be? Do they have character classes? Would it have Advantages and Disadvantages? How would you damage or kill it? How would it attack or influence city/states around it? How would it grow, and what would it get XPs…
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Seeing through eyes that aren’t your own
Dan and I go way back although we hadn’t met or interacted directly before; he was in at some of the earlier Forge days and has good memories. It’s nice to talk with someone with those. The discussion began here in Compartmentalization/Defecting Luddite and it seemed to him to move best into Consulting, so here…
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Of maps and maps
I played a lot at IndieCON, in a relaxed way. This was a good example, a little bit of messing with my notes for Dreams of Fire. I didn’t film the session so the video is just me talking and thinking about it. I’m enjoying working on a game with no deadline, as the pressure…