Adept Play
System refers to any and all interactions which result in play, as a dynamic and changing form of fiction. These posts address its features at any scale or purpose of play.
I had a great time running Mustering Out Blues last weekend, a two-hour session with four players, three “regulars” and one guest: Adept Play poster “Johann” took me up on my offer to get a little Traveller experience via the Pool, and created a character who would fit right in: ex-Fleet pilot Rory Cunningham, with…
Last year sometime, I took the “Ronnies” course, which involved reading game texts, watching play, and thinking about the connections between them. There was even homework! The capstone of the course was designing a game around a theme (“Red Meat”) in 24 hours and getting it to play. The idea that came to me was…
So I ran some demo games for a company at a recent convention, the Fallout RPG and Star Trek Adventures, and I’ve been thinking over the experience. The challenge I had was the games were supposed to be only one-hour-long introductions, and the sample adventures provided were all uniformly railroads. My problem with having a…
I’m following up on a recent Discord conversation at Adept Play on the topic of designing RPGs in terms of experiences that the designer wants the players to have. I also want to make my concerns about this clear, as I think I haven’t articulated myself very well about this topic over the years. The…
After some preparations discussed at the Discord (quoted below), I’ve finally run InSpectres. It was a mixed success, but I’m dying and preparing to immediately play it again — not least due to prior discussions: The course “Playing with the Pool” (which includes a section and activities regarding InSpectres) and several discussions and Actual Play…
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.…
We’re playing Sorcerer, online. Social context: I’m GMing and T, D, and P are playing sorcerers. I’ve played a good amount of 1-on-1 stuff with T, and a decent amount with T and D together. P joined us for a game of Hero’s Banner that didn’t get off the ground due to scheduling issues. My…
This post continues from Apoc western, our EABA game begun last spring and repeatedly interrupted since then – but we continue, now with regularized schedules and increasing momentum. To review a bit, this is a bit of a retro-grim spin on the over-cartoonized “apocalypse restores the wild west” motif, set in an outlands town struggling…
“Mustering Out Blues” is an homage to classic Traveller I made by hacking the Pool, James V. West’s decades-old rules system (today we’d call it a “game engine,” I suppose). I’ve run a bunch of one-shots with it, but today I ran the second session of a campaign game, and I don’t want to brag…