Here's to participation, as this was the biggest attendance yet for a Monday Lab, and I really liked it. Everyone had a chance to chip in, and if we didn't discover any One True Answer, well, some reasonable questions were unearthed.
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Our topic this time is the length of play as it relates to game rules. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s not as simple as seeing what the rules say and obeying them; people play long or short in defiance of those rules (when present) all the time. The question is when or how the rules facilitate the decision to continue to play.
The recent discussion in Actual Play has prompted me to what may be quite a lot of pointed looks at racism in role-playing content. I've made a little video to set local boundaries & standards for all of them, beginning right here. You'll be seeing that link again.
At this point, we needed to do three things at once. First, to make sure we filled in any missing points or caught up with anything Justin wanted to revisit; second, to lay down some important points about design as a process, as I thought we'd maybe strayed into play-theory at the expense of the real topic of "make a game;" and third, to take the time to address any topics as they occurred to either of us as we went along.
Here's the second session with Justin Nichols as I test my current notions of a Design Curriculum upon him. Last time, we talked about the desireable "reward" cycle of excitement, engagement with the procedures, and inspiration. This time it's about a particular structural rubric you can find attached to this post.
I've been working up a Design curriculum for role-playing for a long while, so when Justin Nichols approached me for a game design discussion that leaned toward mentoring, I accepted without reservation.