Adept Play
A fantasy game by Ron Edwards, first publshed by his company Adept Press in 2003.
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…
Justin gave me a list of questions or topics for this session, and I realized they made most sense in nested form. So I grouped IIEE and relationship mechanics into the larger category of Bounce and system diagrams (specifically their feedback or activity loops), then put the whole into the biggest category of design processes…
Justin Nichol and I continue our discussion, or training, regarding game design. This session (in 5 videos) delves into the way we talk / the way we roll. The topic shifts quite logically from whether & when describing things colorfully works, to gaudy and painful consequences of moment-by-moment decision-making. I have never thought the fiction-first/mechanics-first…
Dustin was intrigued by my statements in our first consulting session about character improvement, as well as being suspicious that I would start maundering about relationships as reward enough. I was able to surprise him a little, and the discussion was able to expand quite sensibly into his more general design regarding character death. A…
After setting up my little consulting table at the Palace Hotel during Lucca, I found myself tired of discourse and yearning for play. When a friend I hadn’t seen for a while passed by, with a copy of Trollbabe (in Italian, published by Narrattiva) in hand, that seemed like the perfect plan. There’s a little…
Oh golly, let’s see a bunch of guys over-share about how much their characters have been having sex!! … for those few of you remaining in the room, you’ll see us talk well beyond the boilerplate. Sex has been freed-up in role-playing over the last decade and a half. This seems to have freed us…
“Everyone knows” what sandbox means. Except that it was a term ‘ported into table-top role-playing from another medium and adopted as fashion rather than substance, so no, I don’t. Talk is cheap, whiskey costs money, and let’s see if this is a thing, and if so, how many things, and if so in a given…
I’ve been drawing these things for years. I’ve rarely discussed them publicly for a couple reasons, but busted one out for my Understanding the Pool seminar, and got to thinking about them again. Then Jason, who was saving my sanity regarding Adobe Premiere, asked me about them outta the blue, based on a discussion about…