One of the hallmarks of getting very good at something is that certain elements become habit. A musician doesn’t really think about tuning his instrument or running through a few familiar tunes. An athlete just falls naturally into proper form. This is one of those things that’s hard to measure because it’s not what they […]
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Mixed Success and No-Fail Rolls in Fate
Here’s another idea banging around in my head about Fate that I’m not sure is ready for FateRPG.com. So to generalize, in Apocalypse World, players roll 2d6 for various things, which the results usually reading like: 2-6: Failure (you don’t get what you’re after, and things may well get worse) 7-9: Mixed/minimal success (success with […]
Geek #2: Productivity
This is my second Speak Out With Your Geek Out post. I am also a productivity geek. This has shown up in a few of my gaming posts like “Getting Things Dungeon” but it’s something that runs pretty deep for me. Like a lot of people I know, I was a bright slacker growing up. […]
Geek #1: Comics
At first, I was uncertain how to contribute to Speak Out With Your Geek Out – after all, this is already a pretty geeky blog – but after a but of thinking I realized I have a few other areas of geekery that might merit some discussion, so I’m taking my week back from break […]
Bringing the Damage Roll to Fate
So, this is a weird idea for a side-project of mine that might not see the light of day (or it might!). I’d post it over on FateRPG.com if I was more certain about it, but for now, this goes over here on my blog as a “hack”. So, I’ve been noodling around the notion […]
Time Off
I’m taking a long weekend for Labor day, and should be back Tuesday. I’ve had some good changes in my life recently, but I don’t yet know how they’re going to impact my schedule, including my writing for this blog. I’m unlikely to _stop_, but I may need to step back to a less-than-daily schedule […]
Tunnels and Trenches
Played more Deus Ex, though curiously that has not really been what’s been eating my time. I’ve really grown to appreciate it’s design of creating multiple paths to success, and what’s most interesting to me is that those paths remains mostly obscured unless you’re the kind of player who cheerfully spends time poking into every […]
The Clickable Map
Ok, so this is the overland map for the video game, Dragon Age:As you might expect, you click on one of the little squares to go there. The images in the icons have meanings (town, dungeon and so on – that one in the upper right is “make camp”) but the base idea is pretty […]
Deus Ex-ing it up
Played some Deus Ex: Human Revolution this weekend. Startlingly fun game, especially noting that I’ve never played the original or the (badly panned) sequel. Very interestign game to look at in terms of its relationship with tabletop for two reasons, one abstract one one nerdishly specific. Thr abstract one is something that’s held up as […]
Reading Fudge Dice
It should come as no surprise that I’m quite fond of fudge dice, and I’ve put a lot of thought into the different things that can be done with their three outcomes. I’ve shifted things on several different axes, and I’ve failed as often as I’ve succeeded, but it’s a fun area to play in. […]