I do not drink often, but one of the occasions when I made an exception was the watch the Dungeons & Dragons movie with Fred. In retrospect, this was a very good idea. It was a terrible, terrible movie, primarily made tolerable by how much Jeremy Irons very clearly did not want to be there. […]
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Notes from my talk
I gave a talk at Metatopia on Sunday on talking to the talent and promised to post my notes, so here they are in all their semi-comprehensible glory. That said, on a lark, I recorded the bit of advice I got from Fred, so I’m throwing that up here as a bonus (warning – hugely […]
This Metatopia Thing
A while back, Vinnie had an idea. Vinnie, for those that don’t know, is the robot brain behind Dreamation, Dexcon and a host of other nerd events in northern New Jersey. I’ve talked in the past about how good Dreamation and Dexcon are, and a lot of that is a reflection on how hard Vinnie […]
What We Want
What we want in a game is a lot like what we want in life. I’m gonna riff a bit here on David McClelland via Peter Bregman with the list of desires that drive us:Achievement (To compete against increasingly challenging goals)Affiliation (To be liked/loved)Personalized power (influence and respect for yourself)Socialized Power (to offer others Personalized […]
Playability in Settings
Setting is, to my mind, utterly essential to RPGs, and has also been the poor cousin to rules design in a lot of the deeper discussions of RPGs. I’m not entirely sure how to address that, but I think a good start involves looking at setting design with the same eye we’ve applied to rules, […]
Play is an Argument
There’s a lot of discussion about what a game is, in the context of RPGs, and even when I propose an answer, I never imagine it to be the only answer. Still, it’s interesting to think about. I was chewing on that today and considered a slightly different approach – a game (or rather, the […]
I Woke Up With This In My Head
OK, what this means to me: The assumption is a 4 stat set in the spirit of Amber. The 4 stats are Endurance, Discipline, Power and Expression, with 4 derived stats, Willpower (Discipline & Endurance), Precision (Discipline & Power), Force (Power & Expression) and Presence (Expression & Endurance). The core model is a double-paired idea […]
I Want To Borrow 4e’s Foundation
Ok, here’s an important thing about 4e that I would suggest that even die hard fans of other editions consider: it’s foundation is excellent. In my opinion, it’s a better foundation than any previous edition of D&D, though I leave that comparison up to the reader. But what does that mean? I mean that if […]
Uniquely Qualified
Nothing breaks my heart more than when I hear a GM complain that he wishes there were more roleplaying in his game. It’s tragic because it’s always so heartfelt and sincere and is almost always followed by said GM then introducing his new combat showpiece, hardcore dungeon crawl, or puppet show on rails. It hurts […]
Roleplay and Exploration Rewards
I was struck by a tweet this morning regarding the difficulty with handing out XP awards for exploration and roleplaying, specifically, that such rewards are arbitrary and hard to rightsize. This immediately struck me as a very valid complaint, but also one that’s very easily addressable – it’s just a matter of identifying the behaviors […]