Because yeah, I am working on a Dust Devils heartbreaker. Looking for a nice card-based pun for the title, but I may have to skip it. (I’m going off simple draw-poker, 3/5/7 card hands.)
Many games apply a mechanical bonus to incentivize the chararacter to some course of action. Sometimes you can get mileage from incentivizing [...]
Three books that I love and have not (yet) remixed into gaming:
The Namesake
Persepolis
Homage to Catalonia
What these have in common: vivid detail in vignettes, a wider scope of time (letting events unfold over many years), but also a pattern of not resolving key conflicts and themes along the way. Statements must be made about the themes, [...]
Because what’s action/cyberpunk without mirrorshades?
Every player brings shades to the table. You only put them on when your character enters the virtual world. When your glasses are on, you should act like a slightly aloof badass (which goes without saying). You can voluntarily take your glasses off, but can only put them back on if [...]
In many storygames, there some kind of conflict/stakes/task/check/roll that happens. This is a point at which things can change and stories can go in different directions. So when your character and my character are at odds: what about the players?
Do the players agree (consense) upon what the conflict is about and that the conflict is [...]
Many games have rules that meant to be used when players (often the GM and a player-character) disagree on the direction the fiction should take, in a process such as this:
A: So we find the McGuffin…
B: I don’t think you find the McGuffin now. It’s been taken by now.
A: Okay, let’s roll to see which [...]
Let me talk about some ways to play Dogs in the Vineyard wrong (or right), and why I think someone might be making that choice. (Familiarity with the rules will help.) I think I am trying to describe some of the major disconnects that happen in a certain style of game with different styles of [...]
John, in a possible preface for Geiger Counter, explains why players must be willing to “Push the Button”, sacrificing their character’s goals in the interests of delivering entertainment to the table. I like this a lot, because it describes some of my modes of play, and is a good pointer at the kind of aesthetics-driven [...]
Continuing the dungeon jam, but taking I’m forking off to the side a bit. Consider this an alternate path; I’ll explain rules consequences at the end. (John: feel free to continue this thread or not.)
The First Campaign into the Svartelheim was only a partial success. Key routes to the underground were mapped, but ultimately treachery [...]
I was catching up on old articles today, which recombined a few ideas nicely. For one thing: I was inspired to reread about “leading with the fiction” and also see the results so far of Levi’s Amagi Games project (where, among other things, he’s posting lots of rules modules to tweak your existing game). What [...]
Dungeon Jam continues.
There are those who believe the Skymind had the best interest of Svartálfar at heart; there are those that the atrocities of the fallen city may yet have prevent a further, unknowable cataclysm from taking place. Such heretics are the Skymind Redeemers.
Known only to themselves, they are a secret order among the surviving [...]
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