Tabletop RPG theory, in the unlikely event that you need more.
So, more sketches related to the Old School Dice Pool concept I’ve been playing with. (You need to read those to understand this.) Designing character categories is neat because you break out subsystems, see their common trends and end up…
Yes, last in the series, from here to here and now, next steps. Oh, there’s still plenty of room for negativity, but I think anybody who’s going to get it has taken time to look at themselves and their communities.…
Drama? Russell Bailey got offended; Eddy Webb backed away slowly. Or something. It all started with some horrified reactions to my positions in an extended (and in my opinion, productive) talk with Jim Henley about the decline of friendship and its effects on RPGs.
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Over at Jim Henley’s Livejournal I made an offhand comment that many games under the “indie” banner are designed to be played by people who meet at conventions, primarily know each other online or have similar remote, vaguely suspicious relationships.…
It’s no big news that tabletop games are at or near the lowest point they can hit. This actually creates the illusion of a recovery because once something bottoms out to long tail activity it’s not going to get much…
It’s easy to bring creatives and managers together in a fiction-based media venture by emphasizing “story.” A supposed story focus makes writers feel good because they can take credit for it, and managers feel good because (aside from the fact…
One of the interesting things about tabletop roleplaying is the ability to set up tensions between the game’s concepts and practical play considerations. Many tabletop gamers have a Manichean streak where something has to either cleave to the Big Idea…
Over in my last post on metaplot I talked about the good and bad in metaplots, how they compare to other game/IP development methods and proposed some ways they could be improved. This time around I want to develop a…
Metaplot sucks, except when it’s totally awesome. Nobody likes it and they miss it when it’s gone. It’s a pain in the ass godsend for game developers and an alienating useful tool for groups.
What What?
These reactions are nigh-incoherent…
Art isn’t always for challenging the audience, but a creative community needs that if it’s going to thrive. RPGs aren’t doing that. By “challenges,” I don’t mean Maybe old D&D rules kicked ass! or I bet we can do this…