Posts Tagged ‘ RPG design ’

More Old School Dice Pool Shenanigans

July 28, 2010
By admin

I’m still thinking about that OD&D and Chainmail inspired dice pool system from the other day. Let me add a few rules:

Exploding Dice: I resisted it, but it looks like I’ll need it to help characters deal with long…


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Posted in RPG Sketches | No Comments »

Gary Gygax Invents Dice Pools

July 25, 2010
By admin

Over the past week I’ve been thinking about Chainmail and OD&D, as well as the late Gary Gygax’s mention (in an old ENWorld thread) that he used an opposed hit dice rolls to resolve grappling. I’m an Old School skeptic…


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Posted in RPG Sketches | No Comments »

Development Versus Obsession

July 25, 2010
By admin

Sometimes you just have to relax, dude.

That’s the lesson I’ve learned in this phase of developing Knights of the Hidden Sun, Chris Challice’s interstellar fantasy RPG. I got a bit obsessed with the third chapter because it covers runecraft:…


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Posted in Knights of the Hidden Sun, Tabletop RPGs: Art Without Prestige | 2 Comments »

Friends Are Even Better Than That

March 29, 2010
By Malcolm

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.…


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Posted in RPG Theory | 29 Comments »

An Impractical Idea: Cyberpunk via Hard Drive

February 20, 2010
By Malcolm

I was going through some old hard drives with an IDE/SATA to USB converter (thanks to Stew and others for advice on this) and the feel of it — seeing/hearing/feeling a chunk of weighty metal rev up thanks to the…


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Posted in Electronic Games, Online Games, RPG Sketches | 6 Comments »

The Bastard Out of Boston and the End of the World

February 17, 2010
By Malcolm

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…


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Posted in RPG Theory, Tabletop RPGs: Art Without Prestige | 2 Comments »

Metaplot 2.0 (Part Two)

January 14, 2010
By Malcolm

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…


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Posted in RPG Theory | 3 Comments »

CES 2010: A Guide for Tabletop RPG Players

January 10, 2010
By Malcolm

CES happened this week, and tech companies rolled out a bunch of new gear that has major implications for electronic tools in tabletop RPGs, a topic I’ve blogged about here and here. As I cover the tech beat for one of…


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Posted in Electronic Games, Media-Critty, Tabletop RPGs: Art Without Prestige | No Comments »

Metaplot 2.0 (Part One)

January 8, 2010
By admin

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…


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Posted in RPG Theory | 4 Comments »

RPGs and Art That Challenges

January 2, 2010
By Malcolm

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


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Posted in RPG Theory | 7 Comments »

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