5. Roll-playing Game While not as bad as some systems (*cough* World of Darkness) in terms of the amount of dice you roll at one time, there are a lot of rolls for resolving single tasks. There are so many extra rules for things (most of which require rolls) that the emphasis is on the…
Month: March 2007
Out of Character
A couple of days ago I wrote about and got some very interesting comments about how this is relevant to games. On the Story Games forum they talk about Improv Theatre and how drama and story is made up of those things which are unusual or out of character as long as there is context…
Advice Goddess
The Advice Goddess chimes in on a victim mentality. I’m only linking this because I really enjoy the column. Hope you do too.
Status: Refugee – Perspective Selection
One thing that was bugging me about this game was that which we’ve discussed on a number of occasions about different games: scope. If you are playing refugees with only a small number of worlds available to you, the sheer scope for play is mind-boggling. This then probably requires either a lot of work on…
Heroic imaginations
This is probably more suitable for infurious because it’s riffing off Guy Kawasaki. Nurturing a heroic imagination takes five actions: Maintain constant vigilance for situations that require heroic action. Learn not to fear conflict because you took a stand. Imagine alternative future scenarios beyond the present moment. Resist the urge to rationalize and justify inaction….
Look out of genre for ideas.
This thread on TheRPGSite looks for some ideas about how to populate a story based on the theme “Traveller: it came from jumpspace!. Some of the ideas are very good while some of them are little more than a re-telling of Alien. Look outside of the genre. Watch some movies which are not typically sci-fi….
Action is character
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “Action is character.†A few years ago a friend of mine came up with the theory that we often play our polar opposites in games. The players under scrutiny here were myself and himself and our characters were a honourable charismatic paladin and a sneaky cutthroat backstabbing rogue. I disagreed at…
r-Maps (and being ahead of the curve)
There’s a lot of talk of relationship maps. I’ve been playing with the idea of an r-map for gaming for use as a player aid for a while. It really started to surface when playing superhero games in order to try and keep up with the number of NPCs and subplots that were going on….
More on sexism and racism in games.
More on New Horizons the game that is going to put racism and sexism into every pulp game. I’m going to have to buy it because … Alexandria2000 writes: Or if they ARE mentioned, it’s in a stereotypical way that makes my teeth ache. So hell yeah, gimme a chance to inject a little reality…
Episode Four – 27th October 2000, PM
Skycrane and Psiren arrived safely on the rooftop of WatchTower and were greeted by a concerned INDIGO and the team Paramedic, Robert. Nothing could be done about Skycrane’s smouldering flesh and Robert quipped that it might “clear up in a day or so”. With them, of course, was a bundle wrapped in a red fore…
sometimes you have to wear your work clothes to the doctor
SXSW covers “Confessions of Superhero” which shows the strange and seedy world of superhero lookalikes… We see Joe McQueen demolished by the heat inside his colossal Hulk costume — on a record 106-degree day, it’s a brutal 130 degrees inside the emerald-tinged mass of foam … Superman chugs milk right from the jug; Wonder Woman…
Systems
A posting on RPGnet asks us to describe our homebrew systems. I ended up describing mine thusly. Maths-easy 2d6 comedy with either a manga/anime/mecha or zombie holocaust backdrop Qualitative success using 0-3d10 to create a crunchy yet narrative system which can be considered both rules-lite and “a gun game” with a backdrop of psychic powers…
A picture is worth a thousand words. Literally.
It’s always been a frustration to me that I can’t draw. Jared and I have debated this a few times during my forays to Paris. Nightfall had the advantage of having DavA, Chippy and Stuart. Lucky bastards. I need artists for WotW, I need an artist to help me with the imagery for Viride and…
Q-CON. What are we doing for it.
On Monday last I was accosted by a small ginger elf who enquired not what TTN could do for me, but what I could do for TTN in terms of running games. I’m going to run a horror game, a superhero game and a sci-fi game.
Episode Three – 27th October 2000
Things started off innoculously enough as Donna the receptionist watched the rank and file of WatchTower New York file into the conference room. Jack introduced a new staffmember, Yellowfist, a Sioux warrior who embodies the totems of both Eagle and Bear providing him with superhuman strength and the power of flight. Red greeted him warmly…
Insulting the conservatives
Morfedel writes: “I think its because my conservatives watch Fox news because they (and I) feel that many other news media are liberally slanted. And of course, when you do that as a retreat from “other news sources,” then your news source you do watch is attacked, it comes off as an attack against you…
Unborn Ghosts
“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia….
Live for the moment
Last Monday, a friend of mine found out they had cancer after a couple of months of complaining about an upset stomach. Five days later, she found out it was inoperable. And she died this morning, a mere 6 days later.
Watchtower: Just in over the wire
++++ADVANCE NOTIFICATION ++++ WATCHTOWER EYES ONLY++++ Five superhuman individuals have been contracted for operations unknown in East Coast North America, most likely New York. All operatives in the East Coast region are to collect information and relay to WatchTower Central Services Command. Codenames Sewer (powers unknown) Gridlock (speedster) KillerWatt (electricity generation) Asphalt (solid material shaping)…