I decided to just post verbatim an IM conversation between the two of us about D&D 4th Edition. I make no apologies for my laziness.
Author: AJ
Gamist: 14%, Simulationist: 29%, Narrativist: 57%. Ah, the irony.
How we design a role-playing game
I thought I’d share a bit about how our game design process works and (in a subsequent post) what we’re currently working on. This is not necessarily the best way to design a game, and we’re always looking at ways to get more stuff done, but at the same time we are only two people,…
Game Developers and Publishers
I’ve just taken over editing of the Game Developers and Publishers area on dmoz. If you are in this arena and want your site listed there, please submit it through the site suggestion link on that page and I should be able to look at it within 24 hours.
Paper, PoD, PDF
All of the books we’ve published (whether as Crucible Design or LateGaming) have been less than 100 pages. In general, this has felt big enough for the game that was being written, and every time we start out with a new game, one of the earliest questions is “how big is the book?” With the…
Game book layout: the four parts
In trying to layout some of our recent game projects, I’ve noticed some common components in every book, which has led me to the conclusion that every game book really consists of four parts: Character Generation/Creation (Chargen) Game Rules Setting GM Section Different games put these sections in different orders or interweave one or more…
Things like this inspire games
NASA media announcement I can think of a half-dozen things that would make a great game. It’s not going to be any of those things though. It’ll be something dull like a new source of some type of radiation.
Solo: The Hero’s Journey (Part 3)
After generating all the names for the main people in Toby’s life, I came up with a bunch of background – all of this just came to me as I typed it into an IM to Matt. I think having the location and other basics already decided made all this detail very easy to come…
Solo: What’s in a name?
I’ve seen a bunch of name generators, especially around generating random fantasy names, or names that look Tolkien-esque. However, this random name generator is for normal first and last names, as might be found in the USA. I can set an obscurity factor (from 1 to 100) and select a gender. It uses US census…
225 days
SI 1995/3297, also known as “The Duration of Copyright and Rights in Performances Regulations 1995”, this UK law came into effect on January 1st 1996. At its most basic, it extended the copyright for any written work from 50 years after the author’s death, to 70 years. Any work which had already become public domain…
Solo: The Hero’s Journey (Part 1)
[09:15:14] So, have you thought about where you want to set Solo? [09:16:11] Nope. ? A lot of that is up to you. Want to be a yank? [09:18:07] It makes things easier to visualise in some regards, because we’re so brainwashed by Hollywood. However, it’s also very clichéd as a result. I’ve no desire…
WotW: Earth – Vox Populi
“Have you seen my Jim? Have you seen him? My son? About four feet tall, blond hair, covered in freckles? … what about you, sir? Have you seen my Jim? He’s about four feet tall–“ – worried mother, Ealing, Day 1 after the end of the invasion “We opened fire with the mortars, next. I…
WotW: Earth – The Second Launch
“Hundreds of observers saw the flame that night and the night after about midnight, and again the night after; and so for ten nights, a flame each night. Why the shots ceased after the tenth no one on earth has attempted to explain. It may be the gases of the firing caused the Martians inconvenience….
Site refresh
Bear with us while we engage in some site jiggery-pokery. Those of you who subscribe to the feed shouldn’t notice any difference. Also it’s a bit harder to tell who wrote what post at the moment, but that’s OK by me – it makes it look like I’ve written more!
Shopping for a new desk?
Tom Spina Designs (via therpf.com) show us what you can get if you have expensive and sci-fi tastes. http://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=39500
The 23rd Letter – Black Monday
“Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.” – John Maynard Keynes The period following the end of the Second World War saw a time of huge change for the world. With peace restored, people felt it was safe…
The Quiet Time
We’ve not posted much in the last couple of weeks. This has been for a few reasons: Real life has got in the way of roleplaying Real life has got in the way of writing about roleplaying We’ve been talking about direction … #3 is probably most interesting. We were working on a few (…
Qabal – The RPG that wrote itself
Not only are there multiple sites showing that Crucible Design have produced Qabal, this site provides a description and *gasp* someone has even rated the game. Saves us the effort of actually writing it then.
Tiroconium – March 531
In the fair city of Cirencester, the Duke of Clarence hosts a tournament each year for newly-made knights, called Tiroconium. Two knights have stood out as being particularly noteworthy in this years tourney, Sir Borre and Sir Mordred. Just over one hundred knights made the journey to Cirencester, many from Ireland from whence Arthur has…
Six Role-playing Annoyances
Here are some annoying habits that players can exhibit in your game. There are some suggestions as to how to deal with these problems, either by encouragement (as another player) or enforcement (as a GM). Playing yourself, but with armour Problem: the character has the exact same personality as the player, which means that every…
Top 5 reasons why D&D sucks
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…