Ghost Whistler on RPG.net came up with a23rd Planet idea. He was riffing off the name of the game but it made me think tonight about: The 23rd Century Fast forward events in The 23rd Letter by two hundred years and you might have an idea of a micro-setting. Making psychics essential for space travel…
Author: matt
Gamer. Writer. Dad. Serial Ex-husband. Creator of The 23rd Letter, SpaceNinjaCyberCrisis XDO, ZOMBI, Testament, Creed. Slightly megalomaniac
Bit of a buzz on these days
I’ve been writing a lot more these last few days – ironically not much on the two tasks I have been given – but plenty on other stuff which I shouldn’t be doing. I got some new books as well which I hope to tear through and get reviews up as soon as possible. Maybe…
Renaissance Magic
The Guardian has a book review on De viribus quantitatis (On the Powers of Numbers) penned by Luca Paciola, a man who was a personal friend of Leonardo da Vinci and who is considered not only the father of modern (double entry) accounting but also one of the leaders in magic tricks. The book covers…
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law
I’m in a bad mood today and Crowley suits my mood. What are you meant to do when you’ve tried to sort out issues in your own life and someone interprets a “self-enhancing” action as “them-destroying”? Th reason? Because you didn’t come to them for assistance, because you might want to stand on your own…
Episode Six – 28th October 2000
The team was immediately dispatched to intercept the intruder who seemed to be a humanoid waterspout, heading towards the land. Debate ended fruitlessly with the humanoid who called itself “Ocean” and a short battle ensued – Yellowfist, Balance and SkyCrane providing the muscle, Psiren and INDIGO the recon. Eventually a psychic targetting from Psiren enabled…
Episode Five – 28th October 2000
“Any other business?” was the last words of the meeting spoken before the polished teak of the conference table began to dribble onto the floor into a congealing mess. The wood grain, melting and flowing like and oily slick. The assembled team, everyone minus Balance, had the same word on their lips “Balance”…the marble floor…
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.
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…