Back before the Game Chef madness (and my burst of extended servitude @ work) the Original Matt Wilson posted his gaming history. I thought it was very cool, so I’m stealin’ the idea. I’ll do this in portions (’cause I still ain’t got much time) and behind cuts (’cause I’m polite ‘n’ all).
Over on his RPGtalk blog, Ben Lehman wrote: I wish I had words to express the pure joy that is writing Anima Hunters powers. There’s something of the pleasure of writing the Polaris aspects, without the pressure to be super-poetic, and the additional pleasure of choosing Feats in D&D. Watching the powers fit together in … Read more
Well, I did it. I finished my entry for the 2006 Game Chef Contest. It’s a game called Play Right! (title is Kat’s ’cause I haven’t named any of my own games since Discernment). It’s a heavily-Universalis-inspired story manipulation game. Situation-first. Lots of bidding glass beads and rolling dice. And drama. Dear God, I hope, … Read more
It’s Game Chef week. It’s also one of those weeks rife with overtime. I started a sketch of a game called Give Me Liberty… but the amount of research to do it right is prohibitive in a week when I have no time. And the more time that passes since Saturday morning (when I came … Read more
Maybe I’m floundering from idea to idea and need to re-affirm my focus. Maybe I’m trying to get myself psyched up for next week’s Game Chef Competition, which I just might enter. Maybe the winds of March are just blowing me some clarity. Whatever the reason, I’ve been thinking about the assumptions I bring to … Read more
I just finished reading Finding Serenity, a collection of essays about the TV show Firefly. The essays were a mixed bag–some were a waste of paper, and others were extremely thought-provoking. A guy named John C. Wright wrote an essay about what chivalry is, why chivalry is intrinsic to the Western genre, and how Firefly … Read more
Last year, Vincent took up the topic of Task Resolution vs. Conflict Resolution. Recently he answered a frequent question about it, that’s helped me with something I’ve been thinking about. He talked about it here. I’ve been struggling with this in my own game designs, and giving a name to an elusive concept helps immensely. … Read more
I’ve been thinking a lot about Situation-with-a-capital-S. What are the component parts of Situation? How can I, as a designer, break a Situation down into useful, clear categories that will help a participant in one of my games create a better (i.e., more fun) Situation than they could have created on their own? I’ve never … Read more
Last night, Kat, Michele & I went to Brennan’s. We met his friends Jason, Bill & Sandy (who’d I’d met at conventions years ago). The six of us and Brennan’s wife Krista did a playtest of Brennan’s new game, Mortal Coil. It went very, very well and I hope we get to play another session.
Okay, I don’t mean to get all Vincent-y here, but I’ve hit a situation that I think sheds light on how traditional gamers tend to veiw With Great Power… Trouble is, I need to draw some circles to demonstrate it. It stems from this thread in the Incarnadine Forum.