A blast from the bygone era of 1995, here’s the oldest game to make my list. #4 – Vision Cards from Everway How do you make a character in Everway? Easy. Look at a bunch of beautiful fantasy art, pick a few images that inspire you, and tell a story about them. There’s a handful … Read more
#5 – Franchise Dice & Stress from InSpectres In 2002, InSpectres made tasty hamburger from a lot of sacred cows. Along with a whole new way of creating mysteries, and encouraging player interest and investment in each others’ characters through the use of the confessional, InSpectres also threw everything we thought we knew about advancement … Read more
#6 – The Nitu Tarot from Ganakagok A number of games over the years have attempted to make use of tarot cards: the vague allusion of Amber’s “Trumps”, the complete rewrite of Everyway’s fortune deck, the beautifully-produced Mage: the Ascension deck, to the just-plain-oddness of Psychosis. I’ve never seen any of them succeed as brilliantly … Read more
#7 – The Four Roles from D&D 4th edition For decades, if level was king of Dungeons and Dragons, then class was the power behind the throne. Cleric. Fighter. Magic User. Thief. What you could do in the world was sharply circumscribed* by what class you chose. Magic Users had to study their spellbooks. Thieves … Read more
Hey all, LiveJournal’s advertising is starting to get very intrusive. That coupled with the exodus of several friends has me thinking about moving my blog. Just a heads-up. Further updates as events warrant. And now, on with the show! #8 – Demon Creation from Sorcerer “Is your game balanced?” is a question you hear a … Read more
This, of course, is one of my own creations. FVLMINATA as a whole is almost entirely Jason Roberts’, but this little bit was mine. Humility be damned, but I still think it’s one of the coolest mechanics around. #9 – Initiative from FVLMINATA If you’ve never played in one of my FVLMINATA convention games, you … Read more
I’m going to be blogging about ten game mechanics that I think are cool and why they enhance the game they’re in. The list is my personal preference, and I’m restricting it to games I’ve actually played in and seen the mechanic in action. The “countdown” structure is not meant to show preference for #1 … Read more