Here’s a confession for ya: When I’ve got a really tough problem, I talk to myself. So late last week I turned off the radio on my drive home and thought I’d talk about what wasn’t working in By The Stars. As last week’s entry indicated, I figured I would be discussing “Big Board” solutions … Read more
Due to the holiday and some particularly horrid days at work, there was not much concrete progress on BTS this week. However, I have been jotting notes on the game’s biggest single weakness: Lack of a cohesive, structured story with a sense of dramatic pacing. Many of my ideas currently revolve around a large central … Read more
This past Saturday, I went to Policon, a small, annual, private convention run by Don Corcoran. This year it was at Don’s home in Philly. Kat and I were only able to attend for one day, so I had planned to run With Great Power… and she had planned to run Serial. On Thursday, Don … Read more
We did it! We playtested By The Stars for the first time yesterday. My most heartfelt thanks to Kat, Bruce, Bill, Michele, Stefan, Don, and Jo for taking a chance, helping me out, and having a fun time in the process. Yes, that’s right. Not only did the playtest happen, and not only was it … Read more
My playtest is in six days and I’m not ready. It’s going to be extremely rough and my little panic-voice is screaming “Cancel the whole thing and take up something simple, like gardening or photography.” But I shall persevere. No matter how rough the game is this Sunday, WE WILL PLAYTEST. One of the bits … Read more
It’s Monday morning and I should be recovering from a too-full day of too-much gaming fun at NYC’s RECESS yesterday. Instead, I’m recovering from a nasty stomach flu that filched most of my weekend from me. I’m frustrated for not being able to go to RECESS, confer w/ the NYC nerds, actually play some games. … Read more
In the realm of concrete words-on-a-page progress, I’ve got only a handful of scribbled notes to report. I spent a decent bit of the weekend fretting, cying, bellyaching, and tearing my hair out over this latest creative drought. Just yesterday morning I was ready to hang the whole thing up again. Then I thought, to … Read more
The Good News: I finished the initial playtest draft of Serial. If you’d like a copy, e-mail me at thebard at incarnadine dot indie-rpgs dot com. The Bad News: I only had time for one project and Serial was it. The new character sheet and Dreamation AP will have to wait until next week. However, … Read more
Well, I had off an entire day off due to snow this week and still topped 49 hours at work. That, plus a slew of family obligations and working on the playtest draft of Serial, the game about serial killers that I’m helping Kat with (it’s about half done), have left me with no progress … Read more
It’s been a nasty week at work, including half a day today (Sunday) and next week looks worse. But, I actually made some notes on the setting (yes, you read that right, I wrote setting-notes) of By The Stars. I was thinking about the rationale for and structure of an interstellar government. Combine it with … Read more