I’ve only played a few games that included dedicated social combat mechanics. And I’ve played even fewer that had social combat mechanics that actually seemed to work in play. Even when the mechanics made sense in themselves, the actual play … Continue reading
Tag Archives: theory
Joss Whedon has had a lot of influence on geeky storytelling, I think. Not just with his particular cleverness with dialogue, or in his original (though in their own way trope-laden) characterizations. The way I’m thinking of is in how … Continue reading
A lot of games, Blade & Crown included, have a specific statement that players should only roll for success on task attempts when there’s actually a chance of failure. If a halfway-competent sword-fighter is trying to hit a rock that’s … Continue reading
My monthly Blade & Crown game has been going for a little over four years now. I have a terrible memory, and so I keep somewhat detailed notes about what happens in each session. I keep these notes in a … Continue reading
Following InSpectres, this was the second game I ran at CotN 2015. After last year’s game, I thought a longer, more in-depth palette would help clarify things somewhat, so I let the declarations go on until everyone was satisfied, not … Continue reading
My first game of Sunday, and well worth getting up a little early for. I was in one of Heather’s InSpectres games last year, so I was enthusiastic about getting another chance to play. Heather again did a great job … Continue reading
You may know that one of my favorite fantasy RPGs is HârnMaster. I’m not much of a completist, but Hârn is one of the series that I have tried to get a lot of. I ran a long campaign using … Continue reading
Some of the published Traveller games from the 80s include a mini-game where the PCs must navigate a government bureaucracy. For example, one of the two sample adventures in the Traveller Book, called “Exit Visa”, is a bureaucracy navigation scenario. … Continue reading
Discussion about where to start in building a world (for gaming or whatever else) often starts with the same question: top-down, or bottom-up? Do you start by detailing a little village, or by diving right into millennium-scale histories? There are … Continue reading
So have I told you about my favorite Champions character? Well, third favorite actually, after The Human Cheese Grater and Bituminous Man, but he’s really my favorite in some ways because of the awesome time I, um, the time where … Continue reading