As part of designing Blade & Crown, I was naturally curious how the dice mechanic works. Do large numbers of dice make characters succeed all the time? What’s the difference between rolling one die and rolling three? With the help … Continue reading
Tag Archives: theory
The Thursday night group recently wrapped up play-testing a game that includes divination as a major PC ability, so I’ve been thinking more lately about prognostication (fortune-telling, foreknowledge, etc.) in RPGs. As I see it, divination tends to move towards … Continue reading
Here are some common campaign styles for RPGs: The PCs live as ‘space assholes’ or ‘murderhobos’, wandering in search of fame and fortune. They are either able to skirt the law, or stay just ahead of it. The PCs work … Continue reading
My standards for fantasy magic: it should, I believe, be mysterious, powerful and rare. This is my preference in all fantasy RPGs, especially Blade & Crown. As I was designing B&C, the powerful part wasn’t hard to work out. Magic … Continue reading
I was just reading over my notes about time travel and RPGs. I mentioned towards the end that a game where players could go back and change the events that had happened would probably require some sort of publicly-visible chronology, … Continue reading
In case you needed it, here’s yet another reason RPGs are cool. Today at work, I had occasion to help with a large-scale evacuation. People with walkie-talkies anxiously relaying information back and forth, fire trucks and command centers, rapidly evolving … Continue reading
This past weekend, for various reasons, I felt like playing Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim again. After a long time getting it to update, I was back in the Velothi Mountains and soon exploring Tolvald’s Cave. It was just as pretty … Continue reading
Last weekend, I was at MethodCon. It was a lot of fun. A highlight for me was getting to do a Let’s Build a World activity again. We devised a world with a square orbit, constant meteor showers, and a … Continue reading
Last time, I mentioned the two poles of time travel theory: one, that the past is inelastic, and any change you make will always find a way to reset itself somehow; and two, that any change you make will have … Continue reading
In case you needed it, here’s another reason RPGs are cool: because they make you want to learn everything. RPGs (and worldbuilding, and working to make rules model the world) have made me curious about how pretty much everything works, … Continue reading