Another observation brought on by gaming with my ongoing Blade & Crown group: It can be quite fun to have players choose the combination of characteristic and skill with which they’re doing a given skill roll. B&C is meant to … Continue reading
Tag Archives: tips and tricks
One thing I’ve noticed from using rumors: players never want to treat them as just rumors. Instead, it feels like every scrap of information, no matter how small or large, demands immediate follow-up questions. Players often want to question whoever … Continue reading
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
When I went to Taiwan in June, I tried to do what I could to support the local gaming scene. When I visited Alchemy on Zhongxiao, I bought what looked like a great game, produced in Taiwan: 美麗島風雲， translated as … Continue reading
During today’s B&C session, we briefly discussed healing of wounds. (Pretty much the entire party has one or another wounds, so it’s pretty important right now.) I suggested trying my proposed quick and easy healing rules, but quickly realized a … 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
I don’t think I’ve ever met a healing system that I like. My ideal healing rules would need to perfectly balance a bunch of factors: Player agency: The rules can’t make it feel like your healing is completely out of … Continue reading
A good illustration in an RPG session is worth, as the saying goes, a thousand words. I’ve mentioned before how useful the fictional nonfiction book Lebek has been in gaming; more than once, I’ve used it to give players a … Continue reading
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