Should higher-magnitude spells require longer intervals to cast? As it stands, higher-magnitude spells are rarer to find nodes for, and more dangerous to cast. But perhaps there should also be a set frequency at which they can be cast. In … Continue reading
Tag Archives: preserving mystery
Why does Traveller’s Imperium have a Scout Service? This is a question that has bothered me for a long time. The Imperium, in its most common iteration, is more than a thousand years old. There isn’t a star system that … Continue reading
Ursula K. Le Guin recently passed away. Lots of people have mentioned how she touched their lives with her prose fiction, her advice, her politics, and many other things. Like so many others, I’m saddened at her death, but glad … Continue reading
Don’t look now*, but SJG’s Warehouse 23 basement is back. All sorts of weird objects, many hilarious, many slightly creepy, many just kind of head-scratchingly incomprehensible. My favorite continues to be the 1:1 scale map of North America. Potentially good … Continue reading
Episode 30 of Fresh Out of Tokens, featuring me, is up! When we recorded this last month, Tanya, David and I talked about all kinds of things: making it (or not) as a woman/trans/POC/otherwise marginalized game creator; diversity considerations when … Continue reading
After Heirs was my first game to GM: The Dooms that Came to Chaegrae. This game was an experiment in high-powered Blade & Crown. Each character had Traits rated 4, 3, 2 and 1 — considerably higher than the defaults. … Continue reading
Snippets of poetry from the Imperium; a sample folk tale from the Oral History; brief biographies of over a dozen Duncan Idahos; two differing approaches to Paul Muad’Dib himself and to his son, Leto II; Fremen recipes; Fremen history; secrets … Continue reading
Spell effects in Blade & Crown are intentionally unquantified. As I’ve said before, I like to keep magic mysterious, powerful and rare, and I think keeping it unquantified helps preserve mystery. Once you know that a fireball will emit 0.015625m3 … 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
This is a mysterious placeholder for something very, very cool that is in the works. I can’t give more specifics yet, but I hope to announce it Wednesday. Watch this space! (Edit, November 2014: Since the mystery has now long … Continue reading