The RPG Linkdump Seven

I haven't done a round up of things for some time, so I thought I'd point to some things I've enjoyed.

*I really enjoyed this post at Hill Cantons- The Proairetic Code and Player-Driven Mystery in the Sandbox. I've been thinking about sandbox and player-driven games and he does an excellent job of getting at some of the important elements.

*In the great minds think alike department, the ever awesome Gnome Stew has a great post on techniques for building NPCs, Deep as a Puddle: Questionnaires and Tarot. That has great ideas and new stuff that fits with my post earlier this week, Creating Memorable NPCs.  Interestingly, the author, Scott Martin and I had both written up a tarot-based NPC system back in 2009- mine and his (which is excellent)- and wrote on it again this week.

*I switched over to watching streaming material on Hulu+ primarily for the Criterion Collection of films. At least that was my intent. Instead I've ended up focused on the wide world of Korean Dramas, most from Drama Fever. They're wonderful, cheesy and I don't know why I love them so: Vampire Prosecutor, Secret Garden, Pasta, The Devil and so on.

*Rob Donohue at Some Space to Think really helped me consider how I wanted to handle skills with this article What Makes a Skill.

*The Retired Adventurer had an interesting post on resolving conflicts (real world) at the gaming table, Resolving Conflict At The Table: Links. I hadn't actually considered that some of the tools for negotiation might be useful at the table. I hunted down the audiobook of Getting to Yes and worked through that. It was very cool and worth the time I spent on it. I'll probably track down more on that in the future. 

*I've also been watching GameCenter CX, the Japanese TV show where the Kacho plays retro games through to the end...mostly. I don't know what I find fascinating about this show. I never played with the NES or anything like that. We had an Odyssey game system growing up and I was never any good at it. It was the PS One that actually got me back into non-PC video games. But I watch these episodes and try to figure out what was going on in the designers' heads.

*Finally, back in October, Drake's Flames had a post on having used Noble Knight to get rid of some extra games and how great the experience was. I just went through the process and I have to say he was absolutely right. The process was smooth, the communication was excellent, and I was really pleased. It is always worth mentioning when a consumer experience goes right.