Age of Ravens: linkdump

Showing posts with label linkdump. Show all posts

Saturday, July 22, 2017

Age of Ravens: A What the What? Overview

AGE OF RAVENS???

If you’ve come here from the ENnies voting page, you may think “what’s the deal with this graphically lame blog?” Rich Rogers put together a smart Episode Zero for his +1 Forward podcast (also nominated and awesome). So this is my “Episode Zero,” providing organized lists for the blog. With a few exceptions, I’ve focused on content from 2016 & 2017. I’ve shown admirable restraint and kept my lists to 12 items or less…

This is Age of Ravens’ ninth year. I started this one-person show January ‘09; I’m just shy of 1200 posts today. I cringe at some of my early, bloviating pieces. There’s good stuff there, but I want to mercilessly slash & burn it. The first couple hundred posts need a good edit and sharper focus. I’m much happier with the last several years: histories, hacks, at-table resources, talking about games from actual play, general overviews of whole systems.

I (usually) post twice a week and cover games from trad (Mutants & Masterminds) to trad-indie (Mutant: Year Zero) to story game (The Veil) to OSR (Silent Legions). I’m part of The Gauntlet Podcast. Right now I’m on the round-up episodes and do a monthly interview show. I’m also part of the irregularly scheduled Play on Target podcast. As part of the The Gauntlet Hangouts, I run two online sessions per week. Each Thursday I run oddball two-shots (REH Conan, Godbound, Coriolis, etc). On Sundays I run four-part mini-campaigns (Mutant: Year Zero, Changeling the Lost, World Wide Wrestling, etc.). That gives me a lot to talk about. You can also find actual play videos for many of these sessions on my YouTube channel.

If you have questions or feedback, please leave a comment or send me a private message. I hope you’ll consider voting for me in this year’s ENnies.

HISTORY OF RPGS

For the last several years, I’ve examined the publication timelines of role-playing games in different genres. I started with Horror games, and right now I’m in the middle of both my Cyberpunk and Universal rpg lists. I have a Patreon to support that work.

SYSTEM GUIDES

Sometimes you want to get into a big game, but don’t know where to start. I’ve put together guides to help new players—going over the basics and the major supplements available.

ODDBALL RESOURCES

My collection of things you could use for your campaign. Some fit very specific situations (supernatural business offices), while others have more general utility (names).

GAME REVIEWS AND THOUGHTS

I rarely do in-depth reviews, but I have put together play impressions for many games. I run at least three new-to-me rpgs a month. That’s broadened my horizons and I’ve discovered several new favs.

ADVENTURES AND CAMPAIGNS

These posts come from longer campaigns. They’re a mix of game frames, overviews, and post-mortems. It includes an original AD&D module from 1985 (spoiler: a not very good one…).

HACKS, TECHNIQUES & IDEAS

This includes my general thoughts about gaming, crazy new rpg projects I’ve tooled around with, and ideas I’ve never gotten off the ground.

Thanks for reading through. I hope you’ve found something interesting, useful, and/or entertaining. If you’ve dug this, consider voting for me in this year’s ENnies (voting ends July 21st).

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Other Gamers' Stuff: Selected Awesome RPG Blogs

NEVER BEGIN WITH AN APOLOGY

I don’t do this as often as I ought to, but I’d like to point out some favorite RPG Blogs. I read these and almost always come away with new ideas and insights. I offer just selected few. Otherwise this would go on and on, so I’ve left off many other excellent ones. I offer a few examples from each of these "top of my mind" blogs.

ST Wild: On Roleplaying

Well-written examination of diverse topics. The author covers WoD, Pathfinder, and other systems. The blog has an amazing variety of approaches- suggestions for campaigns, ideas for gamemastering, actual play, and mechanical approaches. There’s a good deal of discussion of Vampire and Horror in recent months, but not the usual stuff. In fact I’m always struck by her unique voice and take on the ideas she presents.

Changeling Autumn Court Festivals: I’d written up a post with a couple of goofy ideas on Midwestern holidays and how Changelings might integrate those. She took that core idea and ran with it- making it much more useful and applicable to many campaigns. I’ll be stealing these for my games.
Solo Investigations with NPCs: A topic I hadn’t really considered and an excellent guide.
Game Translation: Cold Fear: Reading this, I had one of those moments where I both admired the brilliance of the concept and hated myself for not thinking of it. The author takes a video game and examines it from both a game analysis approach and also how those elements would translate to the tabletop. Brilliant.
Extra Credits Advice Useful For Games Mastering, Part 1: I had never watched the video series Extra Credits. Then I read this which sent me scurry off to YouTube. She’s absolutely right in her reading- and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed watching the episodes. I’m always glad to be pointed to something great I might otherwise have missed.

GeekWorld Online

One of my co-hosts from the Play on Target podcast, Andrew Goenner, has a blog which brings together several of his projects- including preparation for his upcoming Kickstarter game, Time Heroes, and various video reviews.

The Eternal GM - Player Buy-In: Touches on a crucial topic- and one that’s getting more attention in recent game designs.
His Review of Fate Core: He does a nice job of going through the elements of the game here.

Shorty Monster

A relatively new blogger who has consistently produced excellent material. He’s be posting for almost exactly a year; he’s also really good (much better than I) about commenting on other people’s posts. Covers a wide-range of gaming topics.

Failing at bluff checks – as a GM: When you’re always having to bluff, it can get wearing. Offers some interesting insights.
Role Playing a Child: A smart look at one genre approach. He helped point out to me the “kids in peril” horror sub-genre.

Armchair Gamer

The author covers a wide range of games. His reviews are clear and well written. He almost always offers a new spin on ideas. I enjoy reading his posts here and his comments/feed on G+. His suggestions and ideas are sharp, punchy, and clear.

Mining Firebirds: the Church, State, and Citizenry: I like Fading Suns, and the author writes quite a bit on this under-served game. This post is especially excellent- adding insight to a key element in the setting.
Secret Societies: lateral growth for character classes? A brief cool concept that has stuck in my head.

Life and Times of a Philippine Gamer

Interesting perspectives and reviews. He offers insightful analysis of many different games. Beyond that he assembles interesting campaign ideas and thoughts on gamemastering. Includes interviews and examinations of many different rpgs.

Safely Introducing Your Villain’s Backstory: A good piece offering ideas on how to bring the rich tales of your villains to the table without annoying them.
Let's Study Wu Xing: The Ninja Crusade] Part 1 – The History and Ninja of the Izou Empire: The first of a six part look at this rpg. He goes through the book with a fine-tooth comb, describing how it works and what’s cool in it.

Rhetorical Gamer

I don’t always agree with this author. In fact I disagree with him often. However he always gets me to consider my position carefully and think about things I take for granted. A couple of times he’s gotten me shift my position.

Too Mechanical? Whose Fault? I like this post for the way it considers the idea of player trust- and how some games try to enforce that. (a related post and one I agree and disagree with would be this one-Why I Don’t Play Certain Games)
A Working Definition for Romantic Fantasy: An interesting piece and characterictic to his smart analysis. My wife and I have been talking about how Romantic fantasy could be presented at the table- especially drawing more from the classic female approach to these tropes.

Stiletto Gamer Girl

A new, new blog by a friend and fellow player. She relatively new to the hobby and arrived at it late, so I think she’ll have a unique perspective on things we often take for granted.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

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.

Friday, April 29, 2011

Comics & RPG Links

So some updates on current work first:

Comic Book Resources has an interview with Scott Snyder and I about the upcoming Project Superman mini-series. I co-plotted and am doing the script. It is part of the upcoming Flashpoint event from DC this summer.

You can read the interview here.

Of course besides having the chance to work with Snyder, I also get the opportunity to work with Gene and Art! so that's pretty amazing. Plus there's at least one rpg reference in the first issue. This issue will be out in June.

Also out in June is a story I did with Gene for the new Rocketeer Adventures from IDW. These anthologies allow creators to write up new short stories using the classic Dave Stevens characters. The pages look great- and this should be a pretty incredible book. Here's the solicitation text:

Rocketeer Adventures #2 (of 4)
Darwyn Cooke, Lowell Francis, Mark Waid (w) • Darwyn Cooke, Gene Ha, Chris Weston, Pinups by Geof Darrow (a) • Alex Ross, Dave Stevens (c)
This issue of ROCKETEER ADVENTURES continues to soar with a trio of stories crafted by masterful comics creators. Mark Waid and Chris Weston provide a pulse-pounding story of revenge set to a colorful backdrop of the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge, Lowell Francis and Gene Ha put Cliff through his paces in an-all action extravaganza that has him fighting tooth and nail for his very survival—plus a special guest star! Finally, Darwyn Cooke delivers the goods (as always!) with a tale that we won't say one word about—it's too good to even hint at and ruin the surprise! Plus, a pair of pin-ups, BOTH by Geof Darrow—his incredible piece was just too massive to be held to the confines of a single page, so he’s supplying a gorgeous TWO-PAGE pin-up!
*2 regular covers will be shipped in a 4-to-1 ratio (4 Alex Ross, 1 Dave Stevens sketch cover)
FC • 32 pages • $3.99

Finally, Legends of the Guard won a Gem award for Best 2010 Anthology. Even more interesting, it has been nominated for an Eisner Award for best Anthology. I only have one story in there, but I can claim an Eisner by proxy nomination...right?

GAME LINKS
*I've tried Loot a couple of times now- picking up Spirit of the Century and Maschine Zeit. I'm really happy with the service. Loot is essentially an rpg version of Woot or Tanga. I've been pleased that it has had things which I wanted to pick up, rather than exclusively OSR, Pathfinder or the like.

*Berin Kinsman has an interesting free pdf available called "The Tao of Rules Hacking" which you can find here. It is an interesting read and worth looking at if you're doing some rules rebuilding (as I've done recently).

*World vs. Hero is an interesting game with a kind of free-form two-player positioning. I'd submitted it as an rpg item for RPG Geek, but the decision was that the game presented itself more as an board game and so it went to the BG side. I'm not sure about that. Anyway, the author of that game has an interesting blog with some worthwhile insights.

*A really good article on player attachment from Casting Shadows.

*I can't recall how I stumbled on this article looking at the "table cost" of rules for rpgs. It has a fairly mechanical approach- but the key ideas hold true across the board. Really interesting fodder for thinking about games.

*Here's an article for writers posing the question "What if your characters don't want anything?". That's an interesting question to pose about players- especially given that earlier essay on player attachment. Sometimes players either don't know their motivation or else hide it so that they can't get tagged from it.

*Leviathans, the only miniatures game I'm looking forward to.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

RPG Linkdump

Since I haven't for some time, I'll fall back on a link-dump today of things I've found interesting recently. Before I do that, I should mention that the hardcover collection of Legends of the Guard for Mouse Guard is apparently coming out soon. I haven't actually seen a copy yet- but I highly recommend it, especially my story which appeared in the second issue. Yes- that is a shameless plug. *cough* here's a link *cough*

*Propnomicon presents some discussion on the fine details of aging paper for use as a prop.

*Vincent Baker (Dogs in the Vineyard, Apocalypse World) watched a glut of horror films for October and then broke down some of the elements.

*This is an interesting blog post against summing up and reducing elements at the table. I think it comes out of games where that kind of compression is the norm- make a skill roll and move on- whereas we play more in the other direction. We decompress most things and the exception to the rule comes in moments of handwaving which are less interesting or fruitful for plots.

*Game Chef does an annual competition for game submissions based around a set of themes. This year those were City, Desert, Edge, and Skin. I've been putting those in the RPG Geek database which has meant reading through most of the entries (I still have the last dozen plus to read). There's some really wild stuff there. If you're interested in game design and crazy concepts it is worth looking through those.

*David J Rodger gave me a nice shout out on his blog. His Yellow Dawn rpg, set in a post-apocalypse world with a very specific Cthulhu Mythos god having won sounds interesting-- Hastur's victory in Yellow Dawn. I like the idea of that- a narrow focus on one of the thematic gods of the stories. Of course I'm imagining a hack of that with Apocalypse World.

*The Campaign Mastery blog has the second part of an interesting series. One of the classic approaches to game analysis is coming up with archetypes for characters. This series is trying to build a new set of approaches to that. I think it is worth taking a look at.

*Applying Herman Hesse to the FATE system.

*Agreed.

*I would run or play in this Exalted campaign.

I'll leave that at that.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

The Links They Will Not Cease

Working on a Campaign Postmortem of the Star Wars game, a look at my objectives and how those played out. But for today I'd like to point out some interesting links (rpg and otherwise).

So, yes, linkdump.

*Halfjack over at Blue Collar Space always has interesting things to say. This post on the idea of game balance has a ton of ideas, especially about the system itself being tailored (via the resolution mechanic) to group actions.

*A post on Story Complications which I think has some application to gaming. I've certainly been guilty of laying things on too thick without resolving them. I'm trying to be better about that-- having in mind that the situations could be resolved now, not at some indeterminate future when I have all the plot ducks in a row.

*A look at Gigazine, a Japanese-language blog that seems to cover all manner of strangeness.

*Again from i09, a look at what anime can teach you about ending a story-- for better or worse. I think there's a lot to be taken from the strange narrative structures of anime which appear like standard western conventions, but shift on closer inspection. They're good models for the rising arcs in some campaigns.

*The obligatory Robin Laws citation, this time on the idea of conflicting sympathies for characters. I think worth thinking about further, having had players who clearly envisioned their characters as sympathetic, but that not be the reaction of other players or myself.

*An overly analytical approach to task and productivity management with game prep.

*52 Ways to Die in a Cave.

*Via Shari Unhappy Hipsters ("A Softer World for architecture buffs...")

*An interesting idea on how to fund creative projects.

*BoingBoing on Mad "Engineers". A good point for superhero games and stories.

*Based on this session report, Fiasco is a game I really want to pick up and get a group together for.

*The contract is sealed.

*An amazing high-schooler webcomics guy, Mocktopus. Currently raising funds for getting a new computer.

*Like colors? Sure we all do, but who really does anything about it?

*Could miniature gaming become respectable? (Answer: no)

*Alternate Jedi.

*Beck's Record Clubdoes INXS' Kick. Nuff said.

Friday, January 29, 2010

Webcomic Round-Up

Gene asked me what webcomics I was reading, so I pulled the list from my reader-- there are a few that I used to read that either lost me (Superosity) or vanished (Elf Only Inn). But this should be a fairly complete record with a few obvious ones left out. I've put an asterisk at the end of of the ones I really think are worth going through the complete archives for.

Achewood (http://achewood.com/)An acquired taste for some-- for a bit I'll be just going along with the strip and then he punches me between the eyes.

Basic Instructions (http://basicinstructions.net/) Sometimes funny, but usually falls in the middle for me.

Bear and Kitten (http://www.south20th.com/) Often odd, but usually amusing.

Beaver and Steve (http://www.beaverandsteve.com/) No longer in publication, but has some great stuff in the archives.

Bigger than Cheeses (http://www.biggercheese.com/) No idea why I read this, except that it is absurd.

Daily Dinosaur Comics (http://www.qwantz.com/index.php) An acquired taste.

Daisy Owl (http://www.daisyowl.com/) One of my favorites, low-key but quite funny.(*)

Diesel Sweeties (http://www.dieselsweeties.com/) I run hot and cold on this one.

Digital Pimp Online (www.digitalpimponline.com) Home of Joe Loves Crappy Movies and a couple of others. He has an interesting style, but updates infrequently.

Evil, Inc (www.evil-comic.com) Very classic. I really only keep it in my feed because it is such a quick read each day.

Hark, A Vagrant (http://www.harkavagrant.com/) Consistently the funniest comic I read. (*)

Instant Classic (http://www.instantclassic.net/) Not sold on this-- it went off for a time and then came back. overly convoluted story.

Overcompensating (http://overcompensating.com/)Usually quite funny.

Multiplex (www.multiplexcomic.com) Has pulled the drama tag a couple of times, but overall I really like this comic for the characters and setting.

Nukees (http://www.nukees.com/) Smart and odd-- has been going for a long, long time. A more classic strip.

Octopus Pie (http://www.octopuspie.com/) Interesting, but I sometimes skip episodes of this. Probably will drop out of my cycle eventually.

Order of the Stick (www.giantitp.com/comics) Used to be quite funny, but now seems like a lot of work to get through.

Penny Arcade (http://www.penny-arcade.com/) Come for the comic, stay for the text.

The Princess Planet (http://www.theprincessplanet.com/) Absolutely worth going through the archives. (*)

Questionable Content (http://questionablecontent.net/) Still a fav, almost entirely based on the characters.

Rob and Elliot (http://www.robandelliot.cycomics.com/) Had some funny moments, but updates infrequently now and often isn't that great.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (http://www.smbc-comics.com/) Has some misses, but generally the comic that makes me laugh more than any other. (*)

Shortpacked (www.shortpacked.com) I run hot and cold on this one.

Snowflakes (http://www.snowflakescomic.com/) Still trying to figure out if this is worth reading-- they have two plotlines going on right now and it kind of dilutes the effect. It is school-based so that makes me keep reading it.

Something Positive (http://www.somethingpositive.net/) A comic you love or hate based on your love of extended character stories.

Wasted Talent (http://www.wastedtalent.ca/) A recent addition-- interesting to see how her style has evolved through the archives.

The Non-Adventures of Wonderella (http://nonadventures.com/) Often wrong, but awesome at the same time. This comic (http://nonadventures.com/2007/10/06/gator-aid/) is one of my all-time favorites. (*)

Wondermark (http://wondermark.com/) I usually enjoy this and he often has some oddball additional material on this site.

XKCD (http://xkcd.com/)Make me a sandwich.

Friday, November 20, 2009

11/20/09

Hey! Say welcome to the cold that's been floating around, now visiting me! Delightful!

So a brief linkdump:

An interesting interview with a game writer from Valve.

Related to my earlier comments about the idea of the Three Up, Three Down device for defining one's character, Robin Laws on the course of a character's dramatic arc.

For GMs, 42 third act twists.

Yellow Dawn, an rpg I want to know more about.

Visualizing the Choose Your Own Adventure books.

OK- back to being ill.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

10/20/09

Linkdump October

As I catch my breath from the overly long L5R article I posted over the last couple of days. Sidenote: feeling slightly better, certainly less pain or at least more manageable. We'll see how this plays out-- I had planned on going back for another round of tests, but if the Prilosec's finally having an effect, I'll finish out the course of this and then check in.

* Here's a nice article on Japanese Storytelling conventions and ideas- in manga and anime. Sherri's an I were talking about this the other night after we watched Princess Raccoon. That's an unapologetic and strange movie. I've watched some anime recently where I tried to figure out what was subtext and what was text...at least in the case of Shikabane Hime, I hope there's some ironic commentary, if not I feel dirty.

* I've mentioned my love for the Shin Megami Tensai video games. This is an interesting article from the design team behind Persona 4 talking about what they thought went right and wrong with the product. I always like seeing those behind-the-scenes posts.

* Steamcon! and more Steampunk!

* I like the new Modest Mouse EP and there's a bizarre fan-made art project video for my favorite song from it.

* Tempting...

* A bookstore I'd like to visit.

* A link to a linkdump-- a nice collection of articles on role-playing.

* More of Robin Laws' insightful take on narrative and rpgs, the idea of The Win Space.

* Video games and the commodity model of sex.

* The Free RPG Blog is worth following as is gameplaywright.net which I linked to yesterday.

* Autotune Sagan plus.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Laws on the Iconic Hero

Maybe I'll just linkdump from other cool things instead of entirely skipping posting...no, but Robin Laws has a great piece today on the idea of the "Iconic Hero".

I think that's worth thinking about in terms of player conception. Some players come in and know that their characters will change, take a dramatic arc, in the course of the story. Some plan for that and for others- it comes as a surprise. Some players come in with a conception, an "iconic hero", in mind and nothing that happens will change their perceptions or persona.

Generally I prefer the former to the latter, as a player and as a GM. A single "iconic" PC can be good as a foil, but players who take that role are often destructive to the group or to the story...usually with the classic "I was just playing my character..." line (or with a *wink*).

kobold.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

8/8/09

Limited retcon link dump

The best review I've recently read. Yo Joe.

At risk of repeating myself, you owe Unforgotten Realms and Unskippable a chance.

PR Consultants to Super Villains, a concept that needs to be worked into any supers rpg.

A list of some Japanese pen and paper rpgs, with some comments about the odd systems involved.

So a couple of interesting things-- still catching back up on a back log of stuff. Remember- crazy is as crazy does.

Friday, July 10, 2009

7/10/09

Friday Link-Blogging

If you're interested in what I did with the revision of the Wushu Martial Arts system for classic Storyteller, you can check that out here. I think I fixed some of the timing and other issues of the earlier versions for Unisystem, Gurps and True20. We'll see how it works in practice. I'm particularly pleased with the Styles and the color text on those.

I'm torn about whether or not the idea of having perfect visual memory is a good thing. In theory I like the concept, but in practice I have enough things in my life experience which I already can't unsee.

This has an interesting look at the upcoming miniatures game Arcane Legions. I like the idea, but in practice it has fail written all over it. I have a hard time imagining that historical miniatures combined with some collectibility and unpainted bulk figures will actually sell in this environment. Maybe they're planning on a smaller sales group and not going to be overly ambitious. OOH the system mechanics appeal to me. I like the abstract nature of the dice and system. The other related news is that everything I've heard suggests that the slow death of Origins as a game convention has accelerated. That's too bad- I enjoyed going there much more than GenCon. But if dealers aren't showing up, then a good part of the game con experience goes away.

I always love John Allison potential t-shirt designs. A little sad to hear that he's finishing up Scary-Go-Round soon.

I love game design theory and here's a nice post on asynchronous designs in games.

I'm no colorist-- I'll leave that to Art!-- but I found this long piece on Pacific Comics and how they handled their printing process really compelling. I recall reading many of these early Elric issues. I could claim in retrospect that I noted the colors then, but I'm not sure I had the taste or discrimination back then. It is a pretty amazing overview of a technical area I had no sense of before.

Sunday, May 31, 2009

5/31/09

Linkdump Today--

I'm a big fan of Modest Mouse, from early to late. I liked their last album quite a bit, through Sherri prefers the one before. They have a bizarre sensibility and the lead singer possesses a distinctive voice. I'd like to see more of them on Rock Band. "Float On" was an obvious choice and I think there's more and better songs they could have up there. Anyway they have a new album coming up and an advance video for one of the songs. Bonus points if you can name the Kurosawa film they're borrowing images from.

Here's a nice retrospective on Thief: The Dark Project, one of the great PC games. I had a hard time getting through the game itself, but I have fond memories of it-- along with System Shock 2, Half-Life and Deus Ex I had some of my favorite PC first-person experiences here.

An interesting site for people doing DTP or just trying to put together game handout and things-- a collection of public domain images from old books.

The classic old-school rpg game has players delving into caverns and caves. I'm not a geologist so I hardly take into consideration scale in those things. However, this recent discovery kind of brought me some perspective-- both for how absurd some of the cave layouts in games are and how enormous they actually can be in real life.

The Literal Version of "Total Eclipse of the Heart", if you haven't seen it already.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

RPG Linkdump

Scion tomorrow, sentimentality today.

So today is Sherri's birthday. Fooling her into marrying me still stands as the best decision I ever made. She's the person whose company I enjoy most. When I was at the Press and had to travel for work, I'd be excited for the first day about going somewhere new. By the second day, I'd be missing her. By the third day, I'd be deeply heartsick. I'm not one for too much public sentiment, but I truly love her. Plus she's a gamer, which I consider a bonus on top of everything I enjoy about her. She's hard to buy for, as she's usually pretty happy with what she has. The only thing she really wants is for me to tell her more stories.

*****

A bit of linkdump as well today if you managed to get through my gushing there. As an adjunct to the campaign postmortem's I've found a few articles that cover some of the same ground.

Soren Johnson’s Game Design Journal has an interesting column looking at Sid Meier's rules for game design. I think some of those apply generally to narrative creation and rpgs.

As you may know White Wolf has done some of its lines in a limited format-- only a certain number of books to be published in non-core lines. I said before I think that's a good idea. They've restarted their downloadable pdf magazine (now called Epitaph) and the first issue has a two-page postmortem on the development of the Changeling line. The next book they put out will likely be the last. You can find the magazine for free download here.

Finally there's an interesting article looking at The World Ends With You, an action jrpg for the Nintendo DS. I tried it, but found it a little to reflex intensive for my taste. Still I loved the ethos and design-- SquareEnix always does a nice job with that. Some of the design team posted a brief overview of what went right and what went wrong with the development of the game.

I like being able to go back and look at the evolution of these kinds of interactive ideas and the decisions which went into the final design.

Friday, April 3, 2009

4/3/09

First, best wishes to Will aka Cruelbutterfly on his birthday today. He gets older but he's still the youngest one in the group.

Another linkdump post--

Robin Laws has an interesting post about going to guest lecture for a course on RPG and Narratives.

Ken Hite's revising the bibliography for GURPs Horror and is looking for suggestions.

Both Laws and Hite have written articles for a series of books from MIT Press which cover gaming and narrative. There's a thread with much of the stuff available online if you've got some time. In particular you can find Hite's article on Narrative Tension and Call of Cthulhu here. I wish I could have done a book like this at ND Press.

Wired catches up on German-style board games about five years too late.

The Last Express was a computer game a decade ahead of its time. Someone pieced together the cinematics here.

The Free RPG Blog, full of interesting ideas.

A fan made enormous comic mash up of all the ten Doctors.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Campaign Sketches: The Inward Ocean (and Linkdump)

Small edit to add in a couple of links here at the top:

Saturday Morning Watchmen (Video) Making the rounds now-- pretty funny.

This guy sums up what I hated about Wanted the comic and the movie.

Ken Hite, one of the finest and most imaginative rpg writers, has an interesting interview with James Maliszewski talking about "Old School" rpgs. It is an interesting look on a niche of the hobby I hadn't considered. I've been playing since '76 or so (I think Cat got her copy of the original DnD Xmas of '75, but I could be wrong).

One Minute Later Comic Covers

Ed Brubaker's Angel of Death live-action web series. Brubaker's a great writer-- and does comics work worth reading. This series features Zoe Bell, the Aussie stuntwoman from Tarrantino's Death Car.

There-- that makes up for my thinner linkdump earlier. Back to work.

Another one of the campaign pieces I wrote-- again, not that great, but interesting.

THE INWARD OCEAN
1. Core Ethos Sentence: The Old World, static and decaying finds itself in a race to claim the new lands and magics of the realms revealed by the lifting of the Grand Veil.

2. Who are the heroes? The nations of the great continent of Daesorach, once thought to be the only land--a great ring bordered on its furthest outreaches by the World Wall and enclosing the World Ocean--approaches a new era. For centuries the center of the Ocean kept all travelers back with reddish haze and strange storms, forcing sea travel to hug the coast. Now the celestial sphere itself has cracked and the Veil is gone. The long stagnant empires of Daesorach look towards new territories, called Amaltirah, the lands of the Veil.

Angsley Knowyes, the Seneschal of Urocyon, knows of the new rush but wonders if it will be enough. In the far corners of his demesne he has heard of vanishings, of places forgotten, and of a strange quiet which has descended: one word, “silence”, but little else. Knowyes fears what the weight of ages may mean. Marabeth Cardinev as well seeks answers, searching for ways to smuggle non-human slaves out of the Sabinic Theocracy to possible freedom in Amaltirah.

On the seas, Daesendis Soulforge strikes against the most powerful ships of the fleets headed for Amaltirah. In a long life dedicated to freedom, the opening of Amaltirah has reawakened his hopes and driven him to the sea in search of justice again. Cleome Amar, scholar and mage, born of human and elder blood, travels to Amaltirah in hopes of finding and preserving new Words of power and perhaps unraveling the secret of the cracking of the celestial sphere.

In Amaltirah itself, Rhaze Ghadravaga the Devil-Wrestler works his way towards the heart of the realm, through the Heroic Kingdom of Sammerus and the Bloodlands of Rendor. The lifting of the Veil has meant other, older dangers have been revealed. At the heart of the land lies the Azure Tower, Veiled even from Amaltirah and said to be the gate of the rebel gods. Acmaris Sunhold is also filled with fear. She has seen the coming battles between Kingdom of Math, the despot lord of Amaltirah and the newcomers. She knows it will be the client states of Math which suffer, unless a leader can be found.

3. What do they do? The agenda of these heroes vary, some opposed to one another in this time of chaos and change. Some seek answers. The new lands promise new Words of magic, perhaps finally allowing them to understand the language of the heavens itself. Others hope to uncover how and why the Veil fell, through this hoping to uncover the meaning of the portent of the crack across the sky. Some seek hope. For races and peoples tyrannized in Daesorach, Amaltirah offers escape. They fight to bring their people here and carve out a new place. Among those of Amaltirah, the changes may mean the end of the rule of the Kingdom of Math. They seek signs that may point the way to that freedom. Some seek power and wealth. In doing so they will be changed by the quest. Pirates, rogues and adventurers may find themselves swept into the pageant and the coming conflict.

4. Threats, Conflicts, Villains: Both Daesorach and Amaltirah possess their share of villains. The greedy and rapacious among the Empires see the new lands as a chance to cast off old bonds. Long crushed together by history and geography, they can finally expand. The Sabinic Theocracy, human purists, blaze this trail, but are only first among many. In Amaltirah, the Lords of the Math, armed with powerful Words and armies, have held dominion over other Kingdoms for generations. The lifting of the Veil represents change, and change is a threat to them. They arm themselves, massing an army created by alchemy and the magic of Words imbedded within steel and stone.

The threats of men are not all that face the world. Daesorach has built its own form of destruction, whispering quietly and gnawing at the edges of its civilization. Built from the scraps of misuttered Words of power and the apathy and decay of the old world, the Silence works to vanish places and people within itself. Now it has enough power to create avatars of itself, faceless silencers who retain a shadow of thought and animation.

But at the center of the world lies the Azure Tower. Those gods which fought against the others at the beginning of the world were imprisoned here in a tower miles high with legs straddling the whirlpool at the center of creation. Some have already escaped, while other direct their power, drawing people here in hopes of releasing them fully.

5. Nature of magic: Magic comes from “Words”. Over time, these Words have been discovered and cataloged. They burn themselves into the mind and only the most powerful can contain many of them. The combination of these Words creates spells. Different nations possess different Words which they husband and teach carefully. Part of the great push to reach Amaltirah is motivated by the hopes of new Words and new combinations of effects. Some believe that these Words make up an original language, perhaps that of the gods. They hope to complete this lexicon and through it understand the universe. Casting magic itself takes a toll on the caster. Words have a weight in the mind and the unprepared can slowly crush themselves with magic.

6. What’s new? What’s different? This setting draws on the conflict, ambiguity and drama of the contact between civilizations. Neither side necessarily possesses moral right or military superiority, portending a drawn out struggle. However, this struggle may serve to aid the forces of liberation and freedom as well. Characters may also find themselves in moral quandaries, questioning the divide between their own heroic agenda and the ways of the natives. Finally, greater conflicts echo these human ones and may in fact use them for their own purposes, giving greater depth to the questions of right and power.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

3/2/09

Hooray, a linkdump...with some comments.

Some of you may have read something I worked on quite a while back, Robot Zero. It was in good part a homage to the Velvet Marauder blog. Anyway, I thought I'd post a link to the material I put together for that. I'm thinking about putting together some new entries on a regular schedule, like every two weeks. Anyway, here's the link. The entries are, of course, reverse chronological so if you're interested in reading them you have to go back a little bit:

http://edige23.wordpress.com/

The entries I did on the game prep for Artifact and the Masks of the Empire game got me thinking about alternate rpg structures again. I still think a radio-play game could be done using Skype, but you'd have to really do some work to make if effective. The GM could come up with documents and handouts to send to individual players, you could have special effects and so on. It could be interesting, but I'm not sure if it would be more effective or useful than putting that energy into a tabletop game. More interesting to me is the idea of a Lexicon RPG, built around a wiki. It is a collaborative rpg/writing tool. I think it could be fun if you got a large enough group of people and a good seed idea.

Lexicon RPG

Oh internets, how I love your insanity:

Watchmen Unmasked

I love the idea of abandoned places and cities. WebUrbanist often has image collections and stories from these kinds of places. Here's an example article:

24 Abandoned Cities

Huh...I think that's all I have...my obscure website-fu is weak. I shall have to consult with Kaiju.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Thinking About the Third Continent Campaign

I've been thinking and doing some brainstorming on two rpg campaigns (I think I've mentioned both before). One is for our Sunday group (currently on haitus following the wrapping up of "Season One" of Scion) and the other is something to try out with my niece (currently in HS).

The first will be a high fantasy campaign. I haven't figured out what I'm doing mechanics-wise (I keep going back and forth between several ideas). But the game is set on the third continent of my world, the one most dominated by the influence of the Gods. It draws a huge influence (and directly borrows from) the Glorantha setting. I've run three campaigns in that place (and Sherri ran one there for a time). I've pushed the second continent timeline ahead significantly, but I don't think I'm going to do that with this one. I'll probably take up a couple of generations after the last campaign there, rather than several hundred years.

One of the plot points will be a massive change among what passes for the 'Celestial Bureaucracy*'. The senior-most gods have passed on and the second tier have moved into their places but still haven't settled into their new roles and stories. I'm imagining that the group will start by making up very young characters, something like early teens. They'll come from a shared community and go on an adventure, but something will happen to shatter their community, forcing them to flee.

Now one of the other devices I'm going to impose is that each player will also make up a God to go with their character. They can come up the God and its story from whole-cloth. They don't have to fit it into the niche of a pantheon, but they'll have been raised in the service of that God.

Now here's the trick, we'll time-lapse forward after that prologue scene. We return to the characters in their late-teens/early twenties. They escaped the disaster which befell their isolated community and have found a new place to live and to hide. To reflect the changes which have affected them in the years between, players will draw from a deck of random events which might have shaped their experience in those years. I'm imagining things like: Abusive Master, Learned a Trick, Developed a Fear, Turned Away from Faith, Scarring Injury, Found a Wondrous Thing, Unlucky in Love, and so on. I'll have the players work those things into their characters as the spend the points necessary to take them from adolescence to adulthood. I might break the cards into a positive, negative, and neutral deck.

The game will take up then with the players forced to answer a call to action and reaffirm their earlier bonds of friendship. In this they're partially driven by their Gods. They'll essentially be the last (or among the last) of their particular God's worshippers. They need the PCs to enact stories and adventures to help them regain their place and power. As the PCs do epic things, they'll gain some new abilities based on their God and on what they've done. The PCs actions and attitudes, will-- over time-- change the Gods and move towards the creation of a new pantheon with new relationships.

That's what I've got in my head so far on that front.

(Out of time I've set myself for this-- I'll talk about the other campaign tomorrow).

*That's literally the first time I've ever managed to spell that word right on the first try. I have a weird block with it.

***
I have a pretty full rss feed of things, but I'm not as big a fan of linkdump posts. That's a personal preference, so I'll try not to do it too often. I do have a couple of things I found interesting recently:

I mentioned the Persona series of JRPGs before. This article has a nice examination of the differences between the games and some of the core thematic elements.

Valerie d'Orazio is a comic book blogger and writer. Her posts are uniformly interesting and worth reading, especially those concerned with the state of women in comics and the comic industry. She recently put forward some arguments about the depiction of underage comic sexuality, particularly revolving around a recent conviction of a person for possession of materials depicting the Simpson kids in sexual explicit situations (among other things). I don't know if I completely agree with d'Orazio's position-- but I have a hard time reconciling my free speech views and my feminist views with something like this. It is the slipperiest of slopes. her comments certainly complicated my reaction and I'm still not sure where I fall on this. In any case, she got a lot of backlash for her opinions. She's decided to stop blogging about her opinions on controversial matters, which I think is a tragedy. We needs smart and literate voices from across the spectrum who can write without being abused or subject to ad hominem attacks.

Sweet Agatha looks like an interesting rpg.