Gaming

Initial fragments -- place names, etc. Vain’s Rest -- home base of the game. Banegard Tower Drunken Magistrate -- an inn in Vain’s Rest. Secrets -- magic and religion in Tarnished Brass.

There’s a thread over at rpg.net called “Lost Victoriana,” which is actually about the RPG Victoriana, but it got me thinking about a sort of lost history of the Victorian era – a history of technology that dwarves our own, a world of crystal skyships and sophisticated colonies on the surface of Jupiter. The Queen’s Patrol jousts with philosophical criminals who will toast the Queen despite their anarchic ways. Not a steampunk world at all. ...

According to the wiki (original), I put up the prospectus (original) for Orlando Trash on June 6th, 2006. “Mickey Rourke is in this movie. Val Kilmer is in this movie. It’s directed by Michael Mann, or maybe Tony Scott. But it’s not The Hunger. Luis Guzman has a role as a shiftless drifter who erupts into surprising bursts of violence.” Hm. I never did get Luis Guzman into the movie, but in retrospect that was just as well. Danny Trejo made it in. ...

Done as an exercise: Reese Beulay, Roadway Prophet Parent: Hermes Nature: Fanatic

White Wolf put up the Scion demo (original) the other week; I just got around to downloading it. Scion is the one where you play the children of gods in the modern world; it’s not the World of Darkness. They’re going for a Mage: The Hero Defined feel, and not coming up much short as far as I can tell from reading the demo. The system is standard Storyteller, tweaked for heroism. Successes are 7 or more on a ten sider, rather than 8 or more. PCs have a Legend rating, and penalties can’t bring your die pool beneath your Legend rating. And, of course, there are stunt rules. ...

This is not actual game text, which would want to be substantially more evocative. Inside the Egg is set in a dystopian future, in the style of V for Vendetta, Matrix, or when you get right down to it we’re all stealing from Brave New World. (Not the superhero game.) The central paradigm of the government is the Egg; at an unspecified time in the past, something awful happened, and only the pure security of the World Egg can keep us safe. ...

This is the Inside the Egg character sheet. When a campaign starts, it’s exactly this blank. No name, no stats, just an empty sheet. By the time a campaign ends, it’ll be nearly full.

Chris Lehrich is writing a series on designing fantasy cultures. Two chapters up so far, plus an introduction. Read and enjoy.

“I love it when a plan comes together.” Vincent has a new forum. While I wasn’t looking, he’s started thinking a lot about immersion. This is awesome stuff.

Required reading: Breakdown of RPG Players (original). There are a lot of theories about what people want out of gaming, and then there’s actual market research. I could rant about this more, but I already have (original). Preamble and rant done. Okay. It’s easy to reward Storytellers; you give them more narrative control. Primetime Adventures is a great example of this kind of mechanic; when someone does cool stuff, they get chips which can be cashed in for more control. Nice little positive feedback mechanism there. You narrate well, and in exchange you get more narrative control: you’re rewarded for doing well at something you like by getting more chances to do well. ...