I recently got a new text processing program called Scrivener. It’s oriented towards the writing process; you don’t use it to format text and produce final output. You use it to outline, shuffle, and put down words. I think it’s awesome for pen and paper gaming work, and I wanted to document my current workflow with an extended example.
RuneQuest character creation was pretty startling for me way back when. Tunnels & Trolls and Dungeons & Dragons were close relatives – sure, you swap out Luck for Wisdom but that’s not a huge change. RuneQuest retained the 3d6 rolls and had a reasonable seven stats, but what’s the bit where the ability to work magic (Power) is a primary stat? And where’s the conversation about classes? The previous chapter did not warn us that there weren’t any classes. ...
I started gaming back in the early 80s. By “gaming” I mean “reading roleplaying books and wondering what it’d be like to actually play,” with a hefty side order of “running through Tunnels & Trolls solitaire adventures.” Tunnels & Trolls was my first RPG. I think RuneQuest was my third? Hard to remember exactly. Chaosium just reprinted that 1980 edition after a successful Kickstarter. I backed it. I know that when I read RuneQuest the first time around, the weird world of Glorantha didn’t bewilder me at all. This is more than I can say for any subsequent edition, even the lovely hardcover Guide to Glorantha. I figured, hey, that relatively slim book made sense to me back in the 80s, so let’s check it out again. ...
I’ve been playing a lot of Ingress recently. Short form: it’s Google’s augmented reality alien invasion PvP game; you physically go to in-game portals, which correspond with the locations of landmarks, public art, and so on, and perform various actions which lead to creating fields of influence over various areas. The two factions are competing to control the most minds; it’s literally scored in terms of mind units. Kind of sinister when you get right down to it. ...
Via Kottke: have a huge collection of nuclear reactor cutaway diagrams. I’m sure these would be useful in someone’s RPG campaign.
Interesting survey of GMs from Reddit. Self-selected group, etc. etc. Savage Worlds is more popular than I’d have expected.
I’d say you need more maps than this, but it’s certainly true that you don’t often get more.
Years apart, actual quotes. It’s interesting how two of my favorite designers approached the same problem. Unlike a lot of games out there, InSpectres didn’t start as an idea for a cool setting or anything like that. What I wanted to do was try designing a game that “fixed” some problems I saw in similar games that dealt with investigation (no names, please). That problem is what I call the “murder mystery” plot. Basically, it goes like this: the players stumble across a mystery of some sort. The GM then provides clues (in the form of helpful or not-so-helpful NPCs, scraps of forensic information or first-hand knowledge of the event). If the players are smart, they’ll figure it out. If not, then the GM has to guide them along until they do figure it out. In effect, it becomes an exercise for the GM in which the players are guided down a pre-built track and react to stuff that pops up along the way (not unlike a funhouse ride). In the end, the game succeeds or fails on the merits of the GM running that game. ...
Mostly thanks to Hillfolk and the enabling influence of Kickstarter, I’ve wound up with a number of decks of playing cards. As one does. In a feeble but well-meaning attempt to justify the trickle of ten buck pledge levels, I’m going to write up some quick little DramaSystem series pitches based on said decks. I am not committing to running a DramaSystem game based on each deck. Primus, the system works better when it’s in campaign mode. Secundus, not insane. This is the Urban Punk Bicycle Deck (original) from UncommonBeat. (Click to enlarge, cause they’re better-looking full sized.) I am not sure if they’re still available or not; the Web site says Coming Soon. Email ’em and find out! It is not my favorite deck or even in the top half. The backs are really garish without being graffiti-inspired, while the court cards are oddly 80s-flavored. I still love the concept and the spray painted outlines on the pips. OK, so what can we do with this? Nutshell Ten years after the Global Financial Crisis was not averted, all politics are local. All governments are local, for that matter: it takes too much energy and too much effort to worry about what’s happening fifty miles away. The clock is ticking, as the storehouses of resources dwindle away, but it’s hard to care much about that.
This post has an expiration date, which is approximately three days from publication. Reading it after 9/28? You missed out. The current Bundle of Holding is for a bunch of GUMSHOE games and it seemed worth going over what you get. It might appear that there’s a lot of duplication in the bundle, since all four of the full RPGs are based on the same ruleset. Not so! Night’s Black Agents is the easy sell: technothrillers meet vampires. Spy action, bloodsuckers, Ronin and Alias and so on. You get the basic GUMSHOE rules tuned for action, which had not been a particular strength until this point. Also you get The Zalozhniy Quartet which is probably a solid 8-12 sessions of play, at a guess. Maybe more. ...