Memes

WISH 50 (original) is all about being a professional in the game business: Have you ever considered trying to publish something professionally in the gaming industry? Why or why not? What are the good points and bad points of being in the industry? We’re presumably talking about pen and paper here, rather than computer games. With that in mind, the answer is yep. I have, in fact, published something professionally in the gaming industry. I have a decent-sized handful of White Wolf credits, most happily in the Trinity line; I’ve also done work for Atlas and I have something in the queue for Eden. ...

WISH 48 (original) is all about loot. Real life loot, not the stuff you roll on the treasure table. The price and availability of miniatures goes up as more companies leave the market. Wood costs lead to extended paper costs, and supplements and gaming systems are becoming a serious financial investment. Is this affecting your gaming any? I’m pretty much with Ginger on this one. I’m pretty solvent, through a mixture of luck and brains, and I don’t really blink much at costs. Right now my threshold is about 25 bucks for a 128 page book (hardcover or not), and around 40 bucks for a longer book; I’ll buy those if I’m sure I want them, but I won’t buy ‘em as a casual purchase. On the other hand, a $20 128 page softcover? Sure, that’s in my budget. ...

WISH 47 is Learning Your Lesson (original), as follows: Name one lesson you learned in gaming that you will (hopefully) never have to learn again. So mine is “Differentiate.” I had an awful problem early in my gaming career; I tended to see other people doing cool stuff and I wanted to do the same cool stuff. Self-esteem issues, probably. At one point a friend pointed out in no uncertain terms that I was stepping on her character’s schtick. ...

Isn’t the morning after sort of the definition of incoherency? Anyhow. WISH 41 (original) asks: How coherent do you expect a game world to be? Is a game world merely a stage for the characters, or does it have a life of its own? How deep does it need to be to satisfy you? How do you contribute as a player or GM to making the game world more coherent, if you do? ...

The [WISH of the week](http://web.archive.org/web/20060924230604/http://web.archive.org/web/20060924230604/http://www.whiterose.org/pam/archives/003041.html (original) “Perverse Access Memory: WISH 38: Favoritism”) (original): Do you (or your GM) ‘play favourites?’ Do you feel you have to justify your answer? Do you have a horror story to share? I agree with Greg Morrow’s comments (follow the link above), with some additions. Favoritism shows up most often as spotlight time, a concept I find tremendously useful when thinking about balance. It doesn’t matter if Bob the Paladin can deal out more damage than Ernie the Weedy Cleric if Ernie does all the negotiations and it’s a socially oriented campaign. ...

Whoops, I missed a WISH. Well, last week was pretty busy. This week, it’s [all about supplements](http://web.archive.org/web/20060924230405/http://web.archive.org/web/20060924230405/http://www.whiterose.org/pam/archives/002982.html (original) “Perverse Access Memory: WISH 36: Supplements”) (original). What do you think about supplements to game systems? Do you like the additional material, or are you just annoyed about spending the money for the additional rules? Name up to three supplements you?ve really enjoyed, and describe why you liked them. I like supplements. I have the gamer fondness for more crunchy stuff, although I’m just as happy without it, but what I really like is cool world material. This bias is about to become utterly apparent when I talk about my three favorite supplements. ...

[WISH 34: Non-Standard Characters](http://web.archive.org/web/20060924230238/http://web.archive.org/web/20060924230238/http://www.whiterose.org/pam/archives/002924.html (original) “Perverse Access Memory: WISH 34: Non-Standard Characters”) (original): Do you prefer to build a character with a unique concept, or do you prefer a simple or more standard concept to start with? I’m pretty prone to the unique concept. I like characters with an odd angle, or with weird hooks. The most “normal” character I’ve played in the last couple of years has been a half-orc barbarian, and even he was a trifle strange. He was on a quest to prove that half-orcs were a people, just like elves or dwarves or gnomes. Despite his unattractiveness, he might have wound up founding a church or something. I’m not the kind of guy who delights in bringing out the unique aspects of the standard character types, although I respect that tendency. ...