I’m going to miss Monday Mashup this week (and be light on general on blogging). A family member is in the hospital with something fairly serious and I a) can’t focus on blogging and b) don’t have as much free time anyhow.
Since there are a few regular game writing memes out there these days — my Monday Mashup and Ginger’s Game WISH come to mind — I thought it might be nice to have an announcement list for people who want to keep up with them. Thus, I set up a list at Yahoo for precisely that purpose. Right now, every time I post a new Monday Mashup, it’ll send a message to the list. Ginger is setting Game WISH up the same way. The list is moderated, and there shouldn’t ever be any other traffic on it, so it’s just a few posts a week. ...
For Mashup number fifteen, we’ll return to the classics of science fiction. Our subject today is the Foundation Trilogy, Asimov’s soft-SF series of psychohistory, galactic empire, and barbarianism. I’m more interested in the original three books than the multitude of sequels, but suit yourself for your mashups. The core concept of the trilogy is Hari Seldon’s psychohistory, with which Seldon predicted the fall of the Galactic Empire and manipulated events so as to minimize the time before another Empire would rise. Add in the backstop that was the Second Foundation — and don’t forget the psionics — and you have a lot of material to work with. Oh, and this is your sporadic reminder that there’s a game meme announcement mailing list. The only traffic on the list is announcements of new game meme posts; right now it’s just me and Ginger’s WISH. Now, on to my Mashup.
The fourteenth Monday Mashup revolves around the Boston Red Sox. (Yeah, you can take a week off if you’re staring at your screen in horror.) They’re generally a talented team of players but are always struck down before they reach the peak of their profession by a dire curse — which always leaves them strong enough to come back and make another try next year. In my book, professional sports is a popular form of entertainment, so let’s mash those Dirt Dogs up.
WISH 69: Non-RPG Games for Gamers (original) asks about the other side of the gaming world: Recommend three non-RPG games for RPGers. Why do you recommend these three? Well, blackjack is lots of fun — no? Oh, got it. Diplomacy, first off. It takes a while to play, and some RPG groups are used to those six to eight hour sessions. Plus you can roleplay the countries. Plus it’s a sneaky introduction to the idea of diceless gaming. ...
WISH 68 (original) wants to know about something I don’t have a lot of experience with: Have you ever played in or GMed a game with more than one GM? What was your experience with it? What were the strengths and weaknesses of having multiple GMs? Was it positive or negative? Would you do it again? If you’ve never tried it as a GM or player, would you like to? Why or why not? ...
Today’s Monday Mashup concept was contributed by Eric McErlain, who runs the excellent Off Wing Opinion (original). He suggested Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend some time ago, but I put off using it for a while because I thought it was a little close to Body Snatchers. But time has passed and here we are. If you haven’t read I Am Legend, allow me to strongly recommend it. It’s the story of the last man on earth, beseiged by a horde of vampires. He defends himself, despite the fact that he has nothing to live for. In the end, he realizes that to the new society of vampires, he’s the legendary monster. My brief summary doesn’t do it justice, but it’s a start. Mash!
WISH 67 is all about the story: How do you tell stories in your games? Are there character stories, overarching stories, and/or other kinds of stories? Could you tell a coherent story from games you’ve GMed or played in? Does it matter to you? Why or why not? I don’t ever strive to tell stories, but it’s nice when it happens. I’m really more interested in exploring the story space than I am in setting out to tell a story. I like it when things happen to my characters and I like it when my characters do things, but I find plotting for a story to be restrictive. ...
WISH 66 (original) is about plotting (and, tangentially, the necessity of same): GMs can spend hours designing an adventure and have their players take off in an entirely unexpected direction. How does a GM handle this—try and steer the players back to the designed plot, or hang back and see where the adventure goes? How does a player handle this? Stay on target or go with the flow? I’m inclined to disagree with the context of the question. “How does a GM handle this?” Well, which GM? ...
WISH 65 asks about jobs and gaming: Does what you do for a living have any impact on your gaming? Have you had occupational details intrude on your descriptions of how something works? Have you ever dared a player to go “Hotwire a car, then, if that’s how you think it’s done?” I’m a computer guy, but the answer’s really “Nah.” I’ve played Shadowrun, and I don’t really mind that decking is nothing like real computer work — it’s just an analogy for magic anyway, so I can take it at that level happily enough. I don’t mind if someone gets their hacking descriptions wrong, and I generally assume any modern-day game takes place in a slightly alternate universe. ...