While it’s true that virtually every RPG you’ll ever play will require rulings or some other human judgement, there are a few games out there that require improvised game design as part of the play experience. Or at least make it fun as hell. As I’ve written before, we’re in the midst of the Band… Continue reading Improvised Game Design
It was my 50th birthday last week, so here are 50 lessons I’ve learned about roleplaying. Some of them might be short lessons! If one of these jumps out as interesting, let me know and I’ll write a longer piece about it. You can’t fix real-world problems between players in your make-believe space.Enthusiasm will paper… Continue reading 50 Lessons About Roleplaying
This morning I was chatting with a friend about how I actively dislike the thing in fantasy RPGs where a magic-using character’s player wants to learn a spell (in reference to this week’s post about Invisible Sun), and it lands in the GM’s lap to make that happen. It’s a really weird tic in my… Continue reading The Misery of Precedent
Reading The Way has left me somewhere between thrilled and worn out. I’ve been stalled out writing about the third book of Invisible Sun for weeks. I may meander a bit in this post. The Way covers magic in Invisible Sun in detail, as is necessary in a game where everyone and everything is magical.… Continue reading Invisible Sun: The Way
My alternate clickbait-y title was The Sordid Secret Small Press Scene at RinCon. I kind of wish it actually was any of those things, but it's not: we just wrapped up RinCon, a very mainstream, lovely, family-friendly gaming convention in Tucson, Arizona. And I played a bunch of small-press stuff while I was there. RinCon… Continue reading The Secret Indie Underbelly of RinCon
