A multi-way conversation between roleplaying game authors and developers. Occasionally useful.

 
The Beginning of Wisdom is Knowing What the Hell to Call Things
posted by Eric at 2:19 AM

or

"Your player is a thing with the ability to do something we call 'that'."

I'm poking at a little setting that's vaguely like a freaked-out Changeling crossed with (I'm told, having never been able to find a copy of it) Kult with the express goal of handling supernatural creatures as presented in movies such as The Ring and Bless the Child. There's an overarching cosmology that I'm fleshing out and definining, since I've been working on it in odd moments for about a week, but I've hit a snag you've all probably guessed by now:

What do I call these things and the things they do?

This is an occasional problem for me, as I come up with throw-away setting concepts on a regular basis, and presumably it's an challenge in general for game designers. While I like to use straightforward terms for basic game mechanics ("traits" or "ratings" for abilities you measure, "powers" for wild things characters can do, etc), I tend to agonize over names of those traits and powers. I want something clear, yet fresh and evocative. This goes double for anything that should be an IC term.

<whine>And sometimes, it's hard.</whine>

Anyone here have trouble with this? :)

 
Game WISH #69
posted by Jim at 6:19 PM

I thought it would be neighborly if some of us sometimes participated in Ginger Stampley's weekly Game WISH topics. This week:

Recommend three non-RPG games for RPGers. Why do you recommend these three?

(WISH courtesy Olof Dahl's Too Many Parentheses.)

I'm tempted to give two answers: three games that are good for RPGers because they're as much like RPGs as possible, and three games that are good for RPGers because they're so different from RPGs. But that would be awfully ambitious, so I'll stick to three games total.

Lunch Money. When our ftf group was playing Amber, this terrific (non-collectible) card game from Atlas whiled away much downtime for the players outside the spotlight. The conceit is that you're a child on a playground, and the cards (with blurry black & white images that are meant to be disturbing, I think) represent offensive and defensive maneuvers you can pull. Why It's Good for RPGers. 1. Games are pretty fast. 2. If you can learn that you need to discard most of any hand without any defenses in it, who knows what else you can learn? 3. The Humiliation card: this is a powerful attack that comes with a catch - when you play it, you have to declare some inventive way that you are not just whomping your opponent but embarrassing him. RP groups that are interested in encouraging more player improv may find it easier with a few Humiliations under their belts.

Once Upon a Time. Yeah, this is: a) another Atlas card game and b) freaking obvious, BUT - in addition to the fact that it can be a lot of fun to play, and the cards are pretty, and it too loosens up the improv muscles, it also may have an, as it were, negative use: as often as not it illuminates the distance between what comes out of playing it and a real story. When I last played it with two friends, we felt that about two of our hands the entire evening attained something of the shapeliness of a real fairytale.

Basketball. Exercise is good for you and basketball is fun. Start with H-O-R-S-E if you want to work into it slowly.

 
Releasing OGL
posted by David at 7:10 AM

I'm pretty sure most of us have, by now, toyed, on some level with OGL derived material whether printed, released, or hidden in the bowels of the file system. And like all of us (I assume,) I've found many of the constraints of putting together a system that is still very clearly D20 or a derivative thereof irritating.

I have this wacked out desire in my head right now to take all the different left field ideas I've had for different pieces of D20 extensions and putas many of them as are appropriately compatible with each other together in a releaseable system, probably just to get the urge dealt with. I'm unsure. If I just take these chargen changes and those combat changes, and so on, you end up with a game that is nearly unrecognizeable. I will admit to leaving classes in in most cases because I feel they are most the recognizable structure after attributes to a non-tabletop gamer.

Am I mad or have others had similar thoughts?

 
The World of Gaming Weblogs
posted by Jim at 8:05 PM

There are a bunch of them, some even busier than Rock Scissors Blog! Ginger Stampley of Perverse Access Memory runs the Game WISH quasi-ring (Weekly Idea Sharing Hegemony). Game WISH topics are generally grounded in experience, and favor praxis over theory.

SkySeaStone.Net has become the home of several game-oriented blogs. As the name suggests, many of the bloggers come from the Amber community.

Population: One runs the Monday Mashups, a weekly "You got peanut butter in my chocolate" exercise devoted to combining two distinct ideas into one campaign premise.

It Slices! It Dices! is Meera Barry's gaming weblog.

The above is a very partial list. Among other things, the Forge is down tonight or I could include the blog and livejournal URLs of several of its habitues. I'll keep looking and readers are invited to add links to the comments section.

 
Where Do I Put My Stones
posted by Jim at 5:44 PM

Three of my favorite recent RPGs are resource-based diceless games (Nobilis, MURPG and WYRD), and the pure resource-based design is still quite new. The hybrid Universalis is an important example too. It seems reasonable to assume that a design technique so new has plenty of unexplored possibilities yet. Some suggestions, wishes and prejudices follow:

1. The partly-true knock on the Marvel Universe RPG is that the characters who dominate are the ones with the largest energy pool. So, how about a game where the resource quantity is fixed and identical for each player? Every player gets six or ten chips to apportion among his options every resolution phase. (You can complicate it with bonus stone, sacrifice and reserve provisions as you like.) The stones add or multiply character-sheet scores to produce a resolution value.

2. Another knock on MURPG - it's hard for the GM to manage the stones of many characters. (This one is also partially true.) So how about a system where the players allocate chips, but NPCs are always represented by fixed quantities. (I think the diceful Whispering Vault works this way, yes?)

3. I personally prefer to minimize mechanic-speak during play. I'm not even wild about having to say, "I'm spending two MPs on that" in Nobilis. Instead of a game with separate declaration-allocation-resolution steps, I'd like to try one that employs

a) character sheets that function as visible aids, with "allocation areas" big enough to be seen by everyone around a kitchen table (yeah, I like smaller gaming groups too);

b) resources you allocate to the big, visible boxes;

c) play that proceeds via exchanges, where allocation happens simultaneously with declaration/roleplay. IOW, say I have "Social Skills" and my character is trying to talk an NPC into something. The familiar options are

i. Have the conversation. Resolve by GM fiat or GM-player consensus without reference to dice or coins/stones/chips.
ii. Have the conversation. GM calls for die roll or allocation. GM awards or withholds penalties or bonuses based on how the conversation is going, but the fortune/expenditure determines the outcome.
iii. Declare that we're about to have the conversation. Roll dice or spend resources to determine the outcome. Play out the conversation to the outcome determined by the roll/expense.
iv. Declare that we're about to have the conversation. Roll dice or spend resources to determine the outcome. Skip over the rest and go kill something.

Me, I like the seamless flow of i, but can appreciate the usefulness of having an "objective" resolution aid a la the other stages. But I don't like the interruptions. With physical resources and an appropriately designed "visual aid" character sheet, I could have the best of both worlds - I start talking in-character. As I talk in character, I push my chips into the "pot" (e.g. the appropriate box on my character sheet). The GM or other player responds in-character, and likewise pushes her chips out. We can all see how the situation lies. (There can be bonus/penalty stones awarded this way too.) If I'm still losing, I can push more stones out, subject to availability, or I can fold. The GM/other appropriate players have the same option.

(One of the great things about a resource-based system is that chips/stones/coins can be a useful clue stick with which to "educate" the GM - that is, how big or small you spend can provide her feedback on how important a given outcome is to you, the player. My friend and gaming buddy Bill once suggested a minimalist system: characters get scores; play proceeds in largely systemless fashion. Every player also gets a red "flag" like the ones NFL coaches throw to challenge a referee's ruling. And they use it for the same purpose - if a player feels he's been shafted, he throws the flag. The GM pauses and reconsiders. She may not actually change her mind, but she tries to clear her mind and calmly review the decision she just made, newly aware of how strongly the player views the immediate situation.)

I realize none of the above are designs in themselves, just suggestions for designs. No doubt other people can come up with possibilities I haven't thought of yet.

 
Template Change Impending
posted by Bruce Baugh at 10:29 AM

I got around to re-reading Jim Henley's comments on Blogger templates, and decided that he's right after all. Sometime soon there will be a change of template to include a column width that takes more account of the limits of the human eye to track and understand wide wide text. This won't affect content, just presentation. Anyone familiar with the new Blogger templates is welcome to propagandize.