I realize that I asked you if you wanted to hear about Caldera's politics, and then I fed you a bunch of stuff about Caldera's government. I know the difference. I just forgot what I was supposed to be writing ( Read more... )

I had a discussion with some FiranMUX players about reward systems in gaming. There's also a Story Games thread brilliantly titled "The reward cycle - who else doesn't give a shit?" that addresses some of the same topics. I had some thoughts about the purpose of reward systems in a lot of games and wanted to share ( Read more... )

This is my discussion of something called "illusionism," closely associated with "railroading," and how some gamers just want to be told a story.

If you haven't yet listened to Theory from the Closet #44: Interview with Mike Mearls, you should. This is a really well-crafted interview with the lead developer of D&D 4th Edition ( Read more... )

Somewhere along the line, gaming became something that was more than just fun.

Don't get me wrong. Gaming is fun! Otherwise, I wouldn't do it -- and spend so much time doing it.

But on the road somewhere between B1 - The Keep on the Borderland for Basic D&D and Sorcerer, my gaming hobby became something more than a fun way to pass time with ( Read more... )

So, in my last post, I put up a diagram. People seem to like the top half of it. zamiel has a problem with the bottom half and my implication of Authorial Intent.

Since I didn't actually write any content around the diagrams I posted, it's not surprising that I didn't communicate what I had hoped. Here's a new picture for discussion:
( Read more... )

Posted without comment. (Updated picture.)


( Read more... )

Bruce asked me about my Social-Play Model:
This may be my lack of familiarity with TBM but I was wondering if you might elaborate on your division between Social Contract and Play, more specifically on the fact that Procedures, System, Techniques and IIEE sit outside Play in your model. I think I can kind of see what you're getting at but am myself ( Read more... )

I have been thinking more about elements of my Social-Play Model, especially the IIEE pieces of it, and doing a little reading. I found Victor Gijsbers' old post, Shared Imagined Space, Shared Text (April 2005) to be very enlightening. I know next to nothing about Derrida, structuralism, semiotics, and the like, so I tread on thin ice here, but ( Read more... )

I'm not saying anything new here. I'm just trying to say some things in my own words for my own benefit. If anyone else goes, 'ah, cool! I never understood it that way before," then cool. But that probably won't happen.

Creative Agenda
Creative Agenda is a Forge game design term that stands for the "social and aesthetic parameters"[1] that people ( Read more... )

Warning: Game design theory wankery.

I'm following a discussion about the Big Model over on Knife Fight. It's pretty interesting (well, to me). It's deconstructing The Big Model (TBM) and trying to reassemble it in a way that makes more sense to them ( Read more... )