I am a huge fan of EPOCH, Dale Elvy's game of survival horror. In particular, I am a fan of his idea of "Player Activation" - the idea that the total game environment, from system to presentation, needs to foster an interesting and collaborative experience. Dale's advice in the rulebook itself can hardly be faulted, and much of that advice can be ( Read more... )

When Morgue began ruminating about the GMIS, the concept was along the lines that the GM is essentially like a modelling platform - the entire world fits inside their mind, and so they are the arbiter of what is and what is not. This is complicated in many indie games by the conscious de-powering of the GM so that they do not have unilateral fiat ( Read more... )

Another fruitful horror game last night and subsequent discussion with Dale had me lying awake until 2AM pondering some different options and ideas that he'd put in front of me. I thought I'd share some jottings that are still forming into a cohesive picture ( Read more... )

Last night I played in a re-run of Slayage by Gaslight. A fun little Victorian adventure with a Buffy overlay. Or alternatively, a Buffy game transplanted into an unfamiliar setting ( Read more... )

At Day of Games I instigated two games of Zombie Cinema, which means I've played it 5? times now - the most exposure I've had to any indie game in terms of number of experiences ( Read more... )

At Kapcon's Games on Demand, I facilitated three games: Moldvay D&D by-the-book, Metal Opera, and Kill Puppies for Satan. All three were boy's clubs. This was unusual for me - it is rare that I run a game with only guys around the table (exception: D&D, as will surprise no-one ( Read more... )

A month or so ago I had one of my friends round, and we watched two recent-ish Horror movies. We watched Silent Hill and 28 Weeks Later. I seem to recall Steve Hix disliking Silent Hill, but couldn't find the review he posted after 20 seconds searching, so gave up.

I liked both of these movies; probably Silent Hill more than 28 Weeks Later, but ( Read more... )

Over the weekend I accidentally wrote an RPG called The Zombie Plan.

While walking back from the shops on Saturday afternoon, I thought of a resolution mechanic involving players pointing either one or two fingers at each other. A couple of hours later, I was wondering about a setting for that mechanic and zombie movies came to mind.

That evening, ( Read more... )

So I ran the Hanging Tree. It was a strange, difficult yet ultimately rewarding game. I must admit running spooky ghost story style horror is one of the hardest styles to run simply as it relies so heavily on the player buy in, as I theorised about previously. As a result, I found myself as GM to be strangely weaponless. With the style the GM must ( Read more... )

With Halloween coming up, I have made plans for a one-off horror scenario. I am using the World of Darkness rule set as it provides a relatively blank canvass and as it matches my preferred style for the genre (explained below ( Read more... )