I attended a nice little class on game-mastering for tabletop RPGs, given by a representative of Paizo's Pathfinder Society. Lots of miscellaneous notes below, if you're interested. I also suggest the booklet "Robin's Laws of Good GameMastering" available from Steve Jackson Games.

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I tested out the OpenD6 RPG rule system over the weekend with two players. (Links: OpenD6 and hereThe idea was to run "Forgotten Suns", a scenario someone created as an introduction to the "Exalted" setting. The setting interests me, but the standard rules are complex for (1) my taste, and (2) players who don't have the rulebook and who're playing ( Read more... )

Finally got to play "Outbreak" tonight. Oh, hey, it's "Flash Point: Fire Rescue"! Now that I've seen Outbreak (which is older), I prefer it. Outbreak has four diseases spreading instead of one kind of fire; the "discover a cure" mechanic; and random events good and bad. Same idea of racing around a map to stamp out flare-up disasters, "explosions" ( Read more... )

Went out to Six Feet Under Games, near Lancaster PA, since I'm in town. (Amish buggy count, this trip: 3.) We played a game called "Dragon Rampage", slew the dragon, and then immediately pulled out "Red Dragon Inn" and played characters as similar as possible ( Read more... )

I thought I'd done more than mention this before, but lately I'm enthused about the dungeon-crawl card game "Dungeoneer". In comparison to past things I've said about game design, this is neat ( Read more... )

Back in Lancaster (passing five or so Amish buggies along the way) I visited Six Feet Under Games. It was fun to see the usual people there again! I got to try a game called "Flash Point: Fire Rescue". This was a fun cooperative game in the same vein as "Ghost Stories". There's a building where fires and explosions inexplicably start at several ( Read more... )

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So I'm in the middle of a quest meant to imitate the movie "The Hangover", and have been told to visit a particular dungeon. My sidekick, cat-man J'zargo, is powered by Bethesda's amazing Radiant AI technology. He's nearly bright enough to understand instructions like "Wait here". But the really interesting bug isn't the AI, or how the physics ( Read more... )

While visiting Pennsylvania, I drove out to Six Feet Under Games (Amish buggy count: 2), but wasn't able to get in on any games. Before giving up I noticed how many games there are lately with a theme of fantasy heroes on a quest and/or exploring a dungeon. Some of them:

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I recently read this article touting the author's game and talking at length about game design. One interesting thing about that was the accusation that jRPGs have "more story than the gameplay can support". That is, they have some elaborate story, but then you can only play it by talking to people (meaning read monologues) and fighting (meaning ( Read more... )