I've picked up the Abney Park roleplaying game, and plan on running it soon, but two of my friends have commented on how bleak the setting is. The thing is, when I think 'Steampunk' the term 'bleak' seems to fit very snugly. If you listen to Abney Park - their music is pretty much the definition of Steampunk, and if you look at a lot of Steampunk ( Read more... )

What the hell is this crap?  Seriously!
The Victimization of Lara Croft
So, guys can't 'get into' Lara Croft.  So, rather than let you play a strong, smart, capable woman, they want to cater to your 'protection' instincts by making her vulnerable, get beat up, and goddess help me, put the threat of having her raped into the game.  What the hell.

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Someone on LJ reminded me it's been a while since I've posted.  True that, let's get up to date.
I'm pounding the keyboard working on Troinfi.  It won't be ready for CanGames, but it should be done enough that I can run it.  I'm also invited to run it and Fox Magic at WTF? in Montreal, and I'm looking forward to that as well.  I've done a few ( Read more... )

Dark Side 'Cause It Looks Cool:  The Failings of Moral Choices in Games

I have to agree pretty much here.  I've tried a bit of Dragon Age (lost interest rapidly though), and the choices made didn't seem to have a lot of impact except on the 'we like you' indicator for the NPCs in my party.

Just for the record:  I've been doing a lot of my RPG essays on Google+ now, but I thought I'd put one up here for discussion.  :)

( Save Or Die! )

A new, and very strong argument against playing ToR.Okay, I can handle the idea of the Sith being evil.  But I've now heard about what Sith players can do in ToR now, and this disgusts me.  You can be given a Twi'lek slave who wears a shock collar.  She asks at some point if you'll remove it.  You can refuse.  You can, at any time, use it on her, ( Read more... )

For these new MMOs close to coming out, why not wait the year for them to become Free To Play, rather than paying for the disk now, and paying a monthly cost, then feeling ripped off when it suddenly becomes free?  :)  Save yourself a few hundred dollars for a game which you may only feel lukewarm about.

Inspired by a reply to something +Greg Christopher was writing about. I'm finding myself generally reluctant, in games I'm developing or running, of having a true 'supernatural evil'. I mean, having an evil whose sole job is to screw around with humanity. If you look at real world religions, sure there might be evil gods, but these evil gods still ( Read more... )

Just one of those games I was really looking forward to.  I won't be getting it however.
1)  You must be logged into Blizzard's servers to play the game.  Solo play, group play, whatever, you have to be logged in.  If Blizzard's down for whatever reason, you're SoL.  If you, yourself, have internet problems?  You're SoL ( Read more... )

So, the Qin game was a wash.  Dropping the PCs into the middle of a fuedal Chinese setting without preparation was a bad idea -- the PCs weren't sure how to act, and I think didn't really feel connected with the setting.  I handled it well, and accept that.  So, tonight, I decided to quickly set things up and flux the campaign once more, moving ( Read more... )