Roleplaying Blog

[derigueur]

I run, and play, a lot of roleplaying games. Apparently I don't do a shabby job of either, from the feedback I get. It has occurred to me recently that there might be something in all this that would make useful material - either as a way of working through ideas, or as a way of offering thoughts to others on ways to improve their games

Comments

Re: Just when you thought "Yes" or "No" would suffice...

[derigueur]

Thanks!

Made some changes; this is still a very nebulous thing, but I will certainly consider the issue of access and convenience!

Re: Just when you thought "Yes" or "No" would suffice...

[derigueur]

The idea of having to log in had actually completely escaped me. Last time I did this, it was back in the late 90's where contributions came in the form of emails that I cut and pasted into Dreamweaver!

I think I need to bone up on all this new-fangled technolomogy :P

[derigueur]

I'd be delighted to read anything you wrote on the topic; narration/mechanics balance is a big issue for me!

[reverancepavane]

Not to mention being a fanatical divide among many current game designers and their followers.
The current fad is to use the game mechanics to force narration. For example, Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies forces the player to narrate the effects of a contest, whilst Houses of the Blooded has a wager system that determines the results. Then there are the pure Storytelling Games such as Ganagarok, Fiasco, Grey Ranks, Polaris and Happy Birthday Mr Robot whose mechanics directly enforce narration, and whose designers were frequent players of Amber diceless (which together with Everway started the narrative movement in gaming), although both really required an experienced gamemaster.
Then for example there is Luke Crane who goes into a multi-page diatribe in the middle of Burning Empires that the game mechanics are more important than the narration, and the Old School Renaissance which, is not so much a nostalgia trip (although it is also one for me), but a reaction to the introduction of story-paths (such as the Dragonlance series of

[derigueur]

You are like the Wikipedia of Gaming. Something comes up and you can name six games that handled the issue in different ways.

I *would* say I'd like a permanent link to your brain, but that would probably be dangerous and unwise for everyone :P

[derigueur]

Collaboration?! Or at least cross-posting?

[aeduna]

Not having a lot of time to play/run myself atm, i am happy to read about rping. :) Can't promise intelligent feedback.

[derigueur]

Promises of intelligent feedback not required!

I had a moment of happy nostalgia on Friday at my Vampire game; the session was set at Kew Asylum, and I couldn't help thinking of the guy in the 'Chinese' van from one of your CoC games!

[aeduna]

Heh, glad it made an impression. Just gotta get my time together and write the 4 or 5 bubbling in my head.

[1izz]

even though we spoke briefly about this one in person i want to textify it :P
Not being great at thinking up creative ways to handle a lot (if not most) situations in games I think this is a great idea (that is if I understand you right). A resource to pick up ideas even basic ones that aren't totally rule based would be... quite good

that being said I agree that it is a case of Not Another Login!? but if you were to do something easy to access and so on, I honestly think it has its place in the game based world.
oh also when lacking gameplay for one reason or another it would be pleasant to read something from the more creative side of the playing field (rule interpretations etc aren't exactly my idea of a substitute)

[derigueur]

I will make it easy to access; I hate having loads of logins myself.

Wordpress have a "no login or ID required" option for contributions but I can balance that with after-the-fact editorial privilege on comments.