I think that it is undeniable that role-playing games constitute art in every sense of the word. The act of communally creating a story regardless of mechanical means underpinning it is clearly a work of ( Read more... )

Some people have variously lauded and derided role-playing games for assuming the mantle of "art". I suggest that role-playing games are not art in any useful sense but rather method. The art -- and it certainly exists -- is solely in the play. The degree to which the game creates sophisticated, thoughtful, and entertaining play is the degree to ( Read more... )

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After much discussion with my co-authors, I've revised the Diaspora cover. The titling font is now Skia, which I wasn't pleased with at first but after balancing colours and playing with some simple drop shadows for contrast, actually works pretty well. Toph had the bright idea of including a cluster diagram in the cover and it's a cool idea in the ( Read more... )

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Diaspora is coming along nicely. After an evening's playtest of ship combat we managed to refine the ship construction system. Now we have three design systems -- ships, weapons, and armour -- that use a unified and very simple system. So things are designed in similar fashion and therefore described in a similar fashion and therefore function (as ( Read more... )

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So a long time ago my gaming table, enamoured with Spirit of the Century and nostalgiac for Traveller, spent a good deal of energy creating Spirit of the Far Future. It's an homage to Traveller built with Fate. It's also probably not going to get finished because Mongoose scooped us with a frankly inferior product and now own the license ( Read more... )

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Worried about the LHC making a zillion black holes and sucking the world up tomorrow? Maybe the Higgs Boson doesn't so much explain the Big Bang as START ONE? No problem, just keep checking Has The Large Hadron Collider Ended The World Yet web site every hour on the hour for updates.