In many role-playing games, a key is a trait which rewards your character for acting in an interesting and idiomatic way. In Satellite of Love, your game piece will have keys, but they work a little differently. Keys are ways in which you want other pieces to interact with your piece, rather than ways in which you yourself act ( Read more... )

 Regarding role-playing games, my official stance is that I don’t like pre-play-the planning and preparatory phases which precede actual play, such as character generation. It detracts from the time and momentum of play, it leads to railroading and deprotagonization, it contradicts the doctrine of the unfettered mind as expounded by Takuan Sōhō, ( Read more... )

I was playing Persona 3 today when I had an idea about what I’ve felt is missing from Satellite of Love (the Scott Pilgrim/Homestuck RPG-apologies to those of you who already know what SoL is but I'm not going to assume anyone's read my previous posts, because I'm not very interesting). I was managing my character’s collection of magic daemons from ( Read more... )

I have a few targets I want to hit with Satellite of Love, the Scott Pilgrim/Homestuck tabletop RPG. Here are some of the ones that come to mind as I type ( Read more... )

Samurai swords notwithstanding, the game I've actually worked the most on right now is Satellite of Love. I’m overhauling the system once again ( Read more... )

( What the Christ is a morph sword? )

Three Tuesdays ago, my dōjō started our monthlong series on offensive attacks. That day we mostly practiced punching. Too few people had remembered to bring focus mitts, so we resorted to our more usual practice target of "each other." I partnered up with a black belt for a jab exercise which involved coordinating the small fast muscles in your arm ( Read more... )

My friend Dave has been thinking about these recently, and as I have a new game in my head I thought I'd try 'em too ( Read more... )

The other day I was talking with matt_rah about background music: the fact that our lives have a constant soundtrack which store radios, thumping cars, subway performers, etc. provide. He was talking specifically about the custom of playing music in stores, which he thinks habituates people to tuning out music instead of actively appreciating it. I was ( Read more... )

This evening after ninjutsu, I sat down on a bench on the uptown 6 train platform next to a pretty girl, thought "hey she's pretty," yanked out my used copy of The Years of Rice and Salt (fun book so far, especially just after reading the third quarter of Journey to the West), and thought no more of her-until a dazed-looking guy got on the train ( Read more... )