1) What does Illegal Gods do that no other existing game does? What makes it unique?

When I was first designing the game, a heck of a lot that other games don't, but, as time has gone on, it's been crowded out with others' ideas. That's the problem with slow-cooking. On the other hand, God-Merchants, Soul Jockeys, and maybe the HSEL are the first three things that come to my mind. I think of it mostly as a pirates-in-space game with religion added. Preacher pirates in SPAAAAACE. Erm.

What is holding you up in your minigame, "The Four Queens"?

Trying to work out a mechanic that isn't so self-contained as to make a great card/boardgame, and allowing narrative to have an influence.

What other RPG irons do you have in the fire?

My ACNW games, of course. I took out the Lonesome October style LARP as I need another GM for it, and about 20 people for it to work the way I want. Aurors Gone Wild is about ready to launch. I just need to fill in some final information and I'll be happy there. The Reclaimers! which I think of as a Shadowrun game 'gone twisted,' (you play in a world of mutants and magic and try to dig up the future) is being nudged and massaged, if not in any playable form yet.

And computer RPGs? Boardgames?

Still playing Arcanum. About to take on Arronax, or whatever his name is, presuming we can, um, get back to him. That's kind of awkward when you move into the next room and teleport somewhere else and there's a hanging plot point. Still, the designers have been vaguely smart about it so far...

I wrote on my Twitter:

"I can sum up my ACNW game submissions on Twitter: `It's all gone wrong. It's your fault. Can you fix it?' and have characters left over."

The reason I'm talking about it here and not on my Amber Blog is because this isn't inherent in any fashion to ACNW, Amber, or even my games.

It's indicative of a methodology I've embarked upon in changing the way I GM.

peer behind the GM screen • • "You broke it. I'm fixing it." »

No, I haven't bought/read/seen a page from 4e. I have, however, examined many a discussion headed by the erudite, the enthusiastic, and the exhaustive.

I have slogged through an essay or two, recently, about people who have gone into system design purely to write (as noted in Wikipedia for Houses of the Blooded) something that is, "Anti-D&D."

I find myself torn between two immediate responses. One, the, existential, "Why?" and the second, "But wait, hasn't D&D gone there, itself?"

peer behind the GM screen • • "4e is the anti-D&D?" »

SPOILERS INSIDE.

Briar's the mostly-NPC character I am "playing" in the Elfquest game. She was Recognized in the last session. I knew a little of her background, but it wasn't until that hit that I realized the reason why she was going to fight this. Nevermind it's like refusing water, and it might kill her and her potential mate. She's got a story, and this is what is behind it.

peer behind the GM screen • • "Elfquest: Briar's Tale" »

Please note that I am actively soliciting comments and game-design questions here on this post, so if you're feeling like you've got something that'll work, or even work "better," please chime in!

edited to add:comments now work [sigh]

So we completely reworked the way we had been doing magic, as a skill roll combination that didn't really fit the comic's view or the system very well. Number of successes and effect weren't really rolled together.

I don't think it's necessarily munchkinism that has some of our players taking advantage of the fact that several "standard actions" in the system rely on a couple combinations of rolls, and putting all their points in those combinations, but it's close enough to give me a frown. Does that count?

peer behind the GM screen • • "Elfquest: Fire and Ice...shaping." »

I often quote the aggravations of what I call "bookkeeping" in a gaming context. Some of it is literal; last week I put together a conglomerate spreadsheet of all the Elfquest game characters and their statistics. I had a few (example: Glitter and the Glamour) spreadsheets I've used before to run analyses and keep track of the little number details, but it always ends in heartbreakends up meaning administrative details that either consume my time and energy, or being fairly irrelevant.

You'd think this would push me harder to go to descriptor-based systems rather than numbers, but the truth is, I don't like the vagaries of words compared to the hard truth of mathematics. Is "va-va-voom sexy" higher or lower than "knock-out sexy?"

peer behind the GM screen • • "Elfquest: Administrative Details" »

When it comes to breaking anything into two types, you usually have the ones "in the know" and the ones out of it. (Or the ones who can't count.) I, myself, prefer to lean into the "develop in play" method of character development. That's from years and years of writing 20 page character histories and then finding out in the middle of session two, "Oh, that isn't how it happened at all, and, by the way, I didn't know this at all before, but my character is like, gay. Totally gay. Gay, gay, gay, gay, flaming homosexual gay."

peer behind the GM screen • • "Elfquest: Character Hurdles" »

If you're not familiar with the [comic] series, I'll sum it up very generally to say Elfquest is based off the travels of a chief of a tribe of elves called the "Wolfriders" (who have a special bond with their canine kin), and how this chief deals with the other kinds of elves he discovers, and finally with the origins of the elves on this world with two moons (Abode.) It's a story of change, exploration, survival, with all sorts of romances and betrayals, and some great soap opera, so, of course, you would think that it would be a world ripe for gaming!

I would agree, but now you're waiting for the, "except..."

peer behind the GM screen • • "Elfquest: Plot Concepts" »

The assorted evils of cultural, class-related, ritual, or gendered assumptions in gaming will not be solved by a bunch of white guys with internet access.

I never thought they would.

peer behind the GM screen • • "No, no, you don't need to remind me." »

So last Sunday I had been invited to Doyce's whimsical Spirit of the Century character creation get-together (along with such infamous individuals as ***Dave and the inimitable Margie, their exuberant daughter K, the always piquant Mr. Trimmer, and John Barnes (not as reported previously, and I don't know why it was written differently on my notepad. [sighs] [thanks Doyce for the update]). I pushed myself to go (normally I don't drive up to Denver on a whim) but I knew, turning the corner off my street and towards Adventure! I would be glad to go, and I was!

peer behind the GM screen • • "Pulpy Goodness" »