the word studio notebook
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- Here you can read my work.
- Here are my Haiku Year posts.
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Posts tagged RPGs
So, I launched my first Kickstarter campaign. Always/Never/Now is a cyberpunk-action RPG adventure in the tradition of Lady Blackbird. I hope you dig it. [This was post #1,111 on my Tumblr, by the way.]
Episode 5 of Dragon Age: Redemption is posted! Hope you enjoy, if you do please share and thumbs up! Only one episode left, help us go out with a bang! Or a slice! Whatever.
My interview with writer/actress Felicia Day—plus Dragon Age RPG stats for her Redemption character there, the elf assassin called Tallis—are now available free from Green Ronin.
56 notes (via thisfeliciaday)
Kickstarter Giveaway: “Time Lord”
There are 8 days to go on our Kickstarter campaign! That means it’s…
Giveaway time!
I will randomly choose from the next 10 pledges of $50 or more to win the vintage manual for “Time Lord,” the official Doctor Who role playing game. It’s the nerdiest thing I’ve ever seen, and it’s awesome.
Go!
I write RPGs as part of my job and even I have never owned this rare item.
10 notes (via unchartedbooks)
What kept Wil Wheaton up gaming until 2:30 in the morning at PAX? Our terrifically fun session of the Dragon Age tabletop RPG, that’s what!
In your mind, what makes a useful playtest report for RPGs?
(The more I think about this answer, the more I find it lacking.)
Honesty and clarity. I might be more forgiving of shitty playtest reports than some, because I feel pretty comfortable cutting away suggestions of fixes or assertions of how things “should” be when they get in the way of what a playtest report should do, which is report problems. Fixes are the purview of the designer or the developer and must coexist with the vision for the project. One playtester’s unappealing scene may be one designer’s vital component.
A good, self-aware playtester knows when the text has let her down but the idea at its root has not. A good, self-aware playtester knows when she has “fixed” a rule (or whatever) and how and why and reports that. A good, self-aware playtester phrases opinions clearly and knows when they’re opinions.
I tend to find value in highly charged playtest reports, good or bad, but less to use in blandly generalized overviews. I like anecdotes as a unit of reportage. I like them to be clear and concise. I like them to separate reportage from editorialization, though I appreciate that editorialization can help a playtester feel involved or invested. The less work I have to do to suss out what was happening at the table—good and bad—the better. I prefer bullet points to a block of text.
That said, I’m constantly on the lookout for new playtesting methods and solutions. For all the playtests that I’ve been a part of, as designer and as tester (and it’s quite a few), I’ve never been a part of one that didn’t dent or diminish my feelings. No blame there—a little denting is just the way things go. Wear a helmet and a heavy coat.
What's your favorite experience as a GM? --Josh aka shouit
Such a hard question for me. To be honest, I have a fallback answer that I use when talking about GMing in general and while it meets the question, I’m not sure it’s accurately my favorite experience as a GM. That answer: new players. I like the moment when new players discover agency over their characters or the fiction for the first time and see how dynamic and flexible and fun pen-and-paper roleplaying can be.
I also love the enthusiasm and the dread of new players. I love it when new players regard fictional threats with real caution—in those early days of play, when you don’t know what a hostile ogre or vampire can do to your character, you tread the game world in a different way. You’re immersed differently. You’re buying into the menace in a way that I think is great to see. I love to facilitate those early days of play with new gamers or new games.
That said, though, I have deep love for the collaboration that happens between experienced players, too. When they’re deep in a campaign and they’re talking about their characters and their plans both as fictional people and as creators, when they’re speculating about what’s happening in the world and exploring the possibilities for their future… I dig that, too.
And the moment when a player buys into some risky plan, wages something valuable to her or her character on a chance to win something fictional, rescue something fictional, protect something fictional? That’s a great moment.
The truth is, I love so much about the GMing experience, from the way players respect the competing or contradictory attitudes of different characters conjured and portrayed by the same GM to the moment when the player looks to me to learn the outcome of some fateful roll. I love the invitations and the challenges of collaborative players. I love the revelations. I really like these games.
A lot of that isn’t specific to the GM experience, I know. A lot of it is just what’s great about being a player around a table, but there’s something special to me about the process of framing choices, inventing characters, evoking places, and—on the fly—translating a die roll into compelling fiction. It’s the best way I know to write out loud and collaborate on world-building. It’s remarkable.
So, yeah, I don’t know what my favorite experience as a GM is, I guess. Sorry.
