|
GM: Okay. What are you doing?
Kevin: I reach out with my Logrus filaments . . . GM: Wait a minute. You don’t have Logrus brought up to mind. Kevin: Oh, yeah. Okay, Roderick will concentrate on bringing the Logrus to mind. GM: A few minutes later, you’ve got the Logrus up and vibrating in your mind’s eye. Now what are you doing? Kevin: I reach out with my Logrus filaments. GM: The thin lines flail outward from Roderick. Where are you directing them? Kevin: I’ll picture the Crystal Ball, and reach the lines toward it. GM: What are you picturing? Kevin: A round, glass ball. GM: No particular direction? Or are you just letting the Logrus find its own way? Kevin: Whatever would get it quickly. GM: That would be leaving it up to the Logrus. There’s a sense of contact, your filaments lash over a sphere’s cool, glassy surface. Kevin: Great, I’ll yank it back here. GM: Into your hands? Kevin: Hmmm. No, right back to the cupboard GM: No sweat, the crystal sphere appears, snugly fitting into the velvet depression. Beth: I’ll look into it, seeing if there’s any impression of who stole it. GM: Okay, Yvonne is looking to the crystal sphere. Kevin: See, (to the rest of the group), wasn’t that a lot easier than chasing around through Shadow? GM: Beth, you see that the ball isn’t really clear. It’s filled with little specks of shiny metal. It’s also got three holes drilled into the top part. Beth: Holes? There aren’t supposed to be any holes in the Crystal Ball. What do they look like? GM: Well, it’s clear enough so you can see the holes aren’t all that deep. One hole is bigger than the other two, and spaced further apart. Beth: Yvonne will pick the stupid thing up by the holes. Roderick, you idiot, you just retrieved a bowling ball! Kevin: What?!? GM: It does seem to be a bowling ball. Just made out of a glassy material. Kind of pretty (pages 47-48 in Amber DRPG) 1) Who wouldn't want to punch this GM in the face? 2) On the one hand this example of play is really grounded in the fiction. It's overflowing with details and specificity. 3) The GM uses those details to both limit the success of Kevin's actions (if he described himself using the Logrus differently, he might have succeeded in finding the Crystal Ball) and to control information in a way that misleads the player. 4) Amber's text is filled with examples of play. All of them are filled with fiction-focused play, "what are you doing?"'s, and the controlling of information to mislead, worry, or cause doubt in the players. ----- Tony Lower-Bausch shared this story about playing in a game at a con with Eric Wujcik when Tony was a kid: I played a TMNT session with him, and a game of a hybrid between Teenagers from Outer Space and Biker Nuns with Guns (or some such second game). I remember that he asked for detail on a combat down to which foot I held forward, and what angle I struck at. I pointed out (reasonably, I thought) that I the player was a 13-year-old gamer, whereas my character had a lifetime of ninja training, so maybe the character knew better what to do in a given situation. He told me that I'd done the wrong thing, and had one of the serving girls at the mansion we were visiting hospitalize my character. In the second session, he applied the Nuns system (which deals damage in round hundred) to TFOS's "each point of Bonk done means a minute of real time you have to sit out." I took damage, and he told me that I could return to play in six hours, if I waited, but that he had no sympathy for someone walking away and then expecting to return as if they'd been there the whole time. So, y'know ... pretty much just like the advice in the book.
0 Comments
I'm studying up on diceless RPGs, and naturally enough, I've started with Amber. I'm about halfway through the text and have a lot of thoughts about it, but I keep thinking about this little gem that occurs on page 14:
Hardly anyone is ever satisfied with the results of an Attribute Auction. If you don't bid, you'll regret not getting the good Ranks. If you bid, you'll regret the points you spend. Still, what do you expect? You're competing with other players. No matter how unhappy you are with the results, remember that every bid you make throws a monkey wrench in somebody else's private plan. Hey, I've designed a game that leaves everyone unsatisfied halfway through character creation, at which point the only salve is knowing that at least you've messed up the joy of your fellow players! #DesignGoals. Next we caught a noon game at Games on Demand of +Hakan Seyalioglu and +Kathryn Hymes's Dialect, run by Hakan himself. Our boarding pass was, like, 5th, so we were certain the game would be booked, but we were able to get in because today was charmed in that kind of way. The game was as awesome as I'd heard and hoped, and Hakan is a stellar human being and facilitator. The table selfie is fuzzy because my phone sucks. That's me, Hakan, John, and +Ann D. It was John's first time playing a game requiring improv, but he gave it a great go.  The final highlight of the day was walking the exhibit floor. I got to meet +Hannah Shaffer in all her fine pirate-inspired garb at the 7th Sea booth. Not surprisingly, she was funny and charming and delightful. Then I got to meet +Brennan Taylor and get my hands on Mortal Coil, which I have heard so much about and have been wanting to read. (Also pictured is +Jared Sorensen's Lacuna Part I, which I was lucky enough to buy from the author himself at the Burning Wheel booth when I met with Vincent and Adam--it's another game I have only heard praise for and have been eager to pore over.) I have been impressed by everyone I have gotten to meet in the indie rpg industry--such nice, smart, and engaging people. Now at home with our guests to play some Quiet Year and board games. Like I said, it was pretty much a perfect day.  The next highlight was going by the Chaosium play room. +Ann D and I collaborated on a scenario for a contest run by Chaosium looking for con-ready scenarios. Ours was one of the five selected, and it is being run all weekend long here at #GenCon50. We got to talk to one of the GMs who had been running the game and a number of the players who ran in it and got to hear about how much fun they had and the unexpected turn their games took. It was a real high.  Today was a pretty perfect day at #GenCon50. It began by getting to meet +Vincent Baker at the Burning Wheel booth. Vincent is every bit as wonderful in person as you would think, and I really got a kick out of meeting and conversing with him. At the same time I got to meet +Adam Koebel and tell him how fantastic Office Hours is. I could not think of a better way to start the day.  #GenCon50 - Badged up and rarin' to go. Awesome badge tags courtesy of Games on Demand.  Had a blast playing Technoir with +Mark Redacted this morning at Games on Demand! Thank you for the great GMing, Mark!
Got to play a 2-hour game of J. Walton's Restless at Games on Demand this morning. Fantastic way to kick off day 2 at Gen Con! +Jason Morningstar moderated. We were torn between smiling from the great time and reflecting the pain and hardship--hence the mixture of expressions. With Marcy, +SL Scheibe, +Ann D, +Alex Scheibe, Jason Morningstar, Kyle, Gavin, and Me (from Left to Right)  #RPGaday2017 Day 7: What was your most impactful RPG session?
In early 2016, I ran a two-shot Call of Cthulhu adventure for my son (who was then about to turn 16) and three of his friends. It was my son's first RPG with other kids, and it was all of his friends' first time. They all created wonderfully flawed and funky investigators and blew me away with both they're role-playing and investigative instincts. The four of them have been playing RPGs together ever since. Who can ask for a better impact than that? #RPGaday2017 Day 6: You can game every day for a week. Describe what you’d do!
Since we are in full-on fantasy world here, I would like to make this fantasy come true by having GenCon be a week long and having the good folks at Games on Demand operate for the whole week. I live here in Indy, so I would play when I wanted, eat when I needed, sleep as desired, and have a seriously incredible week. #RPGaday2017 Day 5: Which RPG cover best captures the spirit of the game? I'm just restricting this question to games I own, and I'm giving you my top 4: Kingdom of Nothing, by Jeff Himmelman: I love this cover and the ideas behind this game (I haven't been able to play it yet, but that time will come). Noirlandia, by +Evan Rowland: The game is awesome, and the noir-ness and surrealism are captured beautifully in Evan's cover art. The art alone makes me want to get people together to play. Perseverant, by +Ben Dutter: We have played games that are exactly as gruesome as this cover. I love the bloody lone figure and the impossible chasm he seems to have crossed. Fiasco, by +Jason Morningstar: The cover image of a man somehow managing to shoot himself unintentionally in the head tells you everything you need to know about what's going to unfold in the game you play.     #RPGaDAY 2017 Day 4: What RPG have you played the most in the past year?
By far, the game I played most was Forge of Valor, a game in development by +Ben Dutter. That's a lot of awesome Sundays of play. As for published games, I think it's a toss up between Fiasco and Call of Cthulhu. #RPGaDay Day 3: How do you find out about new games?
Yeah, like everyone else on here, it's primarily G+. And not only "new" games--I am returning to the hobby after years away, so I am busy catching up on the last 20 years of games, so I am constantly learning about older games that are new to me! My main source for these old new games are G+ and the bevy of podcasts I listen to: The Gauntlet +1 Forward Backstory Modifier It's Like DnD The Jank Cast Misdirected Mark RPG Design Panelcast #RPGaDay2017: Day 2: What is an RPG you would like to see published?
The games I am most eagerly awaiting the publication of are Bluebeard's Bride and Companion's Tale. A game I would love to see would allow me to create the kind of stories that Thomas Pynchon tells. Crying of Lot 49, the game? Come on! It would make an incredible RPG full of paranoia and clues that almost add up to something earth-shatteringly big. Gravity's Rainbow too. Movies and TVs are very reasonable sources for RPGs. I'd like to see the adaptation of more novel (the noun, not the adjective) techniques. 1) What published RPG do you wish you were playing right now? My Life with Master, by Paul Czege. Thankfully, one of my groups is getting together tonight to play the second session of the game we started last week. We shall see how poor Dorothy, Matilda, and Lizzie overcome the cruel manipulations of Baron Luchetta. There will be fire, popped-out eyeballs, piles of rabbits, and plenty of heartache, I suspect. #RPGaday2017  Just wanted to share this awesome drawing made by Sal Scheibe after our Tuesday night game of My Life with Master.  The proper way to start the weekend. Monstearhearts 2 has made it to Indy.  I have been bombarded with work for the past two weeks, so I couldn't partake in Game Chef. All the same, the theme and ingredients have inspired me to work on a game about psychics who can walk in other people's dreams (the border between not only reality and unreality, but the border between me and you).
I'm taking inspiration from surrealist games like Itras By and Over the Edge for play in the dream world. Inspired by "echoes," I want the line between dream and reality to blur as the visitor takes symbols and emotions from the visited's mind and has their echoes present in the visitor's waking world. Similarly, the visitor will leave echoes of her own mind in the dreams of the visited. I'm imagining part of the game taking place in the dreams and the other part taking place in the real world. Right now I'm looking for media inspiration to help get a good grasp on what elements within play should involve. At the top of my list are 1984's Dreamscape and 2010's Inception. I'm also going to rewatch the original Flatliners since there is a crossing over of the other world into our "reality." Do you have other media to recommend? Thanks y'all! New treasure in today's mail. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited.  Sometimes you find an RPG on your to-read list that is only $13 on Amazon. Looking forward to reading this next.  According to Vincent Baker, a successful RPG will have insights into three areas:
1) RPG design 2) Your game's subject matter 3) human experience "A lot of the time, somebody will come to me and say, 'Vincent, I have this great idea for a game,' and they'll describe one of those insights. They'll say, 'You roll dice like this and you count dice like this.' And I'll say, "Okay, what's that about?' And they'll say, 'I don't know.' Okay, that's fine. You should keep practicing--that's practice to develop that particular insight, but until you also have insight into subject matter and insight into real human nature that will never be a whole game." -Vincent Baker, in his Ropecon 2013 session entitled, "D. Vincent Baker: the Man, Career, and Games" What I like to tell people is that the process of finding playtesters for your game is a dry run for the process of publishing your game. If you do not have people lining up to playtest your game, that means you will not have people lining up to play your game once they can buy it."
-Vincent Baker, during his talk during Ropecon 2013 entitled "D Vincent Baker: the Man, Career, and Games." |
Jason D'AngeloRPG enthusiast interested in theory and indie publications. Archives
April 2023
Categories |
RSS Feed