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Is roleplaying a fundamental (and noteworthy) human activity?
Sorry, this is just a note, that may be expanded some time in the future ( Read more... ) -
Interpreting failure and dice rolls in-game
Here's one idea I first came across in discussions about Theatrix, which was also highlighted by some old Forgie-story-gamer discussion. It dovetails with something I think of as "GM humility" or maybe "Bayesian refereeing ( Read more... ) -
Excellent post on dissociated mechanics
A recent thread on rpg.net has some excellent posts by 105349 and StrollofTurtle, but cmdicely offers a profound insight in post #615
Most of what is complained about as "dissociated mechanics" -- including the primary example, the "One Handed Catch" ability, given in the Alexandrian article -- are not examples of dissociated mechanics, they are ( Read more... ) -
More on immersion confusion
Two articles have recently come to my attention:
The Play of Simulation (excerpt from Salen and Zimmerman, Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals). This article is the ultimate source for "the immersive fallacy", a term that's started to pop up in some RPG discussions.
Immersion and Presence (presentation from a computer game theory class at IT ( Read more... ) -
A list of online campaign management tools
I was thinking today that for people like me, who don't have a regular gaming group, published games and published settings have an important role as proxies for a style of play and overall ethos. I've said it before, mainly as a critique of the idea that designs (esp. design narrowly construed as "mechanics") play a particularly strong role in ( Read more... ) -
Drama Fortune Karma Resolution
Just jotting down a quick thought before I lose it ( Read more... ) -
computer-aided wargaming, notes
Recently I've had a couple offers to do some wargaming over the net. This led to a quick bit of research on what's out there to assist. Here's what I've found so far ( Read more... ) -
A useful tool for preserving RPG history
If you go back through this livejournal and click the links to web pages I've cited, you'll probably run across a number of dead links. Sometimes I've gone back and fixed them to refer to The Internet Archive, but that doesn't always work.
I've found something else that may be even better: WebCite. It allows you to trigger archiving of a web page ( Read more... ) -
Looking for players for a campaign--specific and general issues
In other words, yes, I'm looking for players for some gaming in April & May, on Tuesday evenings at Endgame in Oakland, California.
Further Details: Look here.
More generally, if you're looking for players, what do you do? Is the actual, physical bulletin board a good idea?
So far, I've posted on the Endgame forums (above), Nearby Gamers, RPGnet ( Read more... ) -
Malcolm Sheppard's "Toy Dogma", "immersion", and multi-levelled engagement
Malcolm's series of posts on his "Toy Dogma" approach to RPGs are good stuff, although one might wonder how much effort needs to be put into clearing out the underbrush before building up his own ideas. I suppose part of the point is, as he says, to send a message, and by taking on Forge theory head-on, he's ensuring that the message gets sent to ( Read more... )