Category: Gaming Trends
| September 10, 2012 | Posted by John Arcadian |
Kevin: Ok, I’ll use a spell to purify the water coming from this spring so that we can drink it without worry. You know how Hank can be a stickler about those things. Hank: Hey, you want to go out in the woods of a medieval fantasy setting and camp, you’ve got to deal with some dysentery every once and a while. Remember… Everyone: Oregon trail! Lucy: Yeah, we know. But can’t we just assume we do this stuff? Hank: And what if I…
| July 18, 2012 | Posted by John Arcadian |
A few days ago I was talking with my friend Alec about games we were running. He’s recently gotten into an old school superhero roleplaying game. One idea he had going into it was that there would be no character advancement in the form of EXP or buying new skills. Wait, what? No character advancement? That’s crazy! That sounds dangerously close to being one of those independent games that makes you think! It does sound a little crazy at first, but the more you unpack…
| May 21, 2012 | Posted by Don Mappin |
Mistakes are an inevitability of life and those with a passing familiarity of RPGs are more than accustomed to their fair share of errata. But when is too much…too much? If running a game and challenges involved in keeping everyone engaged isn’t enough, GMs must also contend with the ever-changing landscape of rules corrections. In many minds there has been a disturbing trend over the years in software of releasing when it’s “good enough” and patching on the back end. Sadly, our favorite RPGs (dead…
| December 8, 2011 | Posted by Scott Martin |
Recently, I’ve been reading the five Otori novels, and have really enjoyed the complex world that they’ve created. I don’t know a lot about Japanese history, so I have no idea how closely the concepts correlate to real world events, but it’s a great, complex world that I’d love to game in. But it’d only work well under unusual circumstances. Playing in her world is similar to playing with real world history–it’s attractive, but difficult. Phil’s article about Drinking the Kool Aid from last week…
| October 18, 2011 | Posted by Don Mappin |
There’s a change on the horizon in an effort to monetize RPGs — in fact they’re already here, albeit in minor form: the collectible RPG. The RPG where players will need to pay-to-play for specific abilities. Collect ‘em all! This paradigm shift brings with it some new considerations when you sit down to run a game at your table.
| September 8, 2011 | Posted by Scott Martin |
A couple of months ago, I wrote an article about the differences between public and private games, particularly with a view to some problems that are more common in public games. Before I go any further, you should go read Steel Wing’s great post about his own public play experiences over on ENWorld. The post is Why Organized Play has been an Awesome Experience. Organized play really is pretty good–my first two takes on this post had a rambling section about my public play history,…
| August 4, 2011 | Posted by Scott Martin |
For the last year, the local organized environment featured just 4th Edition D&D. One Pathfinder Society GM ran a table, but had the same players show up consistently and wound up closing his table and running it as a campaign. A few home groups met publicly for a week or two to recruit an extra player, Call of Cthulhu recruited and filled two tables for months, but everything else sputtered and died. Until recently. … If your local store doesn’t have a thriving community, that can change quickly. It just takes one dedicated person. (Ideally, though, you’ll have a bench of other GMs ready in case it takes off–running every week can be grueling.)
