Archive > April 2010

Ephemerals, Who Strut Upon The Stage

As a spin-off from last week’s thoughts – one element that works well with antagonistic PCs is the concept of ‘temporary’ characters. If you kill off my 12th level D&D elf wizard who I’ve levelled up from 1st, that’s a big thing. If you kill off the elf wizard I came up with ten minutes [...]

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The Party Dynamic, Continued

I asked if there were any games where the PCs are not working together, and a few examples were suggested. Cold City is a great example of how a strong group structure can be used in a game. All the characters are part of a secret police force set up to deal with left-over Nazi [...]

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The Party Dynamic

Writing adventures (and I’ve been doing a lot of that lately), I was struck by the odd gap between the player’s side and the GM’s material. What’s the first or second chapter in most RPGs? Character creation – how to make your player character. Your singular, lonely, self-contained player character. Then, on the GM’s side, [...]

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Room 101

I’ve always thought that the desktop metaphor for computer interfaces was incomplete.

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In Memoriam

The Cork City marathon takes place on the 7th of June.
I’m running it.
In much the same manner that an oil tanker pirouettes, or a mountain gently bounces, I’m running it.
I have never been the most athletic individual, even for a gamer, and I still darkly mutter that the best way of moving forty kilometres is to [...]

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