50 Games in 50 Weeks

I had the good fortune to play a game using the free Risus “everything RPG system” as part of DC Gameday this year. Risus is very generic, which is its key strength. The system can be explained in two short paragraphs, which I will now attempt to do. Each character is made up of clichés, each of which gets 1 to 4 dice. Each character has a total of 10 dice … Continue reading »

Do simulates a specific fantasy trope: adolescent temple iplgrims who travel the world, helping people and getting into trouble. As limiting as this may appear, it’s easy for folks to grasp and use to tell stories. The system is much more simple than the length of this review implies, and highly story-focused. Your character is … Continue reading »

As part of RyvenCon, I decided to stretch myself a little and run a game in a system I\’d never tried before: Searchers of the Unknown. Some background is in order: No edition of Dungeons & Dragons has ever been released for free. Moreover, copies of early versions of the game are increasingly impossible to find, except at sky-high prices. Searchers of the Unknown is one of several projects aimed at releasing a free version of the mechanics of early D&D, in this … Continue reading »

Years ago, I designed a territory-building game, one in which players lay down territory cards, then spawn monsters on them in an attempt to capture another players’ castle. Never went anywhere; turns out that game design is hard. But as I sat down with a co-worker to play Hive over lunch last week, memories of my territory-building game floated to my mind. This had a similar concept, beautifully realized as a chess-like pure strategy … Continue reading »

As part of RyvenCon, the online gaming con, I played a quick game of Freemarket. Freemarket\’s a fascinating system and world, which I honestly had trouble wrapping my brain around. That\’s not a complaint or a suggestion that either system or world are deficient; they\’re just sufficiently unusual for me to feel lost on mechanics and their consequences. Freemarket is set on a space station, in a post-capital society of plenty. Everyone has enough food and clothing. Matter printers … Continue reading »

I want to be a better game player, a better GM, and a better game designer. I’m poor at playing. I just don’t get deeply into my characters, and I don’t remember the system well. I’m a pretty effective GM, I think, but my narrations are often bland and I hesitate often. I don’t prove a smooth play experience. I need exposure to a lot more games to have a sufficiently large toolbox of mechanics to use when designing games. One … Continue reading »