Role-playing

Role-players tend to find their “favorite system” and stick with it. While they’re moreopen-minded about other systems than, say, programmers are about languages, they often avoid new systems in favor of the familiar. So, here are 5 role-playingsystems that are worth checking out: Fudge Technically, Fudge is a toolkit for making a system. The basics … Continue reading »

About a year and a half ago, I published two role-playing PDFs, an adventure (War in the Deep) and a sandbox setting (The City of Talon). I’ve posted my earnings-to-date one year ago and six months ago. Here’s what I’ve earned since then: Sales For The Past Six Months (December 2009-May 2010) Product Number of Sales Gross Net War in the Deep 2 $10.00 $6.50 The City of Talon 2 $10.00 $6.50 TOTAL 4 $20.00 $13.00 … Continue reading »

I’ve become interested recently in the topic of role-playing social interactions. In a tabletop RPG, characters often have to talk with enemies as well as short-term antagonists — the arms dealer who’s willing to cut them a deal, the mayor from whom they need permission for an investigation, a boy who doesn’t want to talk. A good example has just come up in my Star Wars Google Wave game; while investigating the disappearance of several Adascorp … Continue reading »

Cracked has an excellent article on 5 Creepy Ways Video Games Are Trying to Get You Addicted. It’s not simple scare-mongering — though there’s certainly a hushed tone of passion in the article — and it sparked some neurons in my brain about mental models and tabletop role-playing. My first GMing experiences were spent with players themselves unfamiliar with tabletop role-playing. We mostly knew each other, and we … Continue reading »

This week, I started a new role-playing game. I’m running it very differently than I run most games. It’s a D&D 4th edition game, created primarily to test out the classes and races in the new third Player’s Handbook. Since I’m already running two other games, which takes up much of my time, I decided to run this game using almost entirely pre-published materials. I bought a dungeon crawl-style adventure … Continue reading »

One primary design goal for Gunwave is simplicity. I want players to be able to pick up the game and start playing very, very quickly — without needing hours to absorb the game’s rules. When I first wrote the Gunwave rule set, its D&D roots showed clearly — each player chose a Race and a … Continue reading »

Not long after D&D 4th Edition appeared, Saalon pointed out during a chat that the basic D&D 4E system would be ideal for an RPG simulating giant robot combat, like Gundam or Robotech. It could emulate the feel of those shows, with rapid action and cool powers. This idea so inspired me that I grabbed … Continue reading »

I subscribe to a bunch of role-playing blogs: Musings of the Chatty DM, NewbieDM, Some Space to Think, At Will, The Core Mechanic, Gnome Stew, Trollsmyth, and others. I first started reading them in late 2008, when they were full of fire about role-playing. D&D 4th Edition had just come out and debates raged about … Continue reading »

About a year ago, I published two role-playing PDFs, an adventure (War in the Deep) and a sandbox setting (The City of Talon). I posted my earnings-to-date six months ago. Here’s what I’ve earned since then: Sales For The Past Six Months (June-November 2009) Product Number of Sales Gross Net War in the Deep 4 $20.00 $13.00 The City of Talon 3 $15.00 $9.75 TOTAL 7 $35.00 $21.75 Sales For The Past Year (November 2008-November … Continue reading »