Essays, actual play, theory talk, and general navel-gazing about story-focused roleplaying, aka “indie” games. And trindie. And OSR. If you’re small and scrappy, I want to talk about what you’re doing! If you’re fighting to grow, I want to talk about what you’re doing! Basically if it’s roleplaying (tabletop, freeform, larp, whatevs) and it’s not the monolith of D&D, it’s in my wheelhouse.
One thing this pandemic year is teaching me is the pleasure and necessity of longer-term play. Because the quality of roleplaying has, in my experience, been diminished – playing via video is both lo-fi and exhausting – I try to make up for it with quantity. We’re several months into an Impulse Drive campaign with… Continue reading In It For the Long Haul
Running up to Dreamation 2016, I fell deep, deep down a research hole. I wanted to do an elaborate Burning Wheel scenario for the con, and gosh did I overshoot. It was, well...it was too elaborate for a four hour slot. And I had to spend a lot of time teaching folks how to play… Continue reading Divine Favor (a BW Scenario/Campaign)
I’m going to experiment with something new here: short reviews of things I’ve been reading, once a month. I’m not done with my deep dives! But this will get more information out there about the staggering array of indie titles. It’s also a chance for you to vote on the title you’d most like me… Continue reading Mini Reviews for July 2020: Shinobigami, Hit The Streets, After The War
A cold hard fact from the Indie Game Reading Club: you can explore and play ttrpgs without ever mentioning, buying, reading, or playing the most popular game. Our hobby is so much more interesting and diverse than D&D. My list of on-ramps for the indie-curious: Fiasco (new card-driven version or OG): use prompts to sketch… Continue reading On-Ramps for Indie Hatchlings
My recent interview on the +1 Forward podcast has drawn a lot of new attention to my Prep 2.0 essay, which in turn brought a whole new audience to my Paul's R-Map Method essay. The import tool I used to pull in my Plus content stripped most images from my posts! I've gotten several email… Continue reading Relationship Maps: Updated and Annotated
