Neitherworld Stories

January 9, 2012

A game designed for web based play?

When RPGs were created there were some assumptions that were made. They’d be played around a table. Players would have paper and writing implements. You’d be playing with people you know.These weren’t outlandish assumptions. They probably weren’t even conscious. These assumptions led to some very basic game design decisions. Players could roll dice as a randomizer – everyone around the table could...

January 4, 2012

The Dwarves of Kor

In the new game I’m running, Dwarves are weird. Before the refugees settled in Kor, they had no idea how weird. First off, the dwarves who headed to the surface were all young. Dwarves in Kor will live nearly a thousand years. Typically, dwarves spend their young adulthood either in the military, in an apprenticeship, or as an entrepreneur. Adventurers...

January 3, 2012

Kor, Dwarfhome

As mentioned previously, I recently started running a new Pathfinder game. It is set in Kor, an enormous, ancient Dwarven city-state. Kor means “home” in Dwarven. Kor is more than a city. It is nearly a nation into itself. The Open Market – where dwarves trade with outsiders – is itself larger than most human cities were… and it only...

January 2, 2012

New Year, New (for me) Game: Discovering Pathfinder

I’m late to the party, but I recently discovered that Pathfinder is pretty cool. Back in November, I picked up a few of the core Pathfinder books. I hadn’t really looked at the game since the early days of the open playtesting/beta/whatever. I was impressed. Pathfinder isn’t D&D 3.5. I think I assumed it would be D&D with the numbers...

November 22, 2011

The sweet spot: simple, creative, tactical

The resurgence in old-school gaming has highlighted the appeal of simple rpgs that foster creativity. There is a powerful appeal here. Remove the learning curve for the rules, and you can focus on the learning curve for play. Player skill becomes a matter of critical thinking and decision-making rather than rules mastery. (This last bit raises issues of tension between...

November 9, 2011

How Many Stats?

What’s the sweet spot for the number of attributes and skills in an RPG ruleset? Last week, I complained a wee bit about the proliferation of attributes and skills in Eclipse Phase. One of my biggest frustrations with the Dresden Files RPG is how many disconnected social skills it has (Contacts, Deceit, Empathy, Intimidation, Performance, Presence, Rapport… ). Old World...

November 3, 2011

Almost Loving Eclipse Phase

Eclipse Phase is almost a great game. As a rule, I don’t like science fiction games set in space. I just don’t get excited by them. I’m not sure why. I mean, I went to Space Camp when I was a kid. I like space travel. My best guess is that in space games, you’re typically just playing a normal...

August 23, 2011

Open Atrium for Collaborative Campaign Websites

Open Atrium is an online team collaboration tool that’s used for intranets and project management. I’ve recently found that it makes a pretty kick-ass campaign website, as well. Essentially, this is a free (if you have web space), open-source alternative to Obsidian Portal. It is built on the Drupal CMS, so it is extremely extensible. Built in features include: blogging...

August 10, 2011

System Matters… Sometimes too much…

I’m going to be running a Wasterunners campaign for some friends scattered across the country. This is exciting, but it is also a bit frustrating. I have a good idea of the setting, but I don’t have the necessary game mechanics down. I’m a firm believer in the fact that system matters, otherwise I’d just run this in Shadowrun or...

May 29, 2011

Old thoughts on Wraith

My wife is planning on starting up a tabletop Wraith game. Wraith has a bit of a bad reputation, but it is one of my favorite games out there in some ways. Its game mechanics required PCs to care about things. Its setting was rich, and it could handle stories both intensely personal or epic in scope equally well. Unfortunately,...