Recently, esteemed developer John Wick sparked debate over the subject of “game balance” in RPGs, arguing:
In a roleplaying game, game balance does not matter. What matters is spotlight. Making sure each player feels their character had a significant role in the story.
There’s a lot in the broader piece that I agree with, and a lot that I disagree with. Before reading any further, go read Wick’s post over at his blog, otherwise the rest of this post won’t make sense. Continue reading
The War of Ashes beta playtest comes to a close today. Since the beta test began, I’ve run a session of character generation, a two-part adventure, and a one-off game that was essentially just one big combat to try out the new mechanics some more. That’s given me plenty of time to enjoy what I like about the game, but also plenty of time to work out what I think needs work, and even suggest some changes of my own. Continue reading
EDIT: I’ve since written stunt trees for each of six Fighting Approaches, which you can view here. I’ve also removed the option to discover an NPC’s bonuses and penalties (struck through below), for reasons explained in that post.
Last year a friend of mine ran a short Fate Accelerated campaign about the Three Musketeers. Said friend is half-French, and harbours an enthusiasm for the Musketeers that not even my terrible, exaggerated, possibly racist French accent can dent. So it was a great game, with all minimum standards of derring-do and swashbucklery attained. We all agreed to come back to play in another Musketeers campaign at some point, this time using Fate Core, and also characters of our own invention (instead of the Athos/Porthos/Aramis/D’Artagnan line-up of the first game). Continue reading
I’m still doing this #RPGaDay thing! Weeks one and two are out of the way – let’s see what’s left. Continue reading
Well, GenCon is over and I’m back in London. Though the convention ended 48 hours ago, I’ve only had one sleep since then, so I’m pretty much running on fumes. Even so, my last trip to the exhibit hall feels distant indeed. Maybe it’s the speed at which Indianapolis transformed back-to-normal on Monday morning, but GenCon’s already starting to recede into memory. Continue reading
I just sat down for dinner, with dessert, and I’m so tired that my speech is slurred. Which can only mean that GenCon 2014 has come to an end. The unofficial motto of GenCon is “eat, sleep, game: pick two”; I seem to have half-eaten and half-slept over the last four days, which is at least mathematically compliant.
Today was a short day, with events only running for six hours (contrast yesterday, when I was busy 9am to 9pm). Here’s what I got up to: Continue reading
Oh God. It’s late, I’m knackered, and I have to make it through the final day of GenCon tomorrow, but I just had the best day of the convention and have to gush about it a while. Let’s make this short. Continue reading
Now at the halfway point for GenCon and starting to understand how this convention thing works. Today was a day of many seminars, but this was actually the relaxed version, once I realised yesterday that doing everything back-to-back just wasn’t going to work. Here’s what I settled for: Continue reading
The first day of my first ever GenCon is over. Feeling pretty zonked, but still wired enough to give a recap of the fun so far.
So here’s what I did today: Continue reading
Another week, another set of seven #RPGaDay posts to catch up with, this time live from GenCon! Let’s see what we’ve got… Continue reading
Roll Plus Hot 
