Part 9 of the Ferrymen series, a long running home campaign adapting Diaspora to Fate Core.
Here’s my dirty little secret: I had a really good 2020.
Continue readingFerrymen
Existing in 2020
Today’s the day I officially resolved to stop including the phase “regularly blogs” on my resume for freelance writing applications.
Continue readingEnd of 2019
Six months since I last posted! Unlike last time, I’m not going to make the mistake of promising to restart regular blogging again. I should have known better than to tempt fate.
As before, I’ll present evidence of the RPG work I’ve been doing instead of blogging, by way of an apology. Continue reading
Ferrymen: Updated Space Conflicts
Part 8 of the Ferrymen series, a long running home campaign adapting Diaspora to Fate Core.
Last time I hinted that the embellishing of our digital conflict rules in Ferrymen had also coincided with some changes to space conflicts as a whole. These changes were partly made to allow as much compatibility between our different conflict systems as possible. However, the update is also the result of many MANY hours of playtesting the system in our campaign – 71 sessions and counting! – and adapting it to better suit the priorities of what our group wants to focus on with their spaceships (as well as more boring concerns like game balance). Were I to summarise the changes, I’d say they reflect a deviation away from the assumptions inherited from Diaspora, and towards a more streamlined and action-driven focus, with its own hard sci-fi identity. Continue reading
Ferrymen: Digital Conflicts
Part 7 of the Ferrymen series, a long running home campaign adapting Diaspora to Fate Core.
I haven’t blogged much about Ferrymen recently, but it’s always tinkering along in the background. Now entering its 7th – and likely last – year of play, the lead-in to the campaign’s epic finale has ramped up the pace and tension. This year, the crew have gone on trial, been incarcerated for a year, escaped, and now are desperately fleeing the galactic Carthaginian administration that considers them a criminal menace. Continue reading
17 Great Things About Roleplaying in 2017
I think 2017 was a pretty good year, certainly compared to the one before. Here are my 17 highlights from a year with lots and lots of roleplaying games! Continue reading
How to Build Soundtracks for Your Roleplaying Game
I blame Will Hindmarch. It was his article for the Escapist, which I read over six years ago, that set me down this track. It started with a couple of sessions of experimentation, before it became the mantra I always live by. For every game in an RPG campaign I run – and every one-off game, where I can get away with it – I have a soundtrack that plays alongside the game. Continue reading
Ferrymen: Galactic Factions Redux
Part 6 of the Ferrymen series, a long running home campaign adapting Diaspora to Fate Core.
A couple of years ago, I sat down with the players in my ongoing hard sci-fi Fate game Ferrymen, and agreed on a direction that we wanted to take the campaign going forwards. The players all agreed that after thirty-odd sessions of building contacts and making a name for themselves, it was time for their actions to start counting on a galactic political stage. I put together a ruleset for controlling galactic factions and waging political conflicts, which can still be reviewed here.
Since then, we’ve played enough games with those rules in play that I have a good understanding of their limitations. Continue reading
31 Days, 9 Worlds and 1 Dystopian Universe
August is over and normal life is restored. GenCon is already receding into memory. Dragonmeet is pencilled in as my next exciting RPG event, but that’s still a long way away. I’ve got plenty of ways to round off my year in gaming before then.
So what have I been up to since GenCon, and what is coming up? Here’s a round-up. Continue reading
“This Goes Right When…”: Philosophy of Aspect Invocation in Fate
Fate is one of my all-time favourite RPG systems, but after a hundred or so games, there are plenty of things I’ve learned to dislike. Perhaps the thing I dislike about GM’ing it the most is how often you’re required to say “No” to players. There are so many calls to be made in Fate – stunt balance, compel penalties, the legitimacy of invoking an aspect – that the book gives a little guidance for, but mostly leaves for each gaming group to work out on their own. And whilst table consensus is usually the best way to make those calls, the players have a conflict of interest, because they always want their characters to be awesome. That pitches the GM into the position of naysayer, if any semblance of balance is to be preserved.
Antagonistic GM’ing isn’t my thing. I’d far rather manage storytelling collaboratively. So rather than shutting down players with a “No” over and over again, I’d far rather teach them how to get me to say “Yes” – to approach the distinct elements of Fate with the same mindset that I do. That way, everyone is on the same page, which makes telling a story together that much easier. Continue reading
Roll Plus Hot 