Previous Topics
In Actual Play

12/16/2008 Erudite: Awarding Experience or Karma
In every RPG I have played the GM rewards players for their play in the game by giving out some type of merit. In some systems this is experience points…
In Actual Play
Participants: Erudite, Dionysus, Eero Tuovinen, Kevin Smit, The Dragon Master.

12/14/2008 EarthenForge: [Annalise] When "Rome" meets "The Wire"
This is the first installment of an Annalise game. I tried to include some of the game function to a point. I’ll be happy to go into more detail if…
In Actual Play
Participants: EarthenForge, sirogit, Nathan P..

12/13/2008 Rusty: [Zombie Cinema] Survivor
I played a game of Zombie Cinema last night and it was a blast.  There were five players, including the non-roleplayer wife of one of the regular gamers in our…
In Actual Play
Participants: Rusty, Eero Tuovinen.

12/12/2008 5niper9: [Polaris] We finally arrived at tragedy
I noticed that there are very few Polaris Actual Play threads, so here is my part in changing this: Let's first define the group: We're all between 20 and…
In Actual Play
Participants: 5niper9, Artanis, Ben Lehman.

12/9/2008 Rustin: Facilitating Coherent Play and the Shared Agenda
My group recently ended its fourth 4e campaign within the last year or so. I suspect incoherent play caused each attempt to fail. (E.g., People "checking-out" when not spotlighted, lots…
In Actual Play
Participants: Rustin, dindenver, Noon, FredGarber, masqueradeball, Ron Edwards, matthijs, Erudite, Leilond.

12/9/2008 Artanis: [Sorcerer] A Night at the Opera Bizarre
Hey! This is session number three from our on-going Carnival Bizarre game. Last session was about getting involved in the Carnival Bizarre, this session is about taking the bull by…
In Actual Play
Participants: Artanis, Ron Edwards.

12/5/2008 jburneko: System Transforms Situation... And Situation Informs System?
We talk a lot about how System transforms Situation.  What we don’t talk a lot about is how Situation limits or informs our choices about how to employ the System. …
In Actual Play
Participants: jburneko, Marshall Burns, Ron Edwards, Noon, Adrian F., Artanis, davidberg, JoyWriter, GreatWolf, masqueradeball, Caldis.

12/5/2008 ShallowThoughts: From theory to practice - GNS, CA, SIS, etc.
Hello folks, I'm interested in becoming better acquainted with the theories of the Forge, and as such would like to hear about the results of peoples' attempts to incorporate these…
In Actual Play
Participants: ShallowThoughts, Eero Tuovinen, Ron Edwards, davidberg, Caldis.

12/3/2008 David C: Games with Gamist Resolution?
I received this private message from chance.thirteen the other day, and I asked him if we could move it this discussion to the forum itself.  Hi, Sorry to message out…
In Actual Play
Participants: David C, FredGarber, David Artman, chance.thirteen, Ron Edwards.

12/2/2008 Big J Money: [D&D 4E] Basic Understanding Of Roleplaying This Character
This one will be quick.  I was the DM in our D&D Adventure last week; we're "running through" the first published adventure to get acclimated with the system and decide…
In Actual Play
Participants: Big J Money, gsoylent, Ron Edwards, Melinglor, Noon, greyorm, Frank Tarcikowski, NN, masqueradeball, JoyWriter, mcv, Bercilac.

12/1/2008 Evlyn: Prepping for a (WoD1) sandbox.
Hello, I am prepping for a old World of Darkness play by forum. I want to play the game in a sandbox. I have re-read the "sandbox adventures" thread and…
In Actual Play
Participants: Evlyn, Frank Tarcikowski, Ron Edwards.

11/27/2008 Markus: [Trollbabe] I GMed Trollbabe a couple of dozens times... and I really liked it.
At long last I found the time to write this AP report! I drafted it several times in my head before actually sitting down to write it, and this helped…
In Actual Play
Participants: Markus, Ron Edwards, droog, Noon, Domon.

11/27/2008 Dionysus: I come on bended knee, seeking help.
Howdy all. I'm here on bended kneee seeking help. Like the title says, I need to move away from crunch, and need some advise on how to persuade my group…
In Actual Play
Participants: Dionysus, James_Nostack.

11/27/2008 Ron Edwards: [Legends of Alyria] The quiet and unquiet dead
Hi everyone, Perhaps you do not know about Seth Ben-Ezra's fantasy/SF setting, Alyria. Imagine any standard fantasy map like you'd see in some mass-market novel - continents, shores, seas. Now…
In Actual Play
Participants: Ron Edwards, GreatWolf, greyorm, JoyWriter, jrs, daMoose_Neo, Noon.

11/26/2008 Bret Gillan: [Trollbabe] Save the Young Man! and wrestling with Scale
Related Thread: Making the Trollbabes First Trollbabe session! My living room was absolutely freezing and I had a migraine. Not the best way to start but after two cancellations…
In Actual Play
Participants: Bret Gillan, Brand_Robins, Ron Edwards, ieatwithgusto, Markus.

11/23/2008 Lord Goon: Pantheon and Universalis (split)
Have you ever tried PANTHEON?
In Actual Play
Participants: Lord Goon, Ron Edwards.

11/22/2008 Paka: Sorcerer Sci-fi: Demons of Mercury
I've got a bunch of Sorcerer setting ideas that I want to tinker with and this latest, set a few hundred years in the future, in a recently colonized solar…
In Actual Play
Participants: Paka, Ron Edwards, Marshall Burns, davidberg.

11/22/2008 Ron Edwards: [3:16] Semi-Captain, Lt.-Captain, almost-Captain on deck, sir!
Hello, I'm continuing the details of our game here; you can read about the first two sessions at Way Too Easy Or Just Got the Rules Wrong? in the…
In Actual Play
Participants: Ron Edwards, GreatWolf, Tim C Koppang, Chris W, greyorm, Gregor Hutton, Wolfen, Noon, Eero Tuovinen.

11/22/2008 Melinglor: [Sorcerer] Cascadiapunk post-mortem
So my Sorcerer game is dead. We only managed a handful of sessions, separated by delays of up to a month at a time, and in short never gained sufficient…
In Actual Play
Participants: Melinglor, JoyWriter, Ron Edwards, davidberg.

11/22/2008 mrlost: How do you coax individualist players out of a self-centered mindset...
...and into a collaborative one. I'm sure this must have come up before but I haven't had luck finding it. I've started running games for some friends after a long…
In Actual Play
Participants: mrlost, Ron Edwards, Eero Tuovinen, RedFox.

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Subsequent Topics
In Actual Play

12/19/2008 madviking: [Poison'd] First session: The Treachery of Bloody Ben
Actual Play - Poison'd December 18, 2008 We played our first proper session of Poison'd last night. It was very successful, and everyone really enjoyed it. We did not have…
In Actual Play
Participants: madviking.

12/28/2008 Luy22: My experiances.
(Not sure if I should be posting this here, but...) Games I've played... Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 ED. Dark Heresy Vampire: The Masquerade Shadowrun Wanderer (An RPG my friend had…
In Actual Play
Participants: Luy22, Ron Edwards, Erudite.

12/29/2008 Rustin: Post Pre-Play Uncertainty
I could still use some more advice.  Related discussion here. My group met yesterday. We offered examples of play we enjoyed.  I tried my best to facilitate, but it is…
In Actual Play
Participants: Rustin, jburneko, Paul T, Melinglor.

1/1/2009 Wolfen: Low-Prep/No-Prep Play
This thread is continuing a discussion from here First, I'd like to provide a basis for where I'm coming from. My preferred playstyle is long-form closed-form gaming. I want the…
In Actual Play
Participants: Wolfen, manatic, gsoylent, Noon, contracycle.

1/2/2009 Alex Abate: [AD&D 2e] {Preplay} Preparing a simulationist AD&D game.
Greetings to all! While I am not new here, I might as well be. I simply didn't stick around before. I have, however, finally started to read the many essays…
In Actual Play
Participants: Alex Abate, Chris_Chinn, Rustin.

1/3/2009 Patrice: Is actual RP in MMORPGs another next impossible thing?
I've read Dan's original post upon MMORPGs and P&PRPGs and have set my mind upon posting there in order to give account, and open discussion upon what was a major…
In Actual Play
Participants: Patrice, Noon, gsoylent, Caldis, Rafu, Wolfen, ShallowThoughts, Greymorn, Adam Dray, FredGarber.

1/6/2009 xenopulse: [Sorcerer] Berkeley 1968
I ran Sorcerer for the first time last night with my mostly-regular group consisting of Colin, David, and Matt. This comes on the heels of a whole season of Primetime…
In Actual Play
Participants: xenopulse, Ron Edwards, Christopher Kubasik, jburneko.

1/8/2009 sirogit: [Annalise] Needless Space Violence
So I started first session of playing Annalise. Its a game I looked forward to for quite awhile as 'game-to-play-with-my-girlfriend' as its about vampires and she's into that and I'm…
In Actual Play
Participants: sirogit, GreatWolf, Nathan P..

1/10/2009 5niper9: [IAWA] The beginning of the end
Yesterday we played the first chapter of In a wicked Age. There were just the three of us: Jan, whom I've played a lot of indie games with in 2008…
In Actual Play
Participants: 5niper9, lumpley.

1/12/2009 The Magus: Advice wanted on internet RPGing
Sorry if this is not the right place for this but here goes anyway... I've just got back into RPGing after many moons away and wanted to hear about forum…
In Actual Play
Participants: The Magus, Ron Edwards, Filip Luszczyk, thelevitator.

1/14/2009 Noon: Character first Vs Problem first
I've been working on a computer game and I was groping for this post apocalyptic world, where it's very dangerous and at a base, you live a pretty nasty and…
In Actual Play
Participants: Noon, JoyWriter, FredGarber.

1/15/2009 davidberg: [Out There] first episode: were-cat X-Files in 1800s Boston
[i]Out There[/i] is an RPG that delivers TV-style investigative drama (think X-Files, House, Monk).  I co-created this in a very short time as part of a [url=http://www.story-games.com/forums/comments.php?DiscussionID=8258&page=1#Item_0]contest[/url], and am selling…
In Actual Play
Participants: davidberg.

1/21/2009 greyorm: [Sorcerer] The Cold and Bloody Northland
By which I mean the present-day Iron Range of Minnesota, not some lost Viking fantasy land of yore, though you'd expect that from me. This is honestly becoming something of…
In Actual Play
Participants: greyorm, Ron Edwards, jburneko, Noon.

1/21/2009 jasin: [IaWA] First try!
Hi everyone, first post and first try at IaWA... The players almost unanimously chose Blood & Sex. We got: ... A monastery and its associated shrines, each to its own…
In Actual Play
Participants: jasin, lumpley, Ouroboros, Noclue.

1/25/2009 Alex Abate: Trying to understand where color stops and system begins
Hello there people! I am writing again, this time about my efforts to understand the Big Model, applying it to some past experiences in RPGs. More specifically, I am trying…
In Actual Play
Participants: Alex Abate, Noon, Ron Edwards, FredGarber.

1/25/2009 Sam!: [BtI] Sealed lips, chained heart
[b]Disclaimer[/b] I don’t have any proper questions going with my post, I just want to share how awesome session I just had. And maybe my stuff is helpful to someone…
In Actual Play
Participants: Sam!, Eero Tuovinen, Emily Care.

1/27/2009 Christopher Kubasik: [Sorcerer] Traveller: Holy War
We had our third session of our game set in the universe of Classic Traveller Sunday night.  (You can check out tons of material about Traveller and the Classic Traveller…
In Actual Play
Participants: Christopher Kubasik, jburneko, Noon, AnyaTheBlue, Alan, Ron Edwards.

1/30/2009 droog: Trollbabe: a seven-yr-old GMs
I've written before about playing TB with my daughter. We have played a few times since, and something happened that I'd like to record. Jemima started to ask me about…
In Actual Play
Participants: droog, Arturo G., Noon, Eero Tuovinen, Wolfen, Paul T, JoyWriter.

2/1/2009 5niper9: [Capes] Another group, another chance
Hi there, first let me say that I'm a big fan of the principle behind the capes mechanics: More spotlight time for people that are entertaining to the group. There…
In Actual Play
Participants: 5niper9.

2/1/2009 James_Nostack: [Steal Away Jordan] Slaves on Recess
January 31 was Recess, a mini-con for the Nerd NYC crowed.  Matt "Deliverator" W. was good enough to run Steal Away Jordan, which I'd been curious about for a long…
In Actual Play
Participants: James_Nostack.

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