Previous Topics

10/22/2004 John Harper: Techniques for driving conflict in a scene
One of the jobs of the Producer in PTA is to drive the action of the a scene towards conflict. How do you do this? I'd like this thread to…
In Dog Eared Designs
Participants: John Harper, Alan, Matt Wilson.

9/16/2004 John Harper: PTA Shows: Elevator Pitch Time
So, we all know that show creation is a group process for PTA. But it's a good idea to arrive at the planning session with a couple of basic "elevator…
In Dog Eared Designs
Participants: John Harper, Tobias, Matt Wilson, Ron Edwards, Ben Lehman, joshua neff.

6/30/2004 John Harper: [Danger Patrol] Conflict Resolution with Cards
Lately I've been toying with a conflict resolution system for my retro-sci-fi game Danger Patrol, and I figure it's time to give the Forge a crack at it. Specific questions:…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: John Harper, TonyLB, The Fiendish Dr. Samsara, Matt Wilson, Valamir, TnT, W Alexander.

2/13/2004 John Harper: House Rule: Arm Hits
I'm interested in a house rule that will result in more hits to the arms. In my experience in Kendo and Aikido, the arms tend to be in the way…
In The Riddle of Steel
Participants: John Harper, Lxndr, toli, Jake Norwood, timfire, gregkcubed, Ingenious, Salamander, Jaeger, Gideon13, Edge, kenjib, Brian Leybourne, Wolfen, Poleaxe.

2/1/2004 John Harper: The UniPool -- It's Universalis! It's The Pool! It's both!
I started this thread over in the Random Order Creations forum, but I figure it's just as applicable here. If any Uni folks wanna jump in, here it is: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=9558…
In Universalis
Participants: John Harper.

1/31/2004 John Harper: UniPool -- Its Universalis! It's The Pool! It's both!
[b]UniPool[/b] Universalis meets The Pool Each player gets a stack of 10 coins at the start of each session. Any coins left over from a previous session are lost. These…
In Random Order Creations
Participants: John Harper, HMT, Alan, James V. West, Bob McNamee.

1/12/2004 John Harper: [Pool variant] The Poodle
We just started a new game series (set in Joss Whedon's Firefly universe) and we're using a Pool variant that I developed. It's working pretty well, so I thought I…
In Random Order Creations
Participants: John Harper, Matt Wilson, Cassidy, James V. West, Mike Holmes.

10/21/2003 John Harper: Dice Mechanic: Trading Narration
I came up with a little dice mechanic today, and now I'm starting to think that maybe I didn't invent it after all. I think the odds are good that…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: John Harper, Ron Edwards, Mike Holmes.

10/20/2003 John Harper: PTA Bridgewater
[b]Primetime Adventures: Bridgewater[/b] My friend Matt Wilson has written a wonderful roleplaying game called Primetime Adventures. Perhaps you've heard of it around the Forge. It's in the late playtesting stages…
In Actual Play
Participants: John Harper, Meredith, hix, Matt Wilson.

8/7/2003 John Harper: New Indie RPG Desktop: MLwM
I finally got around to doing a desktop image for My Life with Master, and I think it turned out rather well if I do say so myself. You can…
In Half Meme Press
Participants: John Harper, Jason L Blair, Paul Czege, Clinton R. Nixon, iago.

7/17/2003 John Harper: Adding traits, control, and other rules questions
Hello, We're playing Universalis like gangbusters over here in Seattle. I have a game that meets every Tuesday, and we usualy have 5-7 players each time. It's a total blast.…
In Universalis
Participants: John Harper, Valamir, Mike Holmes, Andrew Martin.

6/5/2003 John Harper: [Universalis] Foxy Noir
We had one of our best Universalis games yet last night. "I want to play noir," quickly turned into a funkadelic detective story on the streets of New Orleans in…
In Actual Play
Participants: John Harper, Mike Holmes, Valamir, Bob McNamee.

5/14/2003 John Harper: Ancient Greece Uni stories
Bob's posts about Trollbabe Demigods reminded me that I haven't posted the write-ups of my first few Uni games here in the forum. I'm hosting a come-one-come-all Uni game every…
In Universalis
Participants: John Harper, Valamir, Mike Holmes.

4/23/2003 John Harper: Trollbabe Desktop: Who ordered the cheesecake?
Take one naked woman, a big horn sheep, and a website for ren-fair accessories and what do you get? No, not that you sick monkey! You get the Trollbabe Desktop…
In Adept Press
Participants: John Harper, Clinton R. Nixon, Spooky Fanboy, Mike Holmes, greyorm, jrs, Nev the Deranged, Solomon.

4/21/2003 John Harper: Paladin Fan Art
I've been inspired lately to do some fan art pieces for the indie RPG community, starting with my take on the core "image" for a few different games. After doing…
In CRN Games
Participants: John Harper, Ben Morgan, Clinton R. Nixon, Jonathan Walton, J. Backman, Jared A. Sorensen, Andrew Ciotti, rafial, ejh, tetsujin28, joshua neff.

4/19/2003 John Harper: Sorcerer fan art
I recently put together an entry for the Universalis art contest, and then decided to do a few more pieces in that style, starting with my take on the covers…
In Adept Press
Participants: John Harper, Spooky Fanboy, Ron Edwards, greyorm, Fabrice G..

4/16/2003 John Harper: Rolling gobs of dice... yet another alternative
I'm developing a system for an upcoming game project (Danger Patrol) and it sometimes calls for great handfuls of dice to be rolled, much like Donjon can. My "solution" is…
In CRN Games
Participants: John Harper, Clinton R. Nixon, Spooky Fanboy, ethan_greer, Valamir, Rich Forest, Russell, Michael S. Miller, Bailywolf, Jason, Mike Holmes.

3/1/2003 John Harper: Coil: I'm writing a Sorcerer novel, and I didn't know it
So, I finally got around to buying and reading Sorcerer today. I know, I know... I have no excuse. I guess I put it off for so long because I…
In Adept Press
Participants: John Harper, Nev the Deranged, Ron Edwards, DaR.

2/19/2003 John Harper: Donjon Buffy
As I mentioned in the Serious Donjon thread, I'm going to be running Buffy using the Donjon system. I made a character sheet for the game that you can grab…
In CRN Games
Participants: John Harper, Bailywolf, Russell, Wulf.

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Subsequent Topics

7/25/2005 John Harper: [Stranger Things] Social Rolls
So, I'm busy working on Stranger Things (the used-to-be Trollbabe mini-supplement now turned full stand-alone game "inspired by Trollbabe" -- thanks to Ron's kind indulgence) and I've come to the…
In Adept Press
Participants: John Harper, Clinton R. Nixon, Ron Edwards, Bankuei, demiurgeastaroth.

8/3/2005 John Harper: Welcome to the playtest forum for Stranger Things
This is a hidden forum right now, so we can conduct some focused playtesting and discussion with a few select people. The forum will become public after the game is…
In Stranger Things Playtest Forum
Participants: John Harper, ricmadeira, tonyd, Bankuei, Adam Black, ejh, philaros, Clinton R. Nixon, RogerT.

8/4/2005 John Harper: Stranger Things PDF - OLD VERSION: OUT OF DATE -
The current draft of the game is available here: http://www.onesevendesign.com/strangerthings/strangerthings_draft_0804.zip There are still lots of chunks missing, and a page that still refers to the Trollbabe rules. But it's very,…
In Stranger Things Playtest Forum
Participants: John Harper.

8/4/2005 John Harper: I'm a playtester! What do I do?
First, get the current playtest PDF. There's a topic in this forum with a link to the most recent draft. Second, read it. Third, get your group together to play.…
In Stranger Things Playtest Forum
Participants: John Harper.

8/5/2005 John Harper: Injury, Re-rolls, and Rewards
Here's a crazy idea I had about Injury and related systems. First, the basic system: When you fail a RE-ROLL, you mark a Hurt box. The boxes look like this:…
In Stranger Things Playtest Forum
Participants: John Harper, Clinton R. Nixon, demiurgeastaroth, Matt Wilson.

8/7/2005 John Harper: Stranger Things DRAFT 8/6/05
Here's the new draft of the game. I changed the Injury system back to a more Trollbabe-like method. I also added the Relationships section and cleaned up the text in…
In Stranger Things Playtest Forum
Participants: John Harper, demiurgeastaroth.

8/8/2005 John Harper: Character Sheet (temp)
This won't be the final design, but a practical character sheet can be found here: http://www.onesevendesign.com/strangerthings/st_character_sheet.pdf Sorry it's too late for some of your first playtest games, but I'm sure…
In Stranger Things Playtest Forum
Participants: John Harper, rafial.

8/8/2005 John Harper: Who is Playtesting?
I ran a game yesterday for Phil, Tony, and Wilhelm. It was a lot of fun. I'm hoping to convince Wil to write it up in Actual Play. :) There's…
In Stranger Things Playtest Forum
Participants: John Harper, Adam Black, demiurgeastaroth, Bankuei, jporrett, ricmadeira, Clinton R. Nixon, rafial, Rossum, Jake Richmond, RogerT.

8/16/2005 John Harper: Ghosts
Here's a bit of new text from the book, regarding what happens to dead relationships: Consequences Relationships can be damaging to the people involved. If a re-roll based on a…
In Stranger Things Playtest Forum
Participants: John Harper, rafial, Clinton R. Nixon, Bankuei, philaros, tonyd, Matt Wilson.

9/7/2005 John Harper: Medical attention, GM throws the conflict
So, tonight we finished up the second session of our Dogs game. Something came up that isn't mentioned in the rules. I'm running the game. After a very nasty conflict…
In lumpley games
Participants: John Harper, StalkingBlue, GB Steve, ADamnFox, Technocrat13, lumpley, Ron Edwards, Paka, DamienNeil, Bankuei, Judaicdiablo.

9/8/2005 John Harper: [Dogs] Wolves of the North
We finally got to play Dogs in the Vineyard. Or, more accurately, "Wolves of the North." I was GM. Tony, Phil, and Brandon were the players. For various reasons, we…
In Actual Play
Participants: John Harper, tonyd, Paka, Judaicdiablo, Technocrat13, jasonm, lumpley, Meguey, greyorm, Sydney Freedberg, Falc, Vaxalon, Nev the Deranged, philaros, demiurgeastaroth.

2/2/2006 John Harper: Alive and Well
Hello Faithful ST Fans, I just want to let you know that Stranger Things is alive and well (for those of you who aren't keeping up with the blogsphere). The…
In Stranger Things Playtest Forum
Participants: John Harper.

3/29/2006 John Harper: [TSOY] Freebooters
[b]TSOY: Freebooters[/b] I just ran a one-shot (sort of playtest) for a TSOY-engine-driven thing I'm calling [b]Freebooters[/b]. Freebooters is set in the same "gaslight, magic, flintlocks, and steel" world as…
In Actual Play
Participants: John Harper, Anders, jasonm, Clinton R. Nixon, rafial, Andrew Craig, khelek, Chris Gardiner, philaros.

4/5/2006 John Harper: Come as you are: The Revenge!
Same as always: Film. Book. Game. Your last of each. Aw heck, I'll add a new one: Good Meal and/or Drink. Film: V for Vendetta (excellent) Book: Latro in the…
In Forge Birthday Forum
Participants: John Harper, joshua neff, talysman, Troy_Costisick, Jeph, Paka, Ron Edwards, Eric J-D, Matt Snyder, Matt Wilson, Andy Kitkowski, Keith Senkowski, Melinglor, LordSmerf, Dav, Clinton R. Nixon, Ben Lehman, Nathan P., Peter Nordstrand, J. Tuomas Harviainen, dindenver, pells, droog, rafial, matthijs, Graham Walmsley, ( o Y o ), Marhault, devilbunny, Gaerik, Iskander, Thunder_God, Thor Olavsrud, Kesher, Chris Goodwin, GreatWolf, jasonm, ScottM, Jonathan Hastings, Alex Fradera, Paul Czege, Bryan Hansel, Calithena, jrs, ErrathofKosh.

4/12/2006 John Harper: Nine Worlds NPC tracker sheet
I may be running Nine Worlds soon, so I made myself an NPC tracker sheet. I figured you folks might find a use for it, too. http://www.onesevendesign.com/9w/9w_npcsheet.pdf (105KB) It has…
In Chimera Creative
Participants: John Harper, Matt Snyder.

4/14/2006 John Harper: [Nine Worlds] Forge Midwest
I finally got the chance to play Nine Worlds at Forge Midwest. Matt Snyder ran the session, with Paul Tevis, Paul Czege, Danielle, and myself as players. It was lots…
In Actual Play
Participants: John Harper, Matt Wilson.

4/17/2006 John Harper: Thinking about Metamorphosis
So, I'm thinking about Nine Worlds in preparation for starting a series this Sunday, and I think Metamorphosis is kind of a problem. When I played 9W at Forge Midwest,…
In Chimera Creative
Participants: John Harper, Vaxalon, coffeestain, Matt Snyder, Paul Czege, Ben Lehman, Iskander, Ron Edwards.

4/19/2006 John Harper: Greek Names PDF
Here's another resource I put together for my upcoming Nine Worlds game: a large collection of Greek names, male and female. You can grab the PDF here: http://www.onesevendesign.com/9w/greeknames.pdf
In Chimera Creative
Participants: John Harper, jporrett.

4/21/2006 John Harper: Timing actions: Burning Muse points and restoring Arete/Hubris
This is a question of action sequence. I don't think the rules specify anything here, so I'll throw it out for general discussion. Let's say my Archon gets womped by…
In Chimera Creative
Participants: John Harper, Vaxalon.

5/13/2006 John Harper: [TSOY] Shodan Play
Ron has mentioned "black belt" play before, and we got a good taste of it in our last TSOY session, courtesy of Brandon. I'm calling this shodan rank play --…
In Actual Play
Participants: John Harper, Judaicdiablo, r_donato, Albert of Feh.

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