Previous Topics

11/19/2005 TonyLB: Popping the stack
The title's computer terminology.  If it boggles you, ignore it.  The question's straightforward, I think.  Here's the example. PC#1:  And so it was that I bopped the demon on the…
In These Are Our Games
Participants: TonyLB, Blankshield, Ben Lehman, demiurgeastaroth, Iskander, boredoom.

11/11/2005 TonyLB: Preparation as fuel for Story
So I've been thinking about the connection between GM-preparation (whether classic "what's gonna happen" or more (to my mind) useful preparation schemes like Sorceror or DitV) and its function in…
In RPG Theory
Participants: TonyLB, Joshua BishopRoby, Paka, Noon, WhiteRat, Marco, Alan.

11/3/2005 TonyLB: [VoB] Point Grace
This is a "town" for the proposed Vineyard of Blood variation, running vampire stories under DitV rules.  I envision Point Grace as a coastal urban center, with museums, subways, scuzzy…
In lumpley games
Participants: TonyLB, Aman the Rejected, Danny_K.

11/2/2005 TonyLB: Vineyard of Blood
Over here on RPG.Net AndyK pointed out some similarities between DitV's Commencement mechanics and Vampire 1st ed.'s Embrace scene, and it got me thinkin'.  Vampire protagonists (at least in the…
In lumpley games
Participants: TonyLB, Vaxalon, demiurgeastaroth, dunlaing, Sydney Freedberg, Neal, Frank T, Danny_K, Mark Woodhouse, Bret Gillan.

11/1/2005 TonyLB: Capes Tournament?
So I'm trying to figure out something special and nifty to do with Capes at Dreamation 2006 ... specifically, something that will let more than four people play in a…
In Muse of Fire Games
Participants: TonyLB, Vaxalon, dunlaing, Bret Gillan, Hans, Andrew Morris, Paka, Sydney Freedberg, Gaerik.

10/10/2005 TonyLB: How story evolves over time
Let's examine the most bog-standard story-prep imaginable:  A GM says "Okay, they'll come into town and the Mayor will tell them that his daughter has been captured.  Then they'll go…
In RPG Theory
Participants: TonyLB, Troy_Costisick, Sean, timfire, MatrixGamer, LordSmerf, Andrew Norris, Doug Ruff, pells, Sydney Freedberg, Noon, Rob Carriere, Mike Holmes, contracycle, pasoliati, Joshua BishopRoby, M. J. Young.

9/30/2005 TonyLB: Review up at RPG.Net
Is this your first public review?
In Incarnadine Press
Participants: TonyLB, Spooky Fanboy, Michael S. Miller.

9/30/2005 TonyLB: [Misery Bubblegum] What Truths matter?
I've been trying to codify the thoughts discussed in Opinion and Truth.  The problem I'm hitting is that "Truth" is such a wide category that it's almost impossible to get…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: TonyLB, 1of3, Joshua BishopRoby.

9/26/2005 TonyLB: [Misery Bubblegum] Opinion and Truth
I sum up my concern in the Hogwarts 90210 Actual Play thread.  Super-executive summary:  It's more fun for someone to have an opinion ("Sydney's a double agent") than for them…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: TonyLB, LordSmerf, Doug Ruff, 1of3, Sydney Freedberg, Graham Walmsley, Shawn De Arment, Joshua BishopRoby.

9/26/2005 TonyLB: [Misery Bubblegum] Hogwarts 90210
So at the NoVa Forge meetup yesterday we managed to get through the second-ever playtest of Misery Bubblegum.  It's improved.  It merely confused people horribly, rather than actively reaching out…
In Actual Play
Participants: TonyLB, Joshua BishopRoby, Miskatonic, Vaxalon, talysman, Frank T, daMoose_Neo, Sydney Freedberg.

9/19/2005 TonyLB: Orthogonal Preparation
So I love the town creation setup in Dogs in the Vineyard, because it lets me know exactly what to do while preparing.  It's a structure for preparation.  That rocks.…
In RPG Theory
Participants: TonyLB, Joshua BishopRoby, nikola, Emily Care, Sydney Freedberg, TonyPace.

9/16/2005 TonyLB: [PtA] Untitled/Bootleggers: Too well created series
I had a fascinating first time as Producer in Primetime Adventures.  The gory details I wrote up here in an RPG.net post (since they totally need more exposure to PtA…
In Actual Play
Participants: TonyLB, John Harper, Sydney Freedberg, Nathan P., Frank T.

9/9/2005 TonyLB: Have I got the math of the economy right?
It seems to me that, since the producer only gets back half of spent fan-mail as more budget, there is a statistically finite amount of budget available for an episode. …
In Dog Eared Designs
Participants: TonyLB, dyjoots, Matt Wilson, Ron Edwards, Yokiboy, demiurgeastaroth.

9/8/2005 TonyLB: Why should player's support their characters?
[i][ Okay, I am arrogant enough to think that what follows is a whole separate topic from [url=http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=16750.0]Advantages/Disadvantages[/url].  They are clearly linked, in mindset if nothing else, but they seem…
In RPG Theory
Participants: TonyLB, Joshua BishopRoby, Troy_Costisick, Ben Lehman, Gordon C. Landis, timfire, Noon, lumpley, Emily Care, xenopulse, demiurgeastaroth, cruciel, Kynn.

9/8/2005 TonyLB: Advantage/Disadvantage: What does the divide tell us?
Characters in many games have clear-cut advantages and disadvantages.  The way games treat these is becoming a source of fascination for me. I was raised (as a gamer) in Champions. …
In RPG Theory
Participants: TonyLB, Technocrat13, c, Joshua BishopRoby, Noon, Tony Irwin.

9/5/2005 TonyLB: Cold-contacting game stores
I have two nice gaming stores in my extended travel range.  They're certainly not close enough for me to drop by on a whim (about an hour travel to either),…
In Publishing
Participants: TonyLB, smokewolf, Bob Goat, Paul Czege, daMoose_Neo, MatrixGamer, LloydBrown, guildofblades, HinterWelt.

8/31/2005 TonyLB: IIEE and Karma Resolution
A discussion over on the Muse of Fire boards got me thinking pretty seriously about IIEE, and where it applies.  I reference threads:  the four steps of action, What is…
In RPG Theory
Participants: TonyLB, Ron Edwards, Noon, cruciel, Vaxalon, Gaerik, ewilen, Joshua BishopRoby, John Kim.

8/26/2005 TonyLB: [Misery Bubblegum] Delayed Gratification
So, Past versions of the system have had a lot of... y'know... stuff attached to them.  Time to get back to core principles.  Thankfully, GenCon gave me plenty to think…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: TonyLB, StrongBadMun, Sydney Freedberg, Eero Tuovinen, LordSmerf.

8/24/2005 TonyLB: Who's your Pep-Squad?
So I was chatting with Andrew Cooper at GenCon, and we were talking about how Capes falls apart if nobody brings the excitement to the table.  It's like people come…
In RPG Theory
Participants: TonyLB, Ron Edwards, Gaerik, Miskatonic, Technocrat13, J. Tuomas Harviainen, Joshua BishopRoby, Noon, c, Meguey.

8/23/2005 TonyLB: [Dreamation '06] Lessons of GenCon
[Keanu][color=Navy]Whoa![/color][/Keanu] Manning the Forge GenCon booth this year (for my first time) was one hell of an eye opener.  I thought we (for which read "I") were doing a solid…
In Conventions
Participants: TonyLB, Rob Donoghue, Helvetian, Ron Edwards.

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Subsequent Topics

11/30/2005 TonyLB: Polaris-by-post
DannyK is too classy to cross-post his recruitment thread here where it would do the most good.  But I'm not.  I've been accused of many things, but an excess of…
In These Are Our Games
Participants: TonyLB, Ben Lehman.

12/2/2005 TonyLB: Hey, that's -my- conflict!
I was playing a Stargate SG-1 derived setting in a FATE-derived ruleset, with my buds Danny (GMing), Jen, Eric, Melissa and Delenn.  Nice folks.  Not all on the same page…
In Actual Play
Participants: TonyLB, Andrew Morris, Joshua BishopRoby, Mike Holmes, Brand_Robins, John Kim, Noon, sirogit, Supplanter, Mark Woodhouse, spaceanddeath, Bankuei, contracycle.

12/4/2005 TonyLB: Misery Bubblegum - Monster Manual for Conflict Resolution
So I had this little flash, reading Darcy post here about wanting a Monster Manual of typical adversaries.  My game should have this, and it doesn't even have combat rules.…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: TonyLB, Joshua BishopRoby, Sydney Freedberg, FlameLover, Levi Kornelsen, joepub, Calithena, Arcadian.

12/9/2005 TonyLB: [Misery Bubblegum] If you REALLY loved me ....
In Misery Bubblegum:  Monster Manual for Conflict Resolution, we were searching for ways to connect the desires and actions of one person to the desires and goals of another, and…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: TonyLB, Joshua BishopRoby, LordSmerf, dunlaing, joepub, MatrixGamer, Mark Woodhouse, Sydney Freedberg, dindenver.

12/12/2005 TonyLB: [Capes] Learning about Character Integrity
How to describe this:  Our group of spotlight characters has completed the process of totally fragmenting.  Of six characters who were originally a cohesive team, there are now no clusters…
In Actual Play
Participants: TonyLB, Arpie, C. Edwards, Paka, Kintara, dunlaing, Joshua BishopRoby, Brand_Robins, Graham Walmsley, Sydney Freedberg.

12/19/2005 TonyLB: Sussing out details of an Actual Play post
I had to pull out this rules-discussion from an actual play post, because Actual Play is not the right place for me to be doing detailed rules tutelage, given that…
In Muse of Fire Games
Participants: TonyLB, Arpie.

12/19/2005 TonyLB: [Amber] Why won't you let me set stakes?
I'm taking Paka's advice to put the question of "What are stakes?  What is risk?  Does it imply gambling?" into the context of my own experiences with folks who couldn't…
In Actual Play
Participants: TonyLB, C. Edwards, Marhault, Supplanter, Joshua BishopRoby, Brand_Robins, Mark Woodhouse, Mikko Lehtinen, Noon, Andy Kitkowski, Bankuei, William Burke, Gaerik, Blankshield, Thor Olavsrud, Unco Lober, Storn.

1/31/2006 TonyLB: [Dreamation: Capes] Eyes on the prize
So I ran a tournament of Capes.  Formulae for victory, and how to earn points, and all that jazz.  Winner got a shiny new folder of sticky click-and-lock modules.  I…
In Actual Play
Participants: TonyLB, Andrew Morris, Bret Gillan, Matthew Glover, Zamiel.

2/2/2006 TonyLB: New Product: Click and Lock Folder
Y'know, there's not really a lot else to say.  You can look at the product here.  It's basically a way to spend some money and have all the power of…
In Muse of Fire Games
Participants: TonyLB, dunlaing, Zamiel, Doc Blue, Bankuei, Andrew Morris, demiurgeastaroth.

2/6/2006 TonyLB: [PTA: Bountiful] All you need is Stakes
So Eric (TheCzech) got Sydney, Jennifer and I together to run a season of PTA.  Excellent!  And we made this mutant cross-breed of Firefly (Sydney), Neverwhere (Jen) and Cowboy Bebop…
In Actual Play
Participants: TonyLB, Glendower, Sydney Freedberg, Rob Donoghue, Paka.

2/9/2006 TonyLB: [Misery Bubblegum] Stakes Resolution
Okay, first check out this actual play thread where I talk hazily about the prospect of using mechanics to set stakes, rather than to resolve them.  This is my first…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: TonyLB, Andrew Morris, Joshua BishopRoby, Bryan Hansel, Sydney Freedberg.

2/22/2006 TonyLB: [PTA] Food, food, food
So we played PTA last night (the penultimate session in our very successful Bountiful season).  But the game, as such, isn't what I want to talk about. Sydney had to…
In Actual Play
Participants: TonyLB, jasonm, Eero Tuovinen, Glendower, Sydney Freedberg, jrs, Technocrat13, TheCzech, Noon, Meguey.

2/24/2006 TonyLB: [Misery Bubblegum] Power 19, Ranma 1/2, veto-based character
Okay, a few things:  First, I don't think I've ever clearly done the Power 19, and they rock on toast, so .... 1) What is your game about?  Teenagers, constantly…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: TonyLB, Joshua BishopRoby, 1of3, Troy_Costisick, c.

3/2/2006 TonyLB: [Misery Bubblegum] Some traditions are FUN!
Hey!  A Misery Bubblegum playtest where we actually got to finish a story-line and get through the evening with the rules pretty much working-as-roleplaying (if not working to the extent…
In Playtesting
Participants: TonyLB, Noon.

3/3/2006 TonyLB: [Misery Bubblegum] Stakes, but FAST
I established this Stakes-resolution system for Misery Bubblegum.  Then I Playtested it and found that the other bits of the system (which work in smaller, more manageable increments that build…
In Playtesting
Participants: TonyLB, Ben Lehman, TheCzech, Joshua BishopRoby, Warren.

3/5/2006 TonyLB: A Setting straight from TV
I just realized what show would work really well, recreated in Capes. Lost.
In Muse of Fire Games
Participants: TonyLB, Zamiel.

3/12/2006 TonyLB: [Nighttime Animals Save the World] Three critters
So I was on a walk with my family, and I noticed I had (in the change in my pocket) two quarters, two nickels and two pennies.  Time to dust…
In Actual Play
Participants: TonyLB, Andrew Morris, droog, lumpley, Miskatonic.

3/13/2006 TonyLB: Tony: Why'd you do it that way?
When folks are working their way through the rules they generally hit two distinct types of questions.  First:  How does it work?  Second:  Why does it work that way?  It's…
In Muse of Fire Games
Participants: TonyLB, Sindyr, Zamiel, Hans.

3/14/2006 TonyLB: GenCon '06
Long way away, right?  Not so much. Michael and Kat Miller are already working to get indie games scheduled together at Indy GenCon.  I think that's a really good cause.…
In Muse of Fire Games
Participants: TonyLB, Zamiel, Gaerik, Hans.

3/16/2006 TonyLB: [PTA] Happy Endings
Strange thing happened in our final episode of Bountiful. Jen played Brigit, a faerie (well, y'know, it's in space ... so a space-faerie, I suppose) whose Issue was her exile…
In Actual Play
Participants: TonyLB, dunlaing, Joe Dizzy, Noon, Everspinner, contracycle, Alan, Danny_K, Sydney Freedberg.

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