Previous Topics

6/24/2003 rafial: Burning Wheel in Actual Play
I report on my first experience running BW in the Actual Play forum.
In Burning Wheel
Participants: rafial.

6/24/2003 rafial: Burning Wheel: von Goten's Predicament
I took my first chance to spin The Wheel tonight, running the demo adventure available from the website (and kindly included in printed form with my copy of the game).…
In Actual Play
Participants: rafial, Jack Spencer Jr, abzu, amnesiack.

6/19/2003 rafial: FoRKs in Melee
So I've noticed that all the melee weapons skills list brawling, martial arts and each other as FoRKs. Does this mean that if I have both Sword skill and Brawling…
In Burning Wheel
Participants: rafial, taepoong, nebulous menace, abzu.

6/18/2003 rafial: Why script Block?
Here's my latest head scratcher. Why would you ever want to script Block, as opposed to Counterstrike? Counterstrike works against all the things that Block works against, and a lot…
In Burning Wheel
Participants: rafial, taepoong, abzu, nebulous menace, inthisstyle.

6/15/2003 rafial: Why are trainings listed with roots?
Unless I've badly misread the rules, trainings are skills you either have or you don't, there is no rating associated with the skill. Yet I note in the list, trainings…
In Burning Wheel
Participants: rafial, abzu, taepoong.

6/11/2003 rafial: A Tale of Three Trollbabes [session 5 & coda]
The last installment of our planned 5 session Trollbabe campaign has come and gone. It was a relatively short session, a little over 2 hours, as the players chose to…
In Actual Play
Participants: rafial.

6/4/2003 rafial: A Tale of Three Trollbabes [session 4]
Session 4 of our Trollbabe campaign was our smoothest yet (the players are of course free to disagree). The only shortcoming from my perspective is that I went into this…
In Actual Play
Participants: rafial, John Harper.

5/27/2003 rafial: Shared narrative vs. Exploration of Character in Trollbabe
I'd like to discuss an issue which I believe has been an undercurrent of tension in the Trollbabe campaign I am currently running. The issue is the possible negative impact…
In Adept Press
Participants: rafial, Jeffrey Straszheim, Bob McNamee, Alan, Bankuei, Clinton R. Nixon, Rob MacDougall, Ron Edwards, Mike Holmes, John Harper.

5/26/2003 rafial: A Tale of Three Trollbabes [session 3]
Our Trollbabe campaign has proceeded to its third session, which I'm happy to report was, at least in my eyes, much more satisfying than our second. The campaign is now…
In Actual Play
Participants: rafial, Clinton R. Nixon, Bankuei, John Harper, Valamir.

5/23/2003 rafial: A Tale of Three Trollbabes [session 2]
We had our second session of what we are hoping may be a four or five session Trollbabe campaign. Unfortunately, due to player illness we were one babe short, but…
In Actual Play
Participants: rafial, Alan, Bankuei.

5/13/2003 rafial: Trollbabe injury
I'm bringing a question and followup over from the Tale of Three Trollbabes thread in Actual Play, since it represents a digression into some detailed rules hashing. There, it was…
In Adept Press
Participants: rafial, Ron Edwards, Clinton R. Nixon, Bob McNamee.

5/11/2003 rafial: A Tale of Three Trollbabes [session 1]
Have gotten a taste via a number of Clinton's Trollbabe one-shots at SGA monday gaming nights, a group of us have decided to take the plunge and try for a…
In Actual Play
Participants: rafial, Clinton R. Nixon, John Harper, Ron Edwards, Alan.

4/18/2003 rafial: Errata
One item Rich mentioned in the actual play thread was that you get three extra damage points per boost when hitting someone in Melee. I figured I'd cross posts it…
In XIG Games
Participants: rafial, Rich Ranallo.

4/15/2003 rafial: Starchildren report in Actual Play...
...Push Your Hands!
In XIG Games
Participants: rafial.

4/15/2003 rafial: Starchildren - Hallo Spaceboy/girl
Borrowing shamelessly and freely from Hedwig & the Angry Inch, Wild Zero, Tommy, Max Headroom and no doubt a few other things wedged in my subconscious I unleashed a demo…
In Actual Play
Participants: rafial, Ron Edwards, Clinton R. Nixon, Thomas Tamblyn, Rich Ranallo.

4/14/2003 rafial: Writing your own songs
I'm going to run Starchildren tomorrow at SGA's indie gaming night (Hopefully I'll have a report for Actual Play). I'll be testing out some rules I came up for for…
In XIG Games
Participants: rafial, Ron Edwards, Jared A. Sorensen, Rich Ranallo.

3/21/2003 rafial: Pantheon
At our Monday night "Indie RPGs" group, we tried the Narrative Cage Match rules from Pantheon. The scenario we played was the undersea horror one, entitled "Grave and Watery." I…
In Actual Play
Participants: rafial, Ron Edwards, Mike Holmes.

3/12/2003 rafial: Group Traits & Master Components
I've been studying the example at the bottom of page 70/top of page 71 in the rule book, which shows two shock troopers (which draw from a master component), which…
In Universalis
Participants: rafial, Valamir, Mike Holmes.

1/7/2003 rafial: Ronin: Stone Hearts, Stone Memories
Well, here it is, what I believe is the first actual play report for Ronin (the feudal Japan adaptation of the Dust Devils rules). I'll try to play to all…
In Actual Play
Participants: rafial, Ron Edwards, J. Backman, Jason L Blair.

12/26/2002 rafial: Avoiding inflation
Well, I've played in two games of Universalis so far, and while I enjoyed both experiences, I did notice that both times, the game eventually degenerated into some final catacylsm…
In Universalis
Participants: rafial, Bob McNamee, Tony Irwin, Alan, Mike Holmes, Valamir.

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Subsequent Topics

6/27/2003 rafial: Burning Wheel: von Goten Redeux
I reran the BW demo adventure (von Goten's Predicament) for a different audience last night. Again, I had two players (James and Matt), this time they selected the Dwarf and…
In Actual Play
Participants: rafial, Matt Wilson, abzu, drozdal.

7/2/2003 rafial: Re: Revised Artha Rules
[quote="abzu"] also, a revised character sheet to accomodate the new info: [/quote] Hey, a quick note on the single page character sheet. Under armor, it has separate spaces for upper…
In Burning Wheel
Participants: rafial, abzu.

8/22/2003 rafial: Attribute pools at 0. Any effect?
So I'm fighting this intelligent lobster riding in a mechanical spider chair, see, and I'd like to knock out the chair (or at least render it incapable of moving) so…
In CRN Games
Participants: rafial, Clinton R. Nixon, Catalyst.

9/9/2003 rafial: Frightening the Horses
There have been numerous postings lately from folks who have become frustrated in trying to introduce "Forge ideas" into their regular play group, whether it be new games, GNS terminology,…
In Actual Play
Participants: rafial, John Kim.

9/20/2003 rafial: Savage Gamism
While one faction of UGAX (Ultimate Gamer Assembly X) walks the beat in ancient Rome, the rest of us have decided to give Savage Worlds a test drive by playing…
In Actual Play
Participants: rafial, Ron Edwards, ethan_greer, Hafaza, Paul Czege, Mike Holmes, Valamir.

12/12/2003 rafial: [Burning Wheel] Hard Times in Tarshish
Our Burning Wheel campaign at UGX is now in its third session, of a planned eight. The first session was joint setting and character creation, the second and third sessions…
In Actual Play
Participants: rafial, johnzo, Yasha, abzu.

12/15/2003 rafial: BW and No Myth
In my Tarshish game, I've been seeking to follow the "No Myth" style of GMing, in so far as I understand that concept as it has been presented at the…
In Burning Wheel
Participants: rafial, joshua neff, abzu.

12/20/2003 rafial: [Burning Wheel] Fear and Loathing in Tarshish
I used our third session of BW to address the "intimidation" regarding the combat system that several players had expressed in the previous thread. http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=8985 After framing some opening scenes…
In Actual Play
Participants: rafial, abzu, Alan, John Harper, Matt Wilson.

12/31/2003 rafial: Monopoly vs. RPGs, rule evolution, and the social contract
I was inspired with the following thought based on Christopher Kubasik's thread on clarity in rule writing, and his choice of Monopoly as an iconic game to represent the world…
In RPG Theory
Participants: rafial, Noon, jdagna, contracycle, Jack Aidley, Bill_White.

1/7/2004 rafial: [Burning Wheel] Ill Met in Tarshish
The fourth session of our Tarshish campaign was possibly the most productive, as it brought Darius and "that damn Dwarf" Kvardo togther, and saw the beginning of Cpt Jessup's spy…
In Actual Play
Participants: rafial, Matt Wilson, abzu, taepoong, johnzo, Valamir.

1/19/2004 rafial: [Burning Wheel] Things Fall Apart in Tarshish
Well, its the fifth of our planned seven sessions of Burning Wheel, and we appear to have crested the hill and are now (hopefully) skidding toward our denouement. It's a…
In Actual Play
Participants: rafial, Matt Wilson, abzu, johnzo.

3/28/2004 rafial: TROS, Calvinball, and IIEE
So we just completed Alan's Fire upon Fenwyck campaign which was one of the side by side TROS games that made up the latest round at UGX. And while I…
In Actual Play
Participants: rafial, ZenDog, Alan, Hafaza, Noon, Jake Norwood, Valamir.

3/31/2004 rafial: Rules suggestions for NDG Pirates
This thread is continuation of the game design issues brought up in a previous thread which is now closed. Since I am responding to a question regarding future directions of…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: rafial.

5/10/2004 rafial: Mechanical Gender Differences III (I'm Embarrassed)
Okay, so let me out myself on the real reason I think mechanically enshrining gender in RPG mechanics just doesn't work for me. I find it embarrassing. Here I am,…
In RPG Theory
Participants: rafial, Jack Aidley, Maarzan, Ravien, AnyaTheBlue, John Harper, Andrew Martin, Matt Wilson, Thuringwaethiel, greyorm, xiombarg, Halzebier, John Kim, Jack Spencer Jr, Valamir, Ian Charvill, Lxndr.

5/31/2004 rafial: [Burning Wheel] Poisonous Ambition
Poisonous Ambition (Luke's PvP con scenario, available from the BW website) was run for 4 players at Clinton Con, as part of our "all Orc day" (it was back to…
In Actual Play
Participants: rafial, abzu, joshua neff, Clinton R. Nixon, John Harper, Thor Olavsrud, urbwar.

8/15/2004 rafial: Indie game storm Dragonflight
Just a quick note to say that indie games have been doing really well at Dragonflight this weekend. Alan Barclay ran Sorcerer to postive reviews, and I have both eyewitness…
In Conventions
Participants: rafial.

8/17/2004 rafial: [Burning Wheel] Running Before the Storm
This weekend saw a good showing for Indie RPG's at Dragonflight, the annual Seattle based gaming convention. For my part, I ran a four hour (well, closer to five as…
In Actual Play
Participants: rafial, abzu, taepoong, s3kt0r, Sydney Freedberg, Valamir, eef, John Harper.

9/1/2004 rafial: NPA (split)
Well, it was being sold at GenCon. Key20 has quietly added it to their product page: http://www.key20direct.com/index.php?module=pncommerce&func=categoryview&CategoryID=11 I ordered from there, but have not yet received it (it's only been…
In Publishing
Participants: rafial, Ron Edwards.

9/29/2004 rafial: Escalation
So I've got a rules clarification question prompted by Hans Christian Andersen's actual play report: Moving beyond that, watching a desperate opponent Escalate from Words to Guns, and beating him…
In lumpley games
Participants: rafial, Brand_Robins, Valamir, lumpley.

11/19/2004 rafial: [Star Wars D6] Mooncloud Fugitive
It seems like activity in Actual Play has been low recently, so I thought I'd chip in with a write up of our current game. It's called "Mooncloud Refugee" and…
In Actual Play
Participants: rafial, Ron Edwards, Alan, Negilent, johnzo, greedo1379.

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