Previous Topics

10/26/2003 Lisa Padol: Interpreting Fumbles
It's late enough at night that I'm forgetting which Sorcerer supplement had the useful suggestion that one not interpret failures / fumbles as failures on the particular action, but rather…
In Actual Play
Participants: Lisa Padol, Ron Edwards.

10/26/2003 Marco: Popular and damaging
Ralph wrote: At any rate, IMO Call of Cthulhu stands with GURPS as what I consider to be the two most damaging games to the development of the hobby…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Marco, Valamir, jdagna, Ian Charvill, Jack Spencer Jr, Calithena, RaconteurX, b_bankhead, John Kim, Jonathan Walton, Dauntless, Mike Holmes, M. J. Young, greyorm, quozl, Walt Freitag, Matt Snyder, Gordon C. Landis, Green, Jack Aidley, Andrew Norris, David Chunn, Minx, Ben Lehman, C. Edwards, Lxndr, damion, Scripty, eyebeams.

10/26/2003 anonymouse: the ShadowRun Dungeon: the Matrix.
So, Paganini has been pondering dungeon-crawl-game design over in #indierpgs (realtime chat is good for game discussion, too!). I've been thinking about SR a bunch lately, and it occured to…
In RPG Theory
Participants: anonymouse, MachMoth.

10/26/2003 Tzeentch: Print Runs
Is there any advice for determining the size of a print run? Specifically, I would like to avoid having my room filled to the rafters with unsold books if at…
In Publishing
Participants: Tzeentch, jdagna, taalyn, Ron Edwards, Brian Leybourne, Gold Rush Games.

10/25/2003 RaconteurX: Space 1889 using HeroQuest
This notion came to me while discussing which systems seemed best-suited to capture the flavor of the steampunk, pulps, and scientific romance sub-genres. The research and development of inventions, gadgets,…
In HeroQuest
Participants: RaconteurX, Donald, AnyaTheBlue, Stewart Stansfield.

10/25/2003 Calithena: D&D Spells and Resource Allocation Problems
Okay, I'm not quite up to speed on all the theory here yet, but I'm a quick study. But I wanted to bounce something off the people here as worth…
In RPG Theory
Participants: Calithena, Walt Freitag, Mike Holmes, Ron Edwards.

10/25/2003 RaconteurX: Latest outage
Either the site was down for all of Friday night into Saturday morning, or my internet provider at work (Earthlink) no longer likes your host. Never have I seen a…
In Site Discussion
Participants: RaconteurX, Ron Edwards, Paul Czege, Sparky, Brian Leybourne, M. J. Young, Mike Holmes, Mark.

10/25/2003 Silmenume: Why we (I?) roleplay - especially in the Simulationist mode.
Having read through the thread Clarifying Simulationism, an idea opened up to me about mid way through that ironically was touched upon by the final post. So even…
In GNS Model Discussion
Participants: Silmenume, Ian Charvill, Ron Edwards, M. J. Young, Mike Holmes, lumpley.

10/25/2003 anonymouse: Knights of the Lich Queen: a variant Paladin setup.
This is my setting/set-up document. I'll start running a thread in Actual Play sometime on Saturday, once I have the first session. Consider it a rough draft. The whole idea…
In CRN Games
Participants: anonymouse, Valamir, Alan.

10/24/2003 JSDiamond: SUPER GREEN!
Inspired by Ruby Rod. Check it out on the 'Other Projects' page. In pdf. http://www.orbit-rpg.com
In Indie Game Design
Participants: JSDiamond, gobi, Spooky Fanboy, Andrew Martin.

10/24/2003 Stephen: A new flaw
One of the things I noticed is that a lot of the peoples in Weyrth suffer SOC penalties based on their national character: Stahlners, for instance, get -1 SOC because…
In The Riddle of Steel
Participants: Stephen.

10/24/2003 Stephen: An alternate skill system
An optional suggestion for those who don't like the lower-SR-is-better system.... Instead of getting a numerical SR, skills (which now come in three types, Easy, Average and Hard) are ranked…
In The Riddle of Steel
Participants: Stephen.

10/24/2003 Michael Hopcroft: Ads for sale or exchange
My next book, Steel Roses, has a scheudled street date (that is, the date the PDF will be uploaded to RPGNow) of November 15th, and it looks like it will…
In Publishing
Participants: Michael Hopcroft.

10/24/2003 b_bankhead: Drifting to R'lyeh:Facing the Problems with Call of Cthulhu
Drifting to R'lyeh: An Autopsy on Call of Cthulu Introduction Call of Cthulhu is one of the simplest rules systems around. The Cthulhu Mythos is popular among the members of…
In RPG Theory
Participants: b_bankhead, Ron Edwards, Andrew Martin, Valamir, jdagna, John Kim, GB Steve, Calithena, M. J. Young, Ian Charvill, Walt Freitag, Rob MacDougall, Lisa Padol, Comte, GreatWolf, Noon, simon_hibbs, Andrew Norris, James Holloway.

10/24/2003 Michael S. Miller: Talking Points for Sorcerer
As Luke Crane mentioned, I'll be helping him pitch games at Lollagazebo in two weeks. There's been a thread on talking points for My Life with Master, and I'm pretty…
In Adept Press
Participants: Michael S. Miller, Ron Edwards.

10/24/2003 lesbianvampyre: XP and Benefits in game
I'm working on desgining a simple anthropomorphic pulp/noir game and I had a couple questions. I'm using somethng called Brownie Points to serve as experience and sort of Drama Points.…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: lesbianvampyre, ZeOtter, Andrew Martin, The Benj, Ben Morgan, failrate.

10/24/2003 Caz: Another quick question
If someone has no proficiencies (however that occurred) and they choose to attack or defend themselves, do you just use their reflex as their combat pool?
In The Riddle of Steel
Participants: Caz, Jasper the Mimbo.

10/24/2003 Caz: ?proficiencies at character creation?
Hey all, I need some clarification on this one. When first making a new character, and spending proficency points, I got a little confused. 1 Do you buy them on…
In The Riddle of Steel
Participants: Caz, toli.

10/24/2003 realms_creator: Arena RPG
We here at RGS are working on a new RPG call Arenas of the Realms. What the game is about is arena combat. The players will choose a fighter type…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: realms_creator, Ron Edwards, NeuroZombie.

10/24/2003 abzu: What'll Ya Give Me?
So Lollagazebo (in Raritan, NJ) is coming up in a few weeks. Once again I have a dealer's table (split between myself and aaron from Nerdnyc ) We had a…
In Conventions
Participants: abzu, Paul Czege, Lxndr, Valamir, M. J. Young.

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Subsequent Topics

10/26/2003 sirogit: Relationship maps and the Rat-Bastard
When I was freely constructing my own relationship map for my sorcerer game, I noticed something rather peculier that connects with two of the examples of relationship maps in Sorcerer…
In Adept Press
Participants: sirogit, arxhon, Ron Edwards.

10/26/2003 Jack Spencer Jr: "The Gamers" as actual play, take two
Over a month ago, John Laviolette tried to get discussion going about the Gamers movie from Dead Gentlemen Production as an example of actual play. The resulting thread didn’t go…
In Actual Play
Participants: Jack Spencer Jr, MonkeyWrench, GB Steve, Brian Leybourne, Lxndr, Alan.

10/27/2003 GB Steve: octaNe at SteveCon V
I decided to keep it silly so the game was psychotronic. The characters I made up too, to save time but the players added in the extra skills. We had:…
In Actual Play
Participants: GB Steve.

10/27/2003 Ben Dobyns: The ending
First, a disclaimer: I edited "The Gamers", so I'm working from some degree of insider knowledge. Regarding the ending as discussed by Michael S. Miller in the post immediately preceding,…
In Actual Play
Participants: Ben Dobyns, Ron Edwards.

10/27/2003 Calithena: Computers, Gamist Design, and the Future of TRPGing
One thing that reguarly pushes my interest in gaming towards the narrativist and world-building (I guess this is simulationist, but so is wanting to know exactly which tendon that sword…
In GNS Model Discussion
Participants: Calithena, Andrew Martin, Ron Edwards, Mike Holmes, Valamir, anonymouse.

10/27/2003 ejh: Throwaway Line in GNS Essay: Ron, what were you thinking?
"Arising as it did from wargaming in the middle 1970s, the earliest RPG design reflected its Gamist + Simulationist roots. However, within a year, design philosophies split very fast across…
In GNS Model Discussion
Participants: ejh, Valamir, AnyaTheBlue, Ian Charvill, Ron Edwards, Jonathan Walton, Mike Holmes.

10/27/2003 Michael Hopcroft: Closing down my forum
After some private discyussion with the administrators of the Forge, Seraphim guard has agreed to close dwon its forum here. Given the amount of freelance talent my company now uses…
In Site Discussion
Participants: Michael Hopcroft, Clinton R. Nixon.

10/27/2003 Calithena: Character Conversion
This is a conversion of my namesake character, who I have played off and on (mostly with the same GM) for more than two decades, to Sorcerer. I'm open to…
In Adept Press
Participants: Calithena, Ron Edwards, lumpley, Mike Holmes.

10/27/2003 b_bankhead: Cthulhu's Clues: Why failure is not an option
Failure is not an option As I stated in my essay 'Drifting to R'lyeh' most skill rolls in CoC don't matter much. The design of the prototypical CoC scenario makes…
In RPG Theory
Participants: b_bankhead, Ian Charvill, Valamir, jdagna, Ben Lehman, Comte, The Benj, Rob MacDougall, Mike Holmes, gobi, kalyptein, Noon, Scripty, Marco, John Kim.

10/27/2003 ScottM: Captures- What do I aim for?
[quote="Rules"]"When ever a conflict resolution results in a minion’s Weariness increasing to a value greater than Reason, the minion is captured by the Townspeople or Outsiders."[/quote] But there's additional text…
In Half Meme Press
Participants: ScottM, Paul Czege.

10/27/2003 Ron Edwards: When Endgame crashes and burns
Hi Paul, Up in Black ooze oozes forth, Lisa Padol asked this question, including a quote from a previous post: "2. Could some mechanism prevent the…
In Half Meme Press
Participants: Ron Edwards, Paul Czege, Valamir, Lisa Padol, Mike Holmes, GB Steve, Maura Byrne.

10/27/2003 Calithena: Stat Scaling in Sorcerer
I've seen Ron imply in a thread on rpg.net that demons with Power 15 can 'eat Cthulhu'. Where does that leave demons like Gutterblax and Lashtipus from Charnel Gods, with…
In Adept Press
Participants: Calithena, Ron Edwards, Mike Holmes, sirogit.

10/27/2003 Scripty: Oh, the Horror... (An Invitation to HeroQuest Brainstorming)
Hello, all. First, let me qualify this by saying that it is more of a brainstorming exercise than an actual question or criticism of the HeroQuest system. HeroQuest is a…
In HeroQuest
Participants: Scripty, Mike Holmes, simon_hibbs.

10/27/2003 Calithena: D&D and Gamism, continued
This is in response to Mike Holmes' and subsequent posts on the D&D spells and gamism thread, because it's a more general topic. Ron's essay is right on as far…
In GNS Model Discussion
Participants: Calithena, anonymouse, greyorm, failrate, Blake Hutchins, ScottM, Mike Holmes, M. J. Young, Andrew Norris.

10/27/2003 Lxndr: [Fastlane] Sample Settings
I have decided, for better or for worse, to include a number of sample settings in Fastlane. Each setting should take up no more than a few pages, just a…
In Twisted Confessions
Participants: Lxndr, Mike Holmes, Rob MacDougall, C. Edwards, Wolfen, Ron Edwards.

10/27/2003 Dev: Accidental de-protagonization
I had the following problem in my last game, during the Endgame in particular. Consider two minions, the Traitor (trying to kill the master) and the Faithful (the one serving…
In Half Meme Press
Participants: Dev, Paul Czege, Ron Edwards.

10/28/2003 Tomas HVM: DM-therapy!
Hi, I've translated one of the minor RPGs of mine to English, and posted it on my site. It's a short read. Please comment! Pervo If you are a games…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Tomas HVM, Mike Holmes, Gordon C. Landis, Anthony I, Rich Forest, Cemendur, Jasper, matthijs, failrate.

10/28/2003 M. J. Young: GNS Conflict with the Referee
In the thread GNS and Social Contract,Problems only occur when players don't like the play of he other players. That is, it's not enough to ensure that the…
In GNS Model Discussion
Participants: M. J. Young, Anthony I, Mike Holmes.

10/28/2003 bcook1971: The Burning Wheel: First Pass
I was skipping around, reading each part within the book that pertained to the idea I was interested in, not really making good progress. Then I had a chat with…
In Burning Wheel
Participants: bcook1971, abzu.

10/28/2003 abzu: GAMA?
Ron (or another wise old soul), can you enlighten us about the perils, pleasures, benefits and detriments of the much touted GAMA trade show? The early registration deadline has passed,…
In Conventions
Participants: abzu, Ron Edwards, Valamir, AdAstraGames.

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