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11/21/2003 xiombarg: distribution horror stories (and related anecdotes)
I know Ron and many others are on-record as being disgusted with the current RPG distribution system. I couldn't help but think about this as I was browsing the Pulsar…
In Publishing
Participants: xiombarg, Pramas, HinterWelt, Gold Rush Games.

11/6/2003 xiombarg: Unsung: Sweeps Week (Session 4)
You might want to freshen up with the previous thread. This session was a lot more action-oriented and had less Gifts -- the idea was to test the core sytem…
In Actual Play
Participants: xiombarg, Lxndr, Dana_mun, Mike Holmes, Ben Lehman.

10/31/2003 xiombarg: No Press RPG Anthology (II)
Is this project still live? I hope so, because I just sent in a submission...
In Publishing
Participants: xiombarg, gobi, abzu, Ron Edwards, Matt, Jeph, Lxndr, Rich Forest, quozl, Mike Holmes, LordSmerf.

10/23/2003 xiombarg: Pretender: Attack of the Mechanical Dinosaurs
Well, some of the players couldn't make it to Unsung, so we grabbed a free-floating player and played Pretender instead. Though I greatly abbreviated the pregame prep and took a…
In Actual Play
Participants: xiombarg, AgentFresh, Lxndr, Dana_mun, MachMoth.

10/9/2003 xiombarg: metaplot footnote
As a footnote to my original rant and the thread about using metaplot as a tool, I picked up Orpheus yesterday, and I'm pleased by how they're handling the metaplot…
In RPG Theory
Participants: xiombarg, eyebeams, The Solecist, Mike Holmes, simon_hibbs.

10/7/2003 xiombarg: concept games footnote, politics in games
As a footnote to the concept games thread and the games as serious art thread, I'd like to note something that's going on in video games, in at least in…
In RPG Theory
Participants: xiombarg, contracycle, John Kim, Tim Alexander, simon_hibbs, Tomas HVM, Jonathan Walton, Mark Johnson, M. J. Young, Rob MacDougall, Mike Holmes, taalyn.

9/25/2003 xiombarg: Unsung: Radical Reward Restructuring
So, okay, Alexander has suggested some radical reward restructuring for Unsung here and elsewhere. He suggest in addition to getting Gift Points (GPs) for giving Gifts, that a player recieve…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: xiombarg.

9/25/2003 xiombarg: hidden information and Narrativism
In various threads regarding Unsung, particularly during play, Mike points to the idea some of the players have had that information hiding is okay (while others shared all information, even…
In GNS Model Discussion
Participants: xiombarg, Ron Edwards, Matt Snyder, Mike Holmes.

9/25/2003 xiombarg: Unsung: SWAT -- introspection (session 3)
You might want to freshen up with the previous thread. This session was a lot slower and more introspective, but it got real interesting toward the end. http://ivanhoeunbound.com/unsung3_nar.txt http://ivanhoeunbound.com/unsung3_ooc.txt As…
In Actual Play
Participants: xiombarg, Dana_mun, suffusionofyellow, Mike Holmes.

9/23/2003 xiombarg: two random questions
Jeff: I really like the Arach. Are they exempted from the Wundershen? It seems to heavily imply that to leave the Hive is rare. Yet, if they're League members, they…
In Orbit
Participants: xiombarg, JSDiamond, Mike Holmes, Ron Edwards.

9/22/2003 xiombarg: Unsung: Lapse and Gift Mechanic (peanut gallery wanted)
Okay, in reference to this thread I'm curious what other people think about the Lapse and Gift mechanics in Unsung. It's probably best to look at the latest playtest rules…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: xiombarg, Ben Lehman, Mike Holmes.

9/22/2003 xiombarg: Grammar nitpick... or something
So, I got my copy of Orbit. I like most of it so far. But the pendant in me wonders about constructions like this: "You can eat cheese, meat, -or…
In Orbit
Participants: xiombarg, Lxndr, ethan_greer, Valamir, Ben Lehman, JSDiamond, quozl, Gordon C. Landis, Matt Wilson, JohnK.

9/11/2003 xiombarg: Unsung SWAT: KABOOM (aka session 2)
You might want to freshen up with the original thread. We added a new player, Dana, who was playing Alicia Tyloni, a sniper with rumored connections to the Mob... One…
In Actual Play
Participants: xiombarg, Lxndr, Dana_mun, Mike Holmes, suffusionofyellow.

9/4/2003 xiombarg: Unsung: SWAT (session 1)
Well, after all sorts of scheduling mishaps, I finally got to run Unsung tonight (Wednesday) on IRC. We used my latest draft of the ruleset: http://ivanhoeunbound.com/unsung_playtest.html The game surrounded a…
In Actual Play
Participants: xiombarg, MachMoth, Grover, Mike Holmes, Lxndr.

9/3/2003 xiombarg: Card Captor Cabal
Hey, all. While my fiancee is away in Texas for her bridal shower, she asked me to write a little RPG based on her favorite anime, CardCaptors, aka Card Captor…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: xiombarg, Shreyas Sampat, roleplyr4ever, Lxndr.

8/17/2003 xiombarg: Gambling Gimmick
What do people think of this Gimmick? Once during each of his turns, a player can gamble. He can put up as many coins as he wants (up to the…
In Universalis
Participants: xiombarg, Tony Irwin, Mike Holmes.

8/13/2003 xiombarg: The Setting
Split off from the playtest thread: Yup. I'm gonna have big trouble with that. It makes little sense to me. If I as an Archon want to prove the sun…
In Chimera Creative
Participants: xiombarg, Valamir, Matt Snyder, Mike Holmes, Jason L Blair, AnttiK.

7/31/2003 xiombarg: social contract issues [update]
Some people wanted to know how things went with my group with regard to what was going on in this thread. So, we had the big talk I wanted to…
In Actual Play
Participants: xiombarg, ADGBoss, Ron Edwards, The_Confessor, Mike Holmes.

7/28/2003 xiombarg: Kirt's Standard Rant #1: Metaplots
[url=http://www.rpgnews.com/article.php?sid=2583]Recent events[/url] have [url=http://www.livejournal.com/users/xiombarg/319163.html]gotten me thinking[/url]... I've voiced this before, and it's perhaps more relevant to "traditional" RPG publishers who are overly-reliant on the three-tier system, but I think it…
In RPG Theory
Participants: xiombarg, Lxndr, jdagna, John Kim, Hardpoint, pete_darby, kamikaze, Valamir, Ron Edwards, Bogie_71, Mike Holmes, Jack Spencer Jr, contracycle, M. J. Young, talysman, AnyaTheBlue, eyebeams, Green, Gordon C. Landis, James Holloway, Kurosawa.

7/22/2003 xiombarg: free/cheap PDF (Pretender PDF as example)
Hey, all. As as a quick search on "PDF" in this forum will show, there's a lot of information here on the Forge about how to produce a PDF on…
In Publishing
Participants: xiombarg, Kester Pelagius, madelf, contracycle, efindel, Clay, Reimer Behrends, Emily_Dresner, C. Edwards, iago, max.lambertini.

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Subsequent Topics

12/3/2003 xiombarg: [Unsung] Death of a Team Member (Session 5)
You might want to freshen up with the previous thread. This session had very few Gifts -- but features the return of an old character, and the death of another…
In Actual Play
Participants: xiombarg, stingray20166.

12/5/2003 xiombarg: Theory for the Average Gamer
White Wolf recently released the Vampire Player's Guide for Vampire Revised (aka Vampire 3rd Edition). The book is 90% system-free, consisting of mainly essays about how one should play Vampire.…
In RPG Theory
Participants: xiombarg, John Kim, LordSmerf, eyebeams.

12/5/2003 xiombarg: Social Contract Fodder
As we all know, problems with the social contract of the game are often part-and-parcel with overall social problems. Which is why I found this essay particularly interesting: http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html I…
In RPG Theory
Participants: xiombarg, C. Edwards, jdagna, Ron Edwards, Christopher Kubasik.

12/5/2003 xiombarg: Ivanhoe Mailing List
I dunno if I mentioned this here before or not, but there is a mailing list for people interested in discussing my games. Any of them. Even the stuff written…
In Connections
Participants: xiombarg.

12/29/2003 xiombarg: Chargen and Magic
Okay, I finally got around to reading my copy of HeroQuest, and the most confusing thing for me was magic, particularly in chargen. In particular, I'm talking about list-based chargen.…
In HeroQuest
Participants: xiombarg, Peter Nordstrand, RaconteurX, joshua neff, Mike Holmes, TheLHF, Ian Cooper, Calithena, Nick Brooke.

1/5/2004 xiombarg: alternate wound penalties
[url]http://www.burningwheel.org/pdf/woundtolerances.pdf[/url] It appears that Luke thought these important enough to print out and include them, as a seperate sheet, with my copy of [i]The Burning Wheel[/i]. Why is this? Could…
In Burning Wheel
Participants: xiombarg, taepoong, abzu, Kaare Berg, Lxndr, Durgil, rafial.

1/14/2004 xiombarg: [Unsung] Half an Episode, Out of Order
You might want to freshen up with the previous thread. This session had a lot more Gifts, in part because we "skipped ahead". http://ivanhoeunbound.com/unsung6_nar.txt http://ivanhoeunbound.com/unsung6_ooc.txt As before, the first link…
In Actual Play
Participants: xiombarg, Mike Holmes.

1/26/2004 xiombarg: Playtesting in Washington, DC
Well, I'm going to be moving to the Washington, DC Metro area pretty soon. Any indie people out there willing to help me playtest my games, or in need of…
In Connections
Participants: xiombarg.

1/30/2004 xiombarg: [Unsung] Shooting My Specific Sacred Cows
Okay, I've been thinking about my game, Unsung, in light of the recent sacred cows thread and Ron's newest essay. At one point while playing the game, Mike commented: "Why…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: xiombarg, Mike Holmes.

2/4/2004 xiombarg: [Unsung] Ricky Goes Apesh*t (Blood Opera?)
You might want to freshen up with the previous thread. http://ivanhoeunbound.com/unsung7_nar.txt http://ivanhoeunbound.com/unsung7_ooc.txt As before, the first link is the "narrative" and the second link is a log of our out-of-character…
In Actual Play
Participants: xiombarg, Mike Holmes, John Kim, Lxndr.

2/12/2004 xiombarg: Why does the DOT hate the Forge?
Okay, that's semi-humorous. But I just started a new job at the US Department of Transportation, and they filter and block certain web sites. Now, some of them I understand.…
In Site Discussion
Participants: xiombarg, inthisstyle, Paul Czege, Blankshield, Jack Aidley, Christopher Weeks.

3/3/2004 xiombarg: [Unsung] loose ends, suggestions?
You might want to freshen up with the previous thread and earlier episodes. http://ivanhoeunbound.com/unsung8_nar.txt http://ivanhoeunbound.com/unsung8_ooc.txt As before, the first link is the "narrative" and the second link is a log…
In Actual Play
Participants: xiombarg.

3/14/2004 xiombarg: Pretender: Eat Me
Okay, I ran a one-shot of Pretender, with Dana and Ben. Dana reprised her mechancal were-dinosaur role, and Ben provided us with punk attitude. Here are the logs: http://ivanhoeunbound.com/pretender2_ooc.txt http://ivanhoeunbound.com/pretender2_nar.txt…
In Actual Play
Participants: xiombarg.

3/15/2004 xiombarg: too many choices
Check out this article: http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/?040301crbo_books I think the thesis of the book reviewed, if true, has some interesting implications for RPG design. For one thing, it certainly explains why a…
In RPG Theory
Participants: xiombarg, Nuadha, Scourge108, pete_darby, Thierry Michel, Ron Edwards, Doctor Xero, simon_hibbs, willofgod, clehrich, Walt Freitag, Bankuei, M. J. Young, Lorenzo Rubbo-Ferraro.

3/31/2004 xiombarg: [unsung] FINALE -- opinions, please
So, yeah, I'm putting Unsung:SWAT on hiatus so I can work on the full version of the Unsung manuscript. So here's the thread about our latest, and possibly last, playtest…
In Actual Play
Participants: xiombarg, Lxndr, Mike Holmes, suffusionofyellow.

3/31/2004 xiombarg: Unsung Overhall
So, okay, Alexander sent me an email with several suggestions about changing Unsung as a post mortem to the campaign we just ended. Other people are welcome to chime in.…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: xiombarg, Lxndr.

4/16/2004 xiombarg: intro to roleplaying (for Unsung)
Could y'all do me a favor? http://xiombrag.tripod.com/unstart.pdf The above is some introductory "what is roleplaying" kinda text for the RPG I'm currently working on the manuscript for. I want to…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: xiombarg, Zak Arntson, Jack Spencer Jr, quozl, Dev, Ben Lehman, Steve Samson.

4/26/2004 xiombarg: metaplot footnote 2
Well, as of today I feel that someone was listening to my my rant. I mean, the cynical part of me "knows" that the main White Wolf people aren't reading…
In RPG Theory
Participants: xiombarg, DannyK, Matt, eyebeams.

4/28/2004 xiombarg: customer fraud and e-publishing
I thought the following link might be of interest to y'all: When Your Customer Commits Fraud In essence, it goes over your rights, as a writer, regarding your customers, when…
In Publishing
Participants: xiombarg, Dev, Valamir, Ron Edwards.

4/28/2004 xiombarg: the "supplement treadmill"
Malcolm (eyebeams), as a freelancer for White Wolf (he can correct me if that's an incorrect way to refer to him in this context), made and interesting comment on another…
In Publishing
Participants: xiombarg, Pramas, Ron Edwards, Matt Snyder, FFG Greg, Valamir, daMoose_Neo, Ben Lehman, Matt Wilson, quozl, Erick Wujcik, ethan_greer, mearls, Lxndr, ryand, Paul Czege, Matt.

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