Collaborative Design: CLIO Resolution Mechanics

Clio, the Muse of History tweetmeme_url = 'http://jachilli.squarespace.com/blog/2010/3/19/collaborative-design-clio-resolution-mechanics.html'; The idea behind CLIO is to allow two or three participants to improvise a [...]
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Three-Player Game Mechanics

When games involve players being able to attack each other or ally with each other in a relatively unrestricted way, I generally feel that such games work best with only two sides. When there are more sides, certain char[...]
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Story is So Over

It’s easy to bring creatives and managers together in a fiction-based media venture by emphasizing “story.” A supposed story focus makes writers feel good because they can take credit for it, and managers feel good[...]
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Collaborative Design: CLIO

What's the story here?Tonight, if all goes well, I'll be putting up the rough draft of some rules I've put together for a little design exercise I've been working on. It's tentatively called CLIO, after the muse of histo[...]
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Game Design: Do Your Homework

A couple of weeks ago, it was announced here that Nevermet Press was developing an alternate World War II pulp setting for Mutants & Masterminds called Geheimkrieg. We even published some intro fiction on the blog to[...]
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Adaptive vs. Restrictive Systems

Building upon my ramblings on mechanics vs. styles of play, I wanted to look at a different way of classifying game systems. Traditionally, we view mechanics as “lite”, meaning there are few rules, a slim rul[...]
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Pitch to the Pros (Part 1) – GamesU 2009

In this session from GamesU 2009, Origins Award-nominated game designer, Boyan Radakovich, walks you through the process of submitting your board game prototype to publishers for publication. In Part 1 of this two-part s[...]
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Lazy Friday Video Post: “Making the Most of Mythic Structure”

This time I want to share a video from the Neoncon 2009 GamesU with you. In this 51-minutes video Matthew Grau from WildFire LLC talks about the monomyth (aka the hero’s journey) and how it can be used in creating stor[...]
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[Thundarr Thursday] Ancient Armory: Death Flowers

The Death Flower is a bright red tulip-like flower. Despite its name, it is not deadly. Rather, the Death Flower's pollen can place a humanoid creature into a powerful "death-like" trance. Anyone under the hypnotic spell[...]
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How to train your dragon to be a lethal weapon

I have been looking at the spells in the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook, and I noticed that a couple of them really work well with my game world of Alidor. In Alidor, dragons are top dog, and tortoises are man’s only[...]
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Gaming can make a better world – Jane McGonigal

Don’t know who Ms. McGonigal is? And you call yourself a gamer? Watch this video then follow her on Twitter and check out her website. [...]
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Who you gonna call?

Similar to jatori, I gave pb’s post on Nevermet Press some thought. Be brave and tell us what you think! Open Soul [Host] For reasons unknown, your soul is not fully fused with your body. Prerequisites: No Gho[...]
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Mass Effect 2: The (Tabletop) RPG

Oh dear, another case of downtime for this blog. I've spent these last couple of weeks focusing more on matters like the Warlock High playtest, finals, hunting for odd jobs so as to make rent. . .oh, and Mass Effect 2.As[...]
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Its not easy being Alpha

Back in January, I was invited to join a gaming group starting up a new “pack” in Werewolf: The Apocalypse. I knew the Storyteller (Jarvis) and one of the players (John) pretty well and had met the other players (Dev[...]
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Savage Menagerie: Leperkahn

No. Enc.: 1 (1d4)Alignment: ChaoticMovement: 120' (40') Armor Class: 5Hit Dice: 4Attacks: 1 (weapon/disease)Damage: as per weaponSave: L2Morale: 7Hoard Class: XA Leperkahn (pronounced lep-purr-kahn) is an evil, shrivelle[...]
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Starting Over…

Just like the rest of life, sometimes it’s time for a do-over. Thus begins a new chapter in the life of Moebius Adventures (MARPG) games. Image via Wikipedia Here’s the scoop. We have a streamlined sys[...]
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Mechanics vs. Style of Play

There’s an axiom in business that systems are perfectly designed to get the results that they get. If you want a different output, whether it be increased productivity, improved products, a different product, you h[...]
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Need Help Finding an Alternate Raise Dead/Resurrection Table I lost track of

A while ago- It must have been in the days of WFRP2 and Heroes of Horror- I found a really cool resurrection/raise dead chart that allowed for weirdness around said spells. That is it made them way more interesting. Th[...]
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Something new! Designing new items and gear for your games.

What do I do with this? So, today is all request Tuesday here at the Gamewerks, Gentle Readers. My good, good friend from the Great White North, Dr. Braden Campbell GM;Phd, dropped me a line last night to let me know tha[...]
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Podcast: Video Games and the Tabletop

Are you geek enough to ride? I'm on the latest episode of this here podcast. Give it a listen if you're so inclined. [...]
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Twilight grove

The 27th and penultimate encounter of my 4E conversion of The Sunless Citadel means we’re in the home stretch. Only one more after this.The grove features some of the most dynamic terrain of all the encounters with[...]
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Agents, psychics and commandos – setting thinking

I am making my own game system. Idea is that it will be universal for me to use. So, I make these universal rules what I can use to write any setting I like to. It's like (new) World of Darkness core rulebook for White W[...]
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Blizzard Design Principles

Picture is unrelated. Move along, citizen.Last week at GDC, Blizzard's Rob Pardo discussed some of the Blizzard design philosophy for WoW. You can find the presentation here. If you follow this blog, you'll find some ref[...]
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Cognitive Disson4nce

There’s been some neat back-and-forth between the Escapist and WotC. WotC interviewed ZakS who’s I Hit it With My Axe will be appearing on the Escapist sometime in the near future, while the Escapist got to intervie[...]
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Black Rose, Part 4

What sort of stories do we tell in a this mash-up of Romantic Fantasy and Gothic Horror?Well lets start with the obvious.  Evil is out there and it needs to be stopped.  In the Gothic Horror tradition, the evil[...]
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Adding fluffed topping to a hard crunchy core

Well the Piecemeal 1e beta is about ready to go out in the next week or so, primarily just adding fluff and helpful tools at this point (experience calculators etc). This brings me to my current topic, how much does se[...]
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Making the Most of Mythic Structure – GamesU 2009

In this session from GamesU 2009, accomplished game designer and screenwriter Matthew Grau discusses the monomyth and how to use it to create epic and enduring stories in your games. Popularized by Joseph Campbell in hi[...]
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Idealism and creativity are not the same thing

The presentation above has kicked off quite a passionate discussion over at Mad Brew Labs and the Kenzer & Company forums. It seems that Marcelo’s comments are being seen by some as an attack on the indie and[...]
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On Game Masters Guides

The "classic three" division that began with AD&D-- Player's Guide, Game Master's Guide, Monster Book-- has been taken as a sort of gospel by a number of other games (although certainly not all). I've explored this s[...]
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Vector Theory #10: The Balanced Binary Decision

Left, or Right.Take the moral high ground, or play dirty.Open the door, or head elsewhere.To be, or not to be.Decisions are one of the aspects of a roleplaying game that really make it interesting as a pastime. Everyone [...]
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Black Rose, Part 3

Sorry for the delay here.  Been really sick.Now I want to look at the mechanics of how Black Rose will work.  I want to include as much of the Ravenloft feel as possible, so that means fear and horror checks. &[...]
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Houserules and Dice Fudging – at what point are you no longer playing D&D?

In the comments to my last post many people made the point that D&D is never played RAW, and each group will come to a consensus together on how the game should be played.  My post was about PC mortality, and Ro[...]
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Multiple Attack Update

Hi folks, I’ve been pretty sick for about a month off and on due to strep. That’s why this blog’s been silent. What’s going on? Aeternal Legends: It’s available in print and PDF, still. Stew[...]
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Spells vs. Rituals

When 4e came around, one of my big criticisms was the ritual system. I mean, I liked the idea of rituals, but the way that they were implemented seemed driven wholly by game balance. It didn't make any sense to me that t[...]
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Character Death = Function of Play Style?

In the middle of another controversial post, Faustusnotes tosses out that character death rates have nothing to do with system and are actually dependent on the style of play.  Taken to the extreme, I suppose I[...]
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Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: Throwing out a good game element for a better game element

I'd like to discuss one of the hardest things (for me) to do in game design. Throwing out or replacing a good game element for a better one. Its very hard on a human level to throw out something thats "still perfectly [...]
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[Thundarr Thursday] Notorious NPCs: Sheriff Korb

Sheriff Korb 5th Level Pure HumanSTR: 16 --- INT: 9DEX: 12 --- WIL: 13CON: 14 --- CHA: 11HPs: 78 --- AC: 8Mutations: noneSheriff Korb is the sheriff and de facto ruler of what remains of the Ancient city of Atlanta - now[...]
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Design Via Play

When I attended the Art History of Games several weeks ago, the keynote put forth the question of what it meant to view games as an art form. To my surprise, five responses down the list came the idea of whether or not a[...]
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Promoting racial diversity in RPGs

Mythical and magical races are a staple of fantasy fiction, both as heroes and enemies, so it only makes sense that fantasy roleplaying games (RPGs) would include race options for players to use in building their charact[...]
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Savage Menagerie: Crabhemoth

No. Enc.: 1d2(1d4)Alignment: NeutralMovement: 120' (40'); Swimming: 120' (40') Armor Class: 2Hit Dice: 9Attacks: 3 (claw/claw/tendril)Damage: 3d6+3/3d6+3/holdSave: L3Morale: 7Hoard Class: NoneA Crabhemoth (pronounced cra[...]
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The Random Esoteric (ahem) “MUTANT” Generator

After seeing an entry at the Green Skeleton Gaming Guild blog expounding the mutagenic goodness of The Random Esoteric Creature Generator by James Raggi IV and published by Goodman Games, I knew I had to get my hands on [...]
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Rebuilding Vampire: Related Reading

It’s not Spring Break yet so no new design posts from me. However, I think you should take a look at the posts I am linking to below. Nothing happens in a vacuum, especially not creative endeavors, and since I both[...]
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Fresh Pie! Updating class structure

As the release of Piecemeal 1e Beta draws closer (finishing the wizard spells, and then a few bits on planes and deities), I thought I'd share an update on an old favourite PIE , spurred on by reading this post.As a slig[...]
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Destined: What is it?

I'm just about done with the first full draft of the game I've been writing. At this point, it is over 100 pages, although nearly half of that is devoted to things like spells and feats - long lists of things with write-[...]
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Savage Menagerie: Jaguirrel

No. Enc.: 1d10 (3d10)Alignment: NeutralMovement: 120' (40') Armor Class: 8Hit Dice: 1Attacks: 1 (bite)Damage: 1d8 (potential 2d10 additional)Save: L1Morale: 8Hoard Class: NoneA Jaguirrel (pronounced jag-whirl) is a small[...]
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Making items made easy

When third edition came out for Dungeons and Dragons, I remember my players started making their own magic items and mundane items almost right away. As the game aged and players started looking to min max everything, cr[...]
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Levels should grant more than improvement in combat

One thing that has always struck me in many level based roleplaying games is that going up level makes everyone better in combat. If we look at D&D (and going back to 2E in my case) I first remember noticing that eve[...]
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Building a Better Adventurer Trap

Via Baz Stevens and his RPG Treehouse comes this call for help from Rodney Thompson of WotC:So, what I’d like to hear from the community is what you think would make published adventures better. What areas are WotC adv[...]
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How to DM – Play to your strengths

I have a feeling that the one thing that all successful DMs have in common is that they play to their strengths.  The old maxim "be true to yourself" is kind of what I am getting at here. When I was much younger, I [...]
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Criticism

At its core, criticism is the only antidote that human beings have discovered against error. It is the chief method that a skilled person can use to become "even better."– David BrinAlexis puts out the call for standar[...]
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