Much like with Jason’s article, this is not meant to be an exhaustive discussion of how to run a game. It also isn’t meant to be prescriptive. Like it says on the tin, I want to share with you how I go about running games these days. Curious about success through brainstorming and improvisation? Keep reading.
Lord of the Isles, by David Drake
I had always thought of David Drake as a military sci-fi author. He has a long history of writing exactly that, with Hammer’s Slammers and Northworld being the examples I’m most familiar with. So when I came across Lord of the Isles while browsing his wikipedia page, I was a little surprised. A renowned sci-fi author tries his hand at epic fantasy?
I shouldn’t have been skeptical. Continue reading
What is Roleplaying?
If you’ve never been exposed to roleplaying, it can be hard to understand exactly what it is. Thankfully, pop culture knowledge has progressed from the point where roleplaying is no longer linked with satanic ritual, and is instead linked with socially awkward nerds:
How I Make a Character
As a person who is primarily a player in roleplaying games instead of a storyteller (game master, dungeon master, etc.) I figure the best place to start is where we all start: character creation. Everyone has their own preferences when it comes to character creation, so in no way will this to be taken as a “how-to” guide. This article is merely a sort of stepping-stone and perspective-setter. The three approaches I take to creation I will call Who, Stats, and Hybrid. In this article I will do a quick overview of what each of those approaches looks like, but I will save delving into each for later articles.
The Wheel of Time: A Late Eulogy for Robert Jordan
For my first review, I was all set to review a book by Brandon Sanderson. I outlined what I liked about the book, what I thought Brandon Sanderson brought to the table, where his writing felt flawed, and so on. And then I tried to introduce Brandon Sanderson. I couldn’t do it. To talk about what Brandon Sanderson does right and wrong was something I had only ever learned to do in contrast to Robert Jordan, and anything I could write about Brandon Sanderson would be overshadowed by my 5 paragraph intro about Robert Jordan. Brandon Sanderson is a spectacular author in his own right, and deserves to be written about on his own, without a page of intro about somebody else. So instead, I find myself writing about Robert Jordan.
Short Story: Paying the Tab
I wrote this first draft of a short story over the course of one week, as a morale-boosting project. You might think of it as fantastical historical fiction.
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Andre sat with his back against the tavern’s wall, his legs draped down the length of the bench. They didn’t go very far down the bench, since he only ever reached four feet three inches on a good day. The portion of the bench that he did cover he clearly dominated with his muscular bulk, as might be expected of a healthy dwarf of his respectable age. He and his drinking companion were a study in contrasts.
The Beginning
We are now live! Stay tuned for more short stories, reviews, articles on game design, roleplaying advice, and eventually, recordings of rpg sessions!
