Stolze’s twisted view of reality continues to rock my world.

Greg Stolze is one of my favorite writers today; stories like Switchflipped are why. Twisting what we know as reality just a little bit to create a unique life-after-death scenario creating all kinds of bizarre adventures for his always-fascinating characters. I’m also incredibly pleased that there is a follow-up novella that is freely available on his website (it’s called 7 + 7), as I immediately wanted more story after I finished Switchflipped.

For $5 you absolutely can’t go wrong.

This book is creepy as hell, and I loved it.

In true to form Wendig style, Blackbirds takes you on a disturbing ride that explores weird, unique characters with a hint of magic realism in the form of psychic energy that lets Miriam (the main character) view the situation of a person’s death. With plenty of swearing, boozing, sex, and violence along the way.

I was really impressed. Blackbirds is a finely crafted story that didn’t disappoint me for even a page. The story is visceral and gripping and kept me reading straight through. I hate to call up the connotations of a “page turner,” as I have some distinctly non-stellar examples in my own head, but I honestly hated to put this one down. So sure, you could call it beach reading — if you’re prepared to be a little uncomfortable bearing witness to Miriam’s experience of countless deaths and other (often brutal) emotional scars that get her through each day on the road.

In conclusion, thumbs way up for this one. I’m very pleased to hear that it may have series options in the future. I’ll definitely been keeping my eyes out for more.

Late morning I ran a very quick version of the Dresden Files Night Fears casefile, which was a lot of fun to run and watch people play. I think I turned some long-time D&D players on to both the FATE system, and the Dresden Files game in particular.

Then I went to my appointment to interview Andrew Hackard, the “Munchkin Czar” (aka Brand Manager), which ended up being a fascinating look inside the guts and making-of a Munchkin product. I’m really excited about how this recording went, Andrew was an awesome guest and I can’t wait to post this episode.

Back at the Kickstarter Arcade, my table was full up of Ghost Pirates, Happy Birthday Robot, Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple, Dinocalypse Now!, and The Organ Trail. I started by doing quick blurbs on ALL of these great books/products. After a while, I figured out how to aim more directly at talking about Ghost Pirates – which I honestly did mostly for the sake of being able to speak on Saturday and Sunday. I killed my bag of throat drops and need to pick up a new one in the morning.

Eventually, 6pm hit and I had a scheduled dinner with Brennan Taylor of Galileo Games. It ended up that the dinner crew consisted of Rob Bohl, Meg Baker, Jeremy Keller, Will Hindmarch, and Cam Banks in addition to me and Brennan. Thanks all of you for such great dinner company! After a lot of great conversation and stair races, about half of us ended up back at the Games on Demand area, which apparently has been doing great. Steve Segedy has done great work putting the space and rocking volunteers together to make lots of great games available at your convenience!

However, this really wrapped my day. I had woken up at 6:45 this morning (without alarm) due to sunlight and excitement. And now I am EXHAUSTED. Gonna hit the sack for a nice long sleep. Tomorrow, I run a demo of Spirit of the Century via the Pandemonium Games booth at 1pm. Interested in Pulp Action? Come check it out! But for now, goodnight!

In this second portion of the recording of Episode 33, We talk influence/inspirations. Get a first glance into Durance, (Colonial Prisons In Space!) and find out more about why his preference is for nonfiction. We continue with talk about our interest in Jeepform games, and my first attempt to write one for GameChef 2011 (and the trials and tribulations around that).

Hyper-Positive Post-Apocalyptic Roleplaying. Sold yet? I am. Her game Flatpack is about a scuffed-but-still-good future where you have adventures and fight monsters in order to find flatpack buildings in order to rebuild your city. She’s also writing for Don’t Hack This Game, Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, more Guestbook RPG and is having a baby in May! We also get a brief teaser of David Hill’s upcoming “Progressive Post-Fantasy” game.

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Interview with R.A. Salvatore

We chat about his return to the world of Neverwinter, how fantasy got him to read again, his foray into writing, then chat about Kingdoms of Amalaur, opinions on eBooks, and about how his work is all about the Human Condition.

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Let me specifically recommend Robin D. Laws’ Hamlet’s Hit Points, which should be in every GM’s library as one of the best (only?) examples of beat analysis as applied to role-playing games. It’s stellar work and changed the way I run games (hint: I got better).

One of the smartest people I know who happens to think a lot about games contributed to the GM section of the Leverage RPG. Read everything that Rob Donoghue has to say – you’ll absorb brilliance – plus he’s one of the nicest guys around. AND it’s on sale. AND it’s a great game. AND….just go buy it.

As mentioned previously, I’ll be running the new Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Game this weekend as part of the Twenty Sided Store’s launch party event this weekend. Incidentally, it also runs on Cortex+Action, the same system that powers Leverage (I’m not a shill, just a fan). And you can get two great games that you where you don’t have to learn a completely new system.

And to shill for promote myself a little bit, the print and play edition of my own board game Ghost Pirates is also available if you need an awesome 2-player wargame to pass a quick 20 minutes before the game starts. You can even print off a couple of copies and run your own tournament. You can even go make up your own captains at this site over here.

Did I miss your GM’s preference? Well, then look up something yourself. I can’t know everything. What do you think this is, an RPG? Go investigate DriveThruStuff’s GM’s Day Sale. And by the gods, don’t get us more dice, we already have too many.

I haven’t completely disappeared, although it may have come off that way. Two major things have been happening. The first, a change in jobs. The last one that sucked my time and life energy is now gone as of August (and I’ve just accepted a new one), and two, my board game Ghost Pirates has gone to production and will be available in the spring directly and from select retailers around the country!

I haven’t been completely ignoring the gaming world. There are a couple of backed up interview episodes that I have recorded and not posted yet—so those will go into an active production queue tonight—and I’ve also got further ideas for shows which means great new content to look forward to this year.

Dreamation went off phenomenally this last weekend. I ran six different events and got a chance to catch up with a ton of great people and started planning new exciting projects. I’m now in a live action RP group called Death by Awesome which ran a half-dozen different jeepform events and workshops. I also demoed the aforementioned board game Ghost Pirates, which was very well received by all players, and ran the very first playtest of Where My Clothes!? Plenty of work remains to go there, but with the phenomenal playtest assistance of Kevin Allen Jr., many improvements will be made for the next go-around.

In other news, if you’re in the NYC Area, there are some Marvel RPG Launch Parties coming this weekend. Saturday at the Compleat Strategist, and Sunday at 20 Sided Store (I will be running a game for Sunday’s event, and possibly Saturday if I end up not playtesting). I’ve played with this CortexPlus implementation of superhero role-playing and it’s a lot of fun; definitely a worthy addition to the category.

Finally this week, Brooklyn Indie Games will formally open for business. The Ghost Pirates PDF and FiascoMobile will be the first products available, with plenty more in the pipeline!

I’m really looking forward to reconnecting with everyone, so stay tuned for more.

Aruneus Bundle [Troll in the Corner]
Part-Time Gods [Third Eye Games]
A Peculiar Pentad – Savaged [Super Genius Games]
Ultimate Dice Tower 2 [Fat Dragon Games]
Exodus Post Apocalyptic RPG Survivor’s Guide [Glutton Creeper Games]

Use the code GeekLoveRules2012 for 20% off any of the above products! This code is good until March 14th, 2012.

Are you going to be at Dreamation next week? I’ll give a listener a $10 gift certificate to DriveThruRPG for the first person to ask.

Conversation with Will Hindmarch on Always/Never/Now

- Always/Never/Now is a Cyberpunk Action Storygame Adventure based on the Lady Blackbird rules
- Will likes to stay surprised by places he lives
- A/N/N is future forward, but not limited by an “Elevator Pitch.” It is meant to inspire
- A relevant tangent about a possible future episode of DFL
- Hacking approximately equals Mashups — neither is “fixing.”
- Will wrote a Mortal Kombat RPG system
- The process of creating – whether on the clock or on the weekend.
- Repetition does not destroy creativity on this type of game
- What makes A/N/N, an intended Creative Commons product, a Kickstarter project?
- Ghost Pirates chatter
- That the internet makes the world tiny
- How to diversify yourself

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Adventure Companion (FantasyCraft) [Crafty Games]
Age of Cthulhu 5: The Long Reach of Evil [Goodman Games]
Smallville: The Watchtower Report [Margaret Weis Productions]
Huxtropy (D&D 4E) [Silent7Seven Games]
Shambles [A Terrible Idea]

Your general Support Code that gives 20% off the entire list above is: HolidayHooplah2011

This code is good until January 18th, 2012.

Plus, I’ve got a $10 gift certificate to DriveThru to give away…

So I’m going to need some more art for some of these Ghost Pirates promo cards that I’ve promised… So help me find an artist! Link me to a portfolio/deviantart site with good examples of their work that might fit my needs. The person who first links the portfolio I like best will take back $10 in free game PDF goods (incidentally, Ghost Pirates will be priced at $10 for a PDF when released)…just FYI.

• Business: Ghost Pirates boardgame on Kickstarter! Only 38 hours to go!
• Chat: Jason and I discuss the convergence of analog and digital in the tabletop/hobby gaming space. Example: FiascoMobile, an app I developed for accessing Fiasco playsets from anywhere.

Through December 9, use the code EarlyShopRPG2011 to take 20% off of any or all of the PDF products listed below.

So check it out, share the link, and tell me what else you want to know about the game.

http://kck.st/vVab8T

• Kickstarter rewards, origami dinosaurs, and a story about discovering girls
• Shoutout to Martha!
• There’s a technique to watercolor!?
• Fiasco Mobile (is actually done: check it out at http://fiascomobile.ogreteeth.com)
• The creative process can take many forms – and what GS discovered while writing his thesis on the topic.
• Better Angels
• When is it done?
• Chad Underkoffler is responsible for how awesomely well Unknown Armies 2E is organized.
• Finish things…and don’t let GS operate on your brain.

Friday:  8pm – 10pm
Board Game: Yellow Press
Take on the role of a newspaper to manipulate the reputations of your local superheroes. Be an editor like J. Jonah Jameson, or a plucky reporter like Clark Kent. Or both! Decide who is a hero, and who is a menace.

Prefer 4-5 experienced play-testers or board game designers who are interested in “light” narrative board games with euro-inspired elements.

Saturday:  9AM – 11AM
Party Games: Feral Survivors, Rap Battles
Feral Survivors is a journaling party game — think: Lord of the Flies, Lost, and Robinson Crusoe in an Exquisite Corpse format.

Rap Battles is a party game where Wannabe MCs compete to showcase their lyrical prowess using the same verbal ingredients.
Grandmaster Flash Fiction wants to know: are you ready to throw down?

Anyone welcome at any time, party game format means quick rounds of play.

Saturday: 2PM – 4PM
Open Board Game Rules Testing
Help identify confusing rules, unclear language, and where diagrams would be most useful. Various board games available for review.

No limit on number of participants, anyone welcome, including designers interested in rules-testing their own games (bring paper docs)

Saturday: 8PM – 12AM
RPG: Hyperreality
HYPERREALITY is the best and worst of the new wave of reality TV. Chaos, controversy, adrenaline, sex, violence, and even death are just par for the course. It’s time to win big, so put on your game face and take this chance to get anything and everything you ever wanted. In HYPERREALITY, you put your life on the line—on-line. The internet age is over, it’s time for HYPERREALITY.

Prefer 4-6 RPG/StoryGame-Savvy players/designers, 18+

Sunday: 10AM – 12PM
Board Game: Yellow Press
Take on the role of a newspaper to manipulate the reputations of your local superheroes. Be an editor like J. Jonah Jameson, or a plucky reporter like Clark Kent. Or both! Decide who is a hero, and who is a menace.

Prefer 4-5 experienced play-testers or board game designers who are interested in “light” narrative board games with euro-inspired elements.

Sunday: 3PM – 7PM
RPG: Hyperreality
HYPERREALITY is the best and worst of the new wave of reality TV. Chaos, controversy, adrenaline, sex, violence, and even death are just par for the course. It’s time to win big, so put on your game face and take this chance to get anything and everything you ever wanted. In HYPERREALITY, you put your life on the line—on-line. The internet age is over, it’s time for HYPERREALITY.

Prefer 4-6 RPG/StoryGame-Savvy players/designers, 18+

The book is a gorgeous hardcover that clocks in at about 120 pages that are crammed full of great information and beautiful illustrations by Jaime Posadas and Kurt Komoda, and I want to give a big hand to the editing crew Amanda Valentine and Ryan Macklin who very much succeeded at making sure that every piece of text contributes to the “Sci-Fi that Kicks Ass” tagline.

Let me start the review of the actual content with an anecdote. I used to run Star Wars, as it was one of the few RPGs I could get my wife to play (sucker!), and after experiencing how troublesome Jedi are to run in the context of a full party, I opted to run mine as an all-scoundrels game (Scoundrels being the DnD Rogue-like character class). Sure, some folks still had some Force-powers in play, but having a crew that was  largely free from the otherwise overriding Jedi vs. Sith / Rebellion vs. Empire constraints was very freeing and we were able to rock some awesome stories of my players being largely on the run, cashing in when they could, and in all ways running a story of “Sci-Fi that Kicks Ass.” In terms of the game mechanics though, it took a metric ton of extra Star Wars sourcebooks and system hacking to push the d20 revised rules set to customize relatively basic things like races, equipment, ships, et al.

I wish to hell that I’d had Bulldogs! for that game. This one single book contains information on how to work the Fate-based system to create entirely customized races / equipment / ships / skills / stunts without any overhead. It seriously blows my mind at how sleek this writing is, compared to how many books I used to have to look through to puzzle out how to morph one of the NPC races into a PC race or how to cost a +1 damage upgrade to someone’s blaster pistol.

The only tricky thing I ran into during my read-through of the book is that Bulldogs! uses a single stress track, which I hadn’t expected; but then I also have relatively limited experience running Fate system games – and looking into it, all of the individual games seem to have evolved their own specifically tailored versions of how Stress is applied.

I’ve grown to really appreciate the way the Fate system helps drive games in terms of the play style, and how much depth it adds to the game for the relatively small amount of actual work you have to put into it. And I think that this is part of what makes Bulldogs! great. Fate’s Aspects versus d20’s neutrality-of-character are something that I find inspiring.

I’m going to be running Bulldogs! for a home campaign in the near future (when I can get people over here), and I’m really looking forward to it. Thanks a ton to Brennan, Brian Engard, and everyone else involved in putting this great game out! Get it at http://galileogames.com/bulldogs-fate/

I have consistently found it more useful to bounce ideas off of a group of people who are actively trying to play the game, than to review things on my own. This game currently aims for 5 players, and during the last playtest I actually got to watch 5 players try to make sense of the game (awesome).

For anyone that has seen it before, you’ll recall that headlines were essentially minor bonuses that individual papers could get on actions. Well, they’ve just gotten a lot more important/interesting.

These are now cards that you can score for any hero, but also score better for your own hero/heel. This does a lot to address the apparent need for more of a narrative in the game. Supervillains will be actually plotting and whether or not the heros foil them will make a difference; papers can make and break reputations; and hopefully the game comes together like an issue or story arc.

I’m also working on improving the design of the cards, which has consistently done well in terms of improving the showing of the game, no matter what. Even my mediocre ability to do visual design scores points in terms of communicating the intent and information that is supposed to be there. See the headline cards above as an example: Start with the tabloid-esque block print words along the left sides. Boom. Newspaper headlines. The “Extra Extra” across the top functions more as a aggregation than anything else, loosely styled after a fancier newspaper like NYT or WAPO (that’s gonna catch some weird spam, I bet). The body font is set in Palatino, a relatively formal serif font that is a little rounder than (and specifically isn’t) Times New Roman. All of this is underlaid on a 10% grey background and faint newspaper column text, clearly identifying the card type.

They’re not even close to “done” and they still kind of embarrass me, but they came out more solidly than I expected.

There are other cards (which I’m not going to show yet) where I am very unhappy with the current state. And part of that trouble is the fact that I’m much more capable with pens/pencils/markers than I am with Illustrator. Using higher-end tools than you’re comfortable with creates a very problematic space to work in, because all of the little issues that you might gloss over in a pencil drawing are now high-resolution vector graphics that clearly show you every minor drawing issue. And sure, clip-art is great but it can only take you so far (unless that’s your goal: See Time & Temp). So for these other cards, I’ve decided that I’m going to literally go back to the drawing board and see if I can’t figure out some attractive and informative way to put them together outside of these tools that highlight my inexperience rather than showcase the good parts of my work.

Lord of the Flies meets Exquisite Corpse in a storytelling journal game.

On a remote island, the group consisting of the only survivors of a plane wreck, make their way towards the center of the island and hopefully escape. Along the way they will face their fears and find things of value, but it is unlikely that all will make it off the island!

You’ll need: Two d12s (distinguishable between light and dark), a pocketmod character sheet for each player, and some pencils.

Setup

On the front cover, write the name of your story, “by,” your character name.
Ex: [ Livingston Presumes Too Much, by Charles Finnegan ]

On the back cover, write three things to fear, and three treasures that may be found. Split 10 points between your fate and your luck. The higher your fate, the more likely you are to escape with something worthwhile. The higher your luck, the more likely you are to accomplish the mundane tasks that mean survival.

Luck

In Feral Survivors, it doesn’t much matter how fit you are for survival. All things come down to a gamble. Is that water safe to drink or not? When you’re trying to accomplish a task, a roll lower than the Luck value indicates success.

Fate

Fate is a general indicator of how things will turn out for you; whether or not you’ll find treasure, escape the island, even survive. A roll less than your fate value indicates success.

Gameplay

The starting player begins by making up and describing the general aspects of the scene described on the first page. e.g. “The Crash”. This scene describes the setup for the players to start their story. Role-play a little bit to get started. The start player then rolls the dice*, and each player starts writing their journal. Write a sentence worth and put the journal in the middle of the table. Next person to get done can grab that one and write a continuation. Keep tossing journals back to the middle of the table until the page is full. If you complete a page, hold on to the journal. The leader may reroll the dice any time he or she completes a sentence and places a journal in the middle of the table.

Once everyone has finished a page and is holding journals, pass the start player token to the next person for the next round.

Here’s how the dice come in. Before you start writing a new sentence, check the character’s luck and fate scores compared to the ones written in on the back cover. Use the success or failure of the character’s luck as an indicator of how this part of the story should turn out. If the character’s fate check succeeds, cross out the lowest box on the epilogue track. Alternately, if it fails, cross out the highest box. Help that character’s journal track towards their ultimate fate.

Epilogue

Take your own character journal back and read it out loud to the group.

Notes

“Treasure” is intended to be a vague term. Golden idols and pygmys can make for a pulp action game, while photos of loved ones and loneliness can make for a more introspective drama.

• Switchflipped is available at Amazon, Smashwords, or GhostWoods for less than the cost of a puppy!
• Kickstarter for Dinosaurs…in Spaaace
• E-readers vs. Burglar Stunning Hardbacks and “the Race to the Bottom.”
• Greg promises that you’ll never have to pick up after his novels.
• The Token Effort system, explained!
• Work (writing) for Hire and waste work.
• Killing off Characters — winning the game vs. winning the story.

Download MP3

Going from a pre-alpha that is scrawled cards as pictured in the first design diary post to the playtest cards on the starscape website is an awful lot of work. I did a lot of playing around with demo card design – nearly everything I’ve heard from other game designers suggests that some reasonable level of visual appeal contributes significantly to potential response to a game (even by seasoned playtesters). In other words, the asteroid I took 30 seconds to draw is good enough for me, but not for you. So I went out and spent a few bucks on some cheap clip-art and did a few of my own vector drawings to drop into a quick and dirty card template (OmniGraffle and Photoshop, for those interested), and came up with cards that basically look like this:

Simple enough. Clean, to-the-point visual design that will print quickly and does something/anything to give playtesters a little bit of the feel of the game. I didn’t spend a ton of time on the final block of cards – maybe three or four hours total, but if that little bit of style draws even one person into the game, I’ll count it a huge success.

Finally, I’ve nearly finished the first draft of the “upgrade” package. Next design diary post, I’ll talk about the process of writing the upgrade packages and generally dealing with this weird form of storytelling.

In the meantime, I hope you’ll try the game out and I’d love to hear any thoughts you might have to share.

Vampire Hunter$ Modern OGL [Team Frog]
SAWS+ Character Sheet for Pathfinder [Dire Giraffe]
Field Guide to Superheroes Vol. 3 (ICONS) [Vigilance Press]
Plastic Ships and Fuzzy Men [Inner City Games Designs]
The Genius Guide to Another 110 Spell Variants (Pathfinder) [Super Genius Games]
Iron Dynasty: Way of the Ronin [Reality Blurs]

Take 20% off the entire list above by using the code: AfterGenConGlow2011 at checkout.

I’ve also got a code for a free copy of Iron Dynasty: Way of the Ronin to give away to a new play tester. Register for an account on the site and comment here – then send in a play test report by 9/15 to win!

I’m starting a new feature here, as I work on designing a new game. The idea is that it’s a solitaire/multiplayer game based loosely on the old Wing Commander: Privateer video game; which is about a layabout dude who inherits a crappy starship and goes out on these solo freight or mercenary runs and grows into…whatever you make him out to be, and there’s big storyline etc. It occurs to me that that was one of the first sandbox-style video games I remember.

So anyway, I started coming up with the general idea of what I wanted this game to look like Wednesday afternoon, and by Thursday night I had a working prototype that I ended up drawing and playing much longer than I expected (I’m pretty sure it’s a good sign if you get lost in your own game). Anyway, I’m intending this game to be an inexpensive to buy/play with an ongoing story, in-game content that joins to online storytelling, add-on expansions, and maybe even ways to integrate player characters into the fiction of the game.

I’m intending the game to be low-cost and have ongoing inexpensive print/play expansions, with one small star-sector beginning area, and expand as I go. The sandbox is a big place, and I’m really excited to see where this game goes.

Let me know if you want to help test.

First thing that happened when I got to the con hall floor, I was recognized by a guy I met at NerdNYC’s recess event, and he was about to start a game — and so I finally got a chance to check out Vincent Baker’s Dogs in the Vineyard, which was a really good time, and while it took a little bit to grok how the resolution and escalation system worked, it went very well owing to the high quality GM’ing from Kit LaTouche. Thanks Kit!

We finished up just in time for my hyper-exclusive party. Yea, like I get invited to those. I did go to a private party that was mostly focused on podcasters meeting each other with food and drinks and space to hang out.

Later on I went out to visit some of my Fear the Boot forums buddies at an open gaming space, where I got to catch up with a lot of geographically disparate friends and then play Jeremy Keller’s new game Technoir. The game runs very smoothly, and while I haven’t had the chance to read through it yet, my experience was VERY promising. Our only real problem was that we as PCs weren’t quite behaving in genre, and so our contacts/”friends” wouldn’t just tell us what was going on. Blame the fact that the game started at midnight.

Friday Morning

Friday morning I took the opportunity to briefly skim through the dealer’s room before my appearance on This Just In from GenCon. I had donated some money to help fund their goal of bringing GenCon to those who couldn’t come, and they had me come on to co-host with guests J.R. Blackwell (Shelter in Place), and Ryan Sturm (How to Play podcast, The Dice Tower blog, and a new podcast on game design called Ludology). I’m very excited to check out both Ryan and J.R.’s various projects further when I have some more time.

After lunch I went back to the most-excellent Games on Demand space, where awesome hardworking GMs ran anything and everything as pick-up games for players who were there to play. Definitely worth the $2 generic ticket, and my thanks go out to everyone running the space, running games, and the players for showing what I hope ends up being massive support of Games on Demand. I caught my first actual game of Daniel Solis’ Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple, and immediately afterwards facilitated a game of Jason Morningstar’s Fiasco.

I had to leave that game halfway through to go meet my ENnies dream dates, Jeff Tidball and Will Hindmarch from Gameplaywright Press. Part of the deal was that I got to claim credit for Jeff’s ridiculous mustache, which quickly led to the following photo of Ken Hite and Jeff hamming up the 70s cop show theme. Hanging out with these guys was a hoot – see below:

Ken Hite and Jeff Tidball as 70s Cops Skitch and Grissom. THEY FIGHT CRIME!
Photo credit: AtomicOvermind

Actually attending the ennies awards ceremony was nice, I got to meet a ton of awesome people during the cocktail hour and had a great time twittering back and forth with Jeff and Will; but I wouldn’t call the actual awards ceremony one of the must-see events of the show if you don’t have anything at stake. We followed up the actual ceremony with a quick recording session – now available as Episode 30.

To begin closing my evening out, I went to the Burning Wheel Social, hosted by Luke Crane and Peter Adkison, hung out a while, played a prototype of a game called Ninja Clans by this guy Jurgen, and took a photo of Peter in his hilarious new outfit.

As it got later, and I got closer to closing my night out, I went back to the Embassy Suites and found people including Steve Segedy, Daniel Perez, and Ryan Macklin chilling in the lobby chatting over beverages. Games were brought up, and I mentioned that I had Feed the Birds with me. We got in a 3-player game of half-asleep/half-drunk FtB before crashing and it was extremely well received. The last new rules tweak I just made actually works really well, too! (Jenn and Aron – I owe you two some errata.)

So far so good. I’ll write up Saturday and Sunday soon.

Afterwards, we chat about Gameplaywright Press more specifically: including Eternal Lies playtesting, the books they have produced (and are in the midst of producing).

Friday is Luchador time. Mark your calendars.

GenCon (and Cons in General) provide productivity boosts, make them worthwhile.
Games on Demand rocks! I played:
- Dogs in the Vineyard (see also: Becoming Heroes)
- Technoir
- Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple
- Fiasco

http://www.wordstudio.net/
http://www.jefftidball.com/
http://www.gameplaywright.net/

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The Do: Book of Letters has just been released as a PDF to both Kickstarter Backers and is also available for sale to the general public for just $5. This is particularly exciting for me as I contributed a letter that is included for you to play. The product description from the webstore follows:

The Pilgrimage continues! (That’s a good thing, right?)
Do: The Book of Letters expands the slapstick fantasy universe of Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple with new letters for your pilgrims to answer. Each letter describes a new world with weird problems:

“Oops! I summoned a giant monster.”
“My world is counting on me marrying a doofus!”
“They say you can’t have too many pandas. Actually…”

Do: The Book of Letters includes new letters, plus tips for writing your own!

Check out the Evil Hat webstore for Do and other awesome games!

This last weekend saw my second trip to Dexcon, held in Morristown, NJ every summer. It’s run by the same group that puts out Dreammation (and coming this fall: Metatopia) and seemed to me this year to be an extremely live-action heavy con. In fact that’s most of what I played this weekend.

I didn’t mean to, after all, I swore off larping ages ago when it started taking up far too much of my life. Several people had recently recommended jeepform[1] games to me, when offering direction for my game Hyperreality; but I hadn’t gotten a chance to play any. And then there they were, two different jeepform games being offered.

The first game was called Previous Occupants. The general plot is a story of two couples separated by some number of years (but played simultaneously) that turns into a ghost story as relationship issues are dealt with and played out by having a pair of two players and characters share the same physical body. This ain’t your high-level Vampire dominate power. The combination of the privacy of the space we set aside to play, the intensity of the serious dramatic issues, and all the player’s high level of buy-in left me shaking by the end. Like I said… intense.

I also played a Game of Thrones larp, a game of Fiasco, ran some demos of Ghost Pirates and Happy Birthday Robot, and “Project: Ninja Panda Taco” by Jenn of the Jennisodes. (definitely play this one if you get a chance).

Finally towards the end of the con, I was hanging out at the IPR table with Darren Watts and the Indie Roundtable discussion ended up coming to us; it was great to hear about people’s ideas and plans and to be able to offer feedback on their ideas. It really helped clarify for me the role that I want Dice + Food + Lodging to play in the community, and I’ll post and talk more about this later — but the summary is that it should be a stepping stone for creative ambitions within the gaming community.

All in all, it felt like a very successful con for me – I had a great time and will definitely be back next summer with a little more planning in place.

[1] A quick aside: jeepform games are a scandinavian tradition of what they refer to as “tabletop” games; which differ drastically from our definition. They are played as small-scale live-action games with only a little bit of the loosest preparation. And they frequently aim to induce “bleed,” that is the crossover of character emotions to the player and vice versa. These games are very intense, extremely personal, and to my mind extremely rewarding. Visit http://www.jeepen.org for more information.

Modern Magic [Ninja Monkey Press]
Imperium Chronicles RPG [Imperium Group]
Bean: the D2 RPG [Fabled Worlds Publishing]
World vs. Hero [Word Mill]
Smallville Roleplaying Game [Margaret Weis Productions]

The “Show Everyone” Code that gives 20% off the entire list above is: CoolJulySave2011

And the special secret code that is good for a free PDF copy of Smallville will be given out to a random listener who leaves an iTunes Review by July 31! Run don’t walk, and you’ll hear from me again soon!

Show Notes
- 6/23/2011

Business
- Adventure Week is back! 6/26-7/2
- DexCon 7/7 – 7/11

Travel
- Key West, FL

Games
- All About Playtesting! with Josh Roby and Ryan Macklin
- Ryan Macklin: Mythender
- Josh Roby: Atlantis Risen
- Tim Rodriguez: Hyperreality

What you look for in trying to make your game better:
- Playtesting for your Target Experience
- Playtesting for Understanding
- Playtest the Setting
- Playtest the Audience

Nothing is Sacred — Changing your mind
- Learn to accept when things don’t work
- Elements that you cut are not actually dead
- Versioning!
- Playtesters are frequently too nice
- Don’t playtest with flavor text
- Case Study: Technoir (Reading Assignment: Jeremy Keller’s website & game Technoir)

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In this special interview episode, Daniel and I talk about the Do Kickstarter, which had met it’s goal within 24 hours, and at it’s current state has reached nearly 6 times its original funding goal – providing game books to a great deal of the masses.

We also talk about plenty more ideas, the future of the possibly trilogy-to-be that consists of Happy Birthday Robot, Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple, and perhaps “Pop & Locke” a heist game?

And plenty more that I’d list specifically, except that I really want to push this episode out already. Go listen.

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Business
- Adventure Week, 2nd Annual
- Camp Nerdly – 5/20-22
- Do Kickstarter
- Entering the Ennies, hit up the Facebook page and “Like” DFL, or leave a review on iTunes!

Games
- Playtesting Ghost Pirates
- Playtesting Feed the Birds
- Planning their future

Travel
- Chantilly, VA
- Packing for Productivity

Creativity
- Outline Plans: turn elements into actions
- Timeline activities and set deadlines
- Plan your tools to optimize doing what you want to be doing.

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In mid-April, I spent a Saturday attending I-CON #30, the “Northeast’s Largest SF Con,” which is true enough. It is a consistently well-attended con, with big-name media and gaming guests. This year saw Julie Benz, Denise Crosby, Nicki Clyne, Cam Banks, Eddy Webb, Frank Mentzer and many more filling out a widely varied roster.

Based on my short visit, I planned very little of my day — save for attending Cam Banks’ Smallville game, which ended up with just me on the roster which meant we didn’t actually play. But we spent an hour chatting about the game and reacquainting ourselves. I also got a solid overview of Smallville, and I’m excited to go read the rulebook in more depth now. This ended up being a nice way for it to work out, because I got to go catch the latter half of my friend Ben Morgan’s “Spookybeans” game. Ben is an artist, RPG designer, and all around cool guy, and I’ve been trying to catch a Spookybeans game for years. It also turned out that he and a mutual friend, Lucas, were just about the only two people that I knew at the con. We ended up hanging out, getting lunch, and playing an excellent game of Fiasco with the Gangster London play set.

Finally, I followed them to a panel that Ben was slated to be on, and found a few other NYC acquaintances there – so we rocked a short panel, and more or less wrapped up our con.

Overall, I was really disappointed in my experience at I-CON this year. It hadn’t really struck me how young most of the attendees are (though it makes sense, being a college con), but more importantly, very few friends were there to hang out with. That aspect of the day really killed it for me more than anything else. I spent way too much time wandering between buildings just looking for something to do that interested me. My attendance next year is currently unlikely, but we’ll see what happens in the coming year.

Conversation with Daniel Perez, the Gamer Traveler. We interview each other back and forth about travel, how we got into podcasting in this weird niche of ours, and a little bit more of each of our distinct yet surprisingly similar backgrounds.

Find Daniel at The Gamer Traveler

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Sunday morning, I found out that the Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple Kickstarter campaign had started, and I immediately made my donation. In two days they have raised nearly $10,000, and as I joked on the comments page, it’s on track to make $12,000 in the first three days. Boy I hope that comes true – I totally want to have been the first one to call it.

Sunday night, DFL was the third podcast to interview Daniel about Do and the Kickstarter campaign. The prior interview with him actually has a lot of sneak-preview type information about the origins of the game; they are also some of the best episodes so definitely give those a listen if you haven’t already. The Do episode will be releasing either late this month or in May – I’m way behind on editing. The next episode to drop will be a mutual interview with Daniel Perez, the Gamer Traveler

Further, I wrote a letter to the Monks that Daniel will be including in the book. So on top of this awesome project coming to fruition, I will also be a contributor.

–

Last night I got together with my friend Scott to do some play testing of Ghost Pirates, and managed to get a lot of little kinks worked out and more variety of play injected with a few little changes. The game is coming along really well, I’ve gotten the second round of playtest art and layout finished and I’d love to send out some print-and-play copies to people who want to test the current set of rules. Email me!

–

This morning I got a note from Robert Bohl that he’d plugged HYPERREALITY in an RPG.net forum thread. We’ll see where that goes, but it’s really exciting to see that something you’ve created has generated enough interest that other people want to promote it on their own.

Next step, some of these games need to get their own page and writeups.

Last week, I attended PAX East along with the Indie Press Revolution booth. I hadn’t expected to go – but a myriad of factors conspired to get me there. I had such a great time! I ran demos both Saturday and Sunday – two sessions of the Dresden Files RPG, using the free adventure “Neutral Grounds Casefile,” one of Hyperreality, and one of Fiasco. I talked a little bit about this in Episode 25, but I wanted to expound a little bit more on my experiences here.

Finally being involved in a Dresden Files game, I got to see the up-close implementation of the FATE system from the GM side, and this is especially true when teaching the system. Aspects are kept straightforward – one High Concept, and one Trouble. Further aspects are handled on a scene or setting basis. This keeps the GMs notes on how to get the characters into trouble nice and streamlined. Magic still feels a little complicated, but not inordinately so, and they separate the mechanics from the special effects which handily makes the rules very portable from character to character. This is something that HERO system also does; it’s a trait I’ve become very fond of.

Fiasco continues to amaze me with the flexibility and dynamic stories that it engenders. Teaching the game (and it occurs to me that teaching games is a good topic for an entire episode), is an interesting prospect, because the game has a much different goal for characters and while I think anyone can manage the imagination and role-play required, it has to be taught effectively to run properly. The difference between the first game of Fiasco that I facilitated and the second was night and day. Once I understood the flow of the game better and which rules to teach at different points of the game, as well as the goals of those rules, the game became much better because I was able to give the players a lot more understanding of the game and its goals.

On to Fear the Con, St. Louis, MO.

This con continues to be one of my favorites. The forum community is extremely tightly knit, and the people continuously step-up their games and contribution to make this con great. I ran four games out of six available slots, which I had a great time doing, but doing it immediately following PAX was a bit of a mistake. I’m wrecked both from the sheer amount of talking, but also being on for that much time. I love doing this, but boy does it take a lot of energy.

I got to try Gamma World for the first time, where I played a sentient apple tree who I named Malice Domestica x Newton (plant biologists will recognize the pun on the scientific name for apples). I really enjoyed the wackiness of the game, but less the tactical aspects of the 4E system. I’d play it again in an instant, but it’s not my ideal match.

After that I ran the first of two slots of the HERO system “Princess Party” game I wrote specifically as an in-joke for last years FtC goers. The context is that the hall hosted a disney themed birthday party, and there was a lovely window poster of Cinderella announcing the Princess Party – and of course we decided that should be next year’s theme. And so. The game went really well, explored the dysfunctionality of Ariel / Eric’s relationship, and we all had a great time.

And then there was the Time Cube game. This game was run by an AI trained on the time cube website, and interpreted by the GM. Weird freaking game, and an interesting resolution system that Bob called “d-skittle.” I think that this game may end up being repurposed into a Fiasco play set.

Saturday, I started with my Cowboys and Luchadores game, “High Moon.” Great fun! We used the Token Effort system. I love this system especially when players create their characters at the table, because it stimulates player buy-in and also lets them guide the story in significant ways. The only thing I find lacking is the occasional grit of a slightly more capable tactical system. Combat is generally very cinematic and heavily relies on players to come up with actions and consequences which can be a bit daunting at times.

For the second slot, I ran the princess party game again. This one ended up very different, but very enjoyable all the same. This group of princesses were far less dysfunctional and far more dainty – playing up the chi-chi aspects of their characters far more than the prior group. Still, a very good time!

Finally, the Hyperreality game. Where the ScareBoat games took on the feel of modern reality TV settings, both of the Hyperreality games have been off-the-wall insane. Setting the stage for an R or MA rated game and explicitly telling the players to be over the top has worked out well so far. The main stumbling point I’ve experienced is that the quantity and style of player narrative is tough to communicate and teach effectively. What this means to me as a designer is that my rules aren’t quite defined enough to inform players how to play the game. I also got to try out the themes that I had integrated into Last Chance, USA that really helped players flesh out their characters for a more complete experience. I’m thrilled that the game is still improving and triggering new ideas for fleshing it out to be more and more complete. Don’t forget, you can still download the original ashcan edition if you’re interested in checking it out.

Finally, a quick thanks to Dan, Chad, Wayne, Chris, Pat, and John at Fear the Boot. Your commitment to the community that has grown up around your show is inspiring, and it is a constant wellspring of support to its members projects.

Back on the road – Newark Delaware, Newport Rhode Island, Boston Massachusetts, and St. Louis Missouri

- Blog posted about Dreamation…writing more?
- Appearance on Jenn’s Dreamation Interviews
- Last chance for Feed the Birds prototypes
- Hyperreality is out!

PAX East
- Ran lots of the Dresden Files RPG, Hyperreality, and Fiasco (Dragon Slayers playset)
- Working on a new game called “Where my clothes!”
- Played “Fifth World,” by Jason Godesky
- Boy do I need to run Apocalypse World

- Fear the Con (IV) next weekend!
- Information available at http://www.feartheboot.com and http://www.fearthecon.com
- Time Cube

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One, there is no competing on price (for most of us). A small handful of podcasts charge for premium content, but most are available for free. This means that in as much as we “compete,” we have to differentiate ourselves to grab the ears of potential listeners.

Two, realize that bringing your own ideas, goals, prejudices, and personality to the content you produce is in itself a method of differentiation. I’ve won listeners based on the simple fact that my show generally runs 20 minutes long. This makes it easy to digest during many more people’s commutes; so even if my show is completely elastic with another, longer show – I can still win the air time.

Three, the rate of podcast turnover, aka podfading, continues to be pretty high. Making content and keeping on making it is also a way to gain airtime; long-running shows are frequently given more implicit trust in terms of quality than a show that is still only in the single digits. I wouldn’t call it a deal breaker, but I feel that my first dozen shows kinda suck – and personally tend not to listen to anything less than #10 from a podcast I’m sampling.

All of this analysis leads to my inquiry: what do you (dear listener) want from the show? Interviews, video, travelogues? I’m thinking about trying out some voice work and maybe recording some audio stories. I’m wondering if you would be interested in classes about cooking skills – techniques and science, more than recipes. More photos? More creativity chatter? Shout out, here or on Twitter!

- Finishing your Game
- Tangents about Podcasting
- 99% of everything is crap.
- Marketing your stuff
- Secret Preludes to the Thousand-Year Game Challenge
- iPad – the future of board games?
- Plotting “Sunday Morning Games”
- Design Role models (http://www.orisinal.com) and philosophies
- Issues with DIY
- Pebble Rebel

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Despite a somewhat rocky start, where I booked my game reservations before my con badge, my hotel reservations less than a week ahead of time, and a quick shot back to my office to pick up the ashcans that I had printed but forgot to pack; I made it out to Morristown late Thursday night and immediately found Daniel Solis and Miss Jennisodes herself in the hotel lobby. Bedtime was imminent, but I managed to demo a 3-player Feed the Birds game before ending the night.

Friday I played in stellar games, probably the single best day’s lineup at a con I’ve ever had.

It started off with Jenn’s excellent Fiasco playset: “Quest for the Golden Panda,” set in mythic China. We told awesome wuxia action and revenge stories.

Second game: Epidiah Ravachol’s Swords without Master, a swords and Sorcery game in the style of Fafhrd & Grey Mouser, or Conan the Barbarian. We had tons of fun playing displaced earth-people from wildly different parts of the timestream, and freed a dead goddess from the musical imprisonment of the Pale Ones.

Finally, Misspent Youth with Rob Bohl, who modeled his adventure off the story “The Hunger Games.” Our Taoist Insurgents fought the power, got imprisoned, and a few of us were forced to sell out to help start the revolution. My personal highlight was utterly shocking Rob when I sold out my Outrage to Wrath.

I also introduced my first ashcan setting, HYPERREALITY, which is a Reality TV Gameshow setting that runs with the InSpectres ruleset. Download it and check it out!

Friday night was spent awake way too long hanging out with lots of great folks in the hotel lobby playing Zombie Dice and Feed the Birds before going to a diner at… what was it, 3am? Burger… Bed…

Saturday, I spent the morning hanging out at the indie games bazaar and got to see my friend Jeff Himmelman before I had to run back to the city to go to Stoudt Brewery’s Winterfest. Had a good time, but wish I’d been gaming.

Sunday morning I got a little extra sleep, and made my way back to Morristown for the wrap-up, where I manned the indie games bazaar while nearly all of the designers went to the Indie Games Roundtable… I’m a little sorry I missed it, but on the other hand, I’d already been talking to them nearly the entire time I was there anyway.

Finally, I grabbed some lunch with excellent NYC folks and took the train back home to an Oscars party in progress. It was an amazing weekend full of things I love, and I only wish I had that a little more frequently.

There’s lots of superheroes, zombies, ninjas, dimensional travel, and more to be had. Also, Tales from the Floating Vagabond was highly recommended by the good folks at Postcards from the Dungeon.

Weird War II Player’s Guide [Pinnacle Entertainment]
Wu Xing: The Ninja Crusade [Third Eye Games]
The Echoes of Heaven Bestiary/The Tainted Tears (OGL Version) [Final Redoubt Press]
USHER Dossiers (ICONS) [Vigilance Press]
The Floating Vagabond BarFly Bundle [Reality Cheque]

As a special bonus, for the next two weeks (ending 3/7) – I’ll give away one of these products to a random website registrant. Just comment here for your chance to win!

Business
Cons I’m Attending in the next few months:
- Dreammation, Morristown NJ Feb 24-27
- Fear the Con, St. Louis, MO Mar 17-20
- I-CON, Stonybrook, NY Apr 15-17

Gaming
Con Games!
- Writing
- Timing
- Pregen characters
- Have Dice
- Energy / In Media Res

Creativity
- Are you serious about being creative? Then do it.
- My Golden Panda Entry

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Business
- Happy new year, and resolutions
- Limited open playtests of Feed the Birds – email me!

Games
- Starting the self-publishing process
- Starting costs
- Sharpie Prototypes
- Recommended Reading
- http://spotlightongames.com/list/design.html
- http://www.silcom.com/~tomjolly/design.htm
- http://www.thegamesjournal.com/articles/PublishingPants.shtml
- http://members.optusnet.com.au/bnbg6billion/going_it_alone.htm
- http://www.costik.com/whycost.html

Travel
- In Virginia now, headed to Portland towards the end of next week

Creativity
- Check out Jenn’s contest! (Oops, posted this way too late)

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• Contribute awesomeness to the world.
• Reduce the amount of crap in my life.
• Put out two DFL shows each month.
• Play More. Run More. Share More.
• Rock some secret projects! (see resolution #1)

See you on the flip side!

Business
- Breaking up the Daniel Solis Episodes
- Leave me a message! 646-8200- DFL
- Appearance on the Jennisodes, Ep. 12
- New segment for Warpig Radio, coming soon!

Games
- Different games for different coasts, the prevalence of Pathfinder and FATE games.
- Game Chef and Apocalypse World

Travel
- Las Vegas, NV – NeonCon
- Boston, MA – Hanging out with Steve from Postcards from the Dungeon
- State College, PA – Work + Comic Swap visit
- Ellicott City, MD – Judge’s Bench

Creativity
- Prioritizing your own needs

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I joined one of my old friends from school, her husband and some friends of theirs for a nice pub night. Wow, this place is spectacular! An amazing tap, super-knowledgable bartenders, and the good company didn’t hurt either. I highly recommend this stop to anyone looking for good beer in this area. My tasting notes are below.

Hopfish IPA
Eenh. Flavor is decent, but dies quickly, and the body is lacking. Not a terrible choice, but not so much of an IPA as a bitter. Not really what I was looking for.

Avery DuganA IPA
Wowie Zowie! I didn’t even know this was a double IPA until this morning — in a good way. Super delicious, and definitely something I’d drink regularly. It’s a wonderful kick in the pants at 8.50% ABV.

The Raven Special Lager
YUM! Perfect beer to end the night with; a super-tasty lager that was full bodied and tasted like a really good cracker. Precisely what a lager should be doing. I’d session this beer any night.

I also had the chance to pitch one of my upcoming projects for next year, and now there’s more promised help on board. This is probably the biggest project I’ve ever started planning – and it’s terrifying. More on that soon.

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Part one of a conversation with Daniel Solis that is so casual, we completely disregard the idea of an intro and just talk creativity and gaming.

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- Misspent Youth
- Punk Ideology
- Homelessness and Homosexuality
- Satire and Grand Theft Auto 4
- Punk Creativity
- Joshua A.C. Newman’s Shock: Social Science Fiction
- Coleslawmancy – What a game needs to do.

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The article is about a new Toronto cafe and boardgame lending library called Snakes & Lattes that “will emphatically not have free Wi-Fi,” as they choose instead to focus on the social and interactive aspects of sitting down with a game and spending real time with friends or other cafe-goers.

I find that I have mixed feelings about this cafe. While I really appreciate the idea — I am personally taking on the challenge of not pulling out my iphone every few minutes to look at something (twitter, time, email, etc., etc., ad nauseum) — I have recently had the experience of going to a cafe that normally has wifi and people with their laptops, but it turned out that Friday and Saturday evenings they have a “No Laptops” rule. And since my friend and I had specifically been planning to do some work together, we left.

I get that since it’s a cafe + chocolate + wine + dinner, they’re trying to attract a little bit more of a date night crowd on the weekends, but that feels like a double-standard to me. I suppose since there’s a hard line drawn at Snakes & Lattes, it’s reasonable. They are clearly setting the stage for what they want their shop to be and not to be.

I guess it’s time to go to Toronto and investigate the environment for myself!