The Inheritance and The Grandmother.
Dark and twisted; they feel like Grimms fairy tales and are well written. Check them out.
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Author: Scott
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Christmas 2007
Jennifer mentioned that she’d rather get an early start on shopping– so here’s what you need to start.
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Sebastian on torture
Sebastian has a good post, On Torture Hypotheticals–Conservative Perspective. I agree with him completely. Only if the government was perfect might it be trusted with selecting the perfect degree of force to extract information.
In the real world, innocent people are convicted and spend years in prison before their release. If months of trial and investigation can’t guarantee the right result, why should we trust someone acting in a moment, under pressure, to get it right?
The other red herring? Under the hypothetical, there’s still no reason for torture to be legal. The torturer will, in good conscience, extract the information… and immediately be pardoned for saving the lives of thousands. Despite being able to imagine such an extreme corner case [and despite the convenient assumption of perfect knowledge], I think we can keep laws against torture on the books.
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A good discussion has sprung from Sebastian’s first post: here are further posts on the subject. Demand side Torture (by Publius), More on Torture Hypotheticals (by Sebastian), and Choose your own adventure (by Katherine).
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The Mountain Witch Trick
Cool way to collaboratively flesh out backgrounds, etc. (Stolen shamelessly from this Gamecraft thread🙂 Here’s a technique that’s been in use by loads of people, for a long damn time, which was put into print in the game The Mountain Witch:
Instead of mining a character background or world stuff for a figure suitable to some need in the game, tell a player that they see someone or react in some way to a feature, and then ask them why.
“A figure comes out of the sweathouse. It is a man from your past, a respected mentor. You move quickly to greet him. Who is he, Joe?”
“Joe, your character pauses at an unmarked grave by the side of the road for a moment, and bows his head before moving on. Why did he do that?”
Read the thread for some good discussion about when and how it works well.
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Next Game: Friday November 16th
Last week we enjoyed some board games instead of hiding out in a city full of bugs. This week, we return to our previous quarantine conditions…
Let us know if you’ll have any problem making the game. Otherwise, we’ll duck, weave, and gather some cash rescuing big players in town.
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Next Game: Friday, November 9th
This upcoming Friday currently looks good for gaming. If you’re going to have a problem making it, just let me know.
The situation, to recap: We’re trapped in Chicago, under quarantine, in a city full of bugs. (Though the bugs have been getting quiet and disappearing from the street for a while.)
Three electronic boxes just revealed that this was all predicted long ago, and spat out a list of ten names. If we keep them safe– or, better, smuggle them out– we’ll get 100k Nuyen apiece. Meanwhile, escape from the quarantine looks difficult; the lake’s patrolled by an aircraft carrier, and they’re collapsing buildings all around the city and manning nasty patrols that are tight enough to keep drones in.
[Updated to add: Landon’s advice on picking Aspects to ensure characters have Description, Connections, Story, and Situation.]
Though the advice applies to just about any Pulp game that has a strongly supportive system.
This is all quoted from Roger’s post on the Yahoo FateRPG list:
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Speaking of dangerous
Oh, we weren’t? Anyway, this thread about webcomics definitely qualifies as dangerous for me.
Some finds– and rediscoveries:
Strange/cool webcomic: Sequential art
I rememeber PvP and don’t remember why I dropped it.
Sheldon, a more “normal” comic
Punch ‘n Pie A semi-continuation of Queen of Wands.
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New Blogs
Out in the wide world of roleplaying, I’ve recently found some very nice blogs. They started off scattered around the previous post. I decided to move them here, since they’re a recurring destination, not just a one stop read the post place. With no further ado:
Critical Hits, a good general gaming site.
Dugeonmastering.com, focussed on D&D. Cool tools are scattered around. There are lots of good short posts and series. Quick D&D game prep is good advice for spending your time gaming, not prepping.
Hack/ is another D&D 4e focussed blog.
Save vs DM: Geeks on the Borderlands is an interesting blog… that just got restarted.
Musings of the Chatty DM, a nice, general roleplaying discussion blog. More craft than theory.
One Angry Gamer is a website covering RPGs– both computer and tabletop.
Not just a blog, but…Ground Zero Games now has a real net presence.
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From the world of roleplaying
A new, very intense version of the Paladin (for D&D, of course).
Cool shortcut: One Sentence Character Motivations.
Three tiered conflict webs: an expansion on a great idea.
I thought this was interesting to stumble on, since it matches my “Hero Points” idea and raises: FYIA tokens.
Twist of Fate World Creation: very similar to Universalis style world building. More open ended than Dawn of Worlds.
Barebones systemless character questionnaire.
Quick character background: randomized backgrounds with linked feats, great for first time players.
In 4e news, they’ve shifted their release schedule. Instead of May/June/July for the three core books, they’re now going to release all three books on June 6th. Just after Dad and Jennifer’s birthdays, of course…
PTA+Spirit, a post I need to check out. It sounds cool.
Spirit of the Verse, a SotC/Firefly cross.
Bliss Stage is a cool RPG I’ve been following through creation. The “alpha” version is out, and it sounds like the lengthier version is due soon.
Easy Point Buy calculator (found via Hack/). Pick your stats and race and get realtime results. Also: Expendible Item (scroll, potion, etc.) cost calculator.
Instant Campaign Builder is a solid, well linked blog series.