Link roundups like this one make me feel like I’m behind…
• Deeper in the Game: Chris Chinn has been back since July, and I didn’t find out until this week! Chris wrote the now-defunct RPG theory blog Deep in the Game, as well as the TT post Social Contracts for RPG Groups.
His old blog was one of my regular reads, and Chris is a very smart guy. Like a lot of theory-oriented folks, it looks like these days he’s mostly writing about his RPG-in-progress (The Emperor’s Heart), but his dips into other stuff — like three-tiered conflict webs — look promising from an advice/ideas standpoint.
• Backdrop Plots: May You Live In Interesting Times: Ben Robbins advises GMs to use a backdrop plot to provide context, contrast and a sense of immersion for the foreground plot — the stuff that’s actually going on in your sessions. It’s an awesome idea, expressed clearly and succinctly. Why hasn’t Ben published a book of GMing advice yet?
• Now, When I SAY “Cinematic,” I Don’t Really MEAN “Cinematic”: TT reader Carolina emailed me about this article in J.D. Wiker’s LiveJournal (thanks, Carolina!) — it’s all about the difference between perception and reality when it comes to cinematic characters in RPGs.
Poking around a bit, I also like Locations with Character, which resonates well with the TT post The Hub: Home Sweet Base. I love the idea of assigning personality traits to HQs and treating them (somewhat) like NPCs.
I read through some of the stuff on deeper in the Game. It looks really good. So does J.D. Wiker’s LiveJournal. I liked his dissection of Cinematic vs. “Cinematic”. There are a lot of good game theory blogs out there now. That’s great, but I don’t have time to read them all!
One thought on the ‘Bases with Traits’ meme:
Shadowrun seems to be a system where having a base is begging for a major structure-endangering fire fight to happen there. Then the cops ask questions etc. etc.
We ended up always maintaining both a ‘public base’ and a private retreat. The public base would (inevitably) be a beat up warehouse somewhere that we could drop our own (disguised) crates & containerized gear into. All hell breaks loose on a regular basis – we end up the ambusher instead of the ambushee due to really surprising things being in those decrepit crates… then we load up and pick a new warehouse. (Evicting tenants as necessary 😉
I hear that, John. Finding out that Chris had been back in action since July really made me feel behind on my gaming blog reading.