I've played a few war games at conventions which were built around scenarios where the outcome was known. One was the fall of Gondolin, a battle at the end of the First Age of Tolkien's Middle-Earth and the other was the Battle of Thermopylae. There was no way for the player playing the elves of …
Category: design theory
Brilliant Post At Cave Girl’s Game Stuff
Just a quick response to this post on Cave Girl's Game Stuff about applying the term diegesis to ttrpg. I think it makes a lot of sense. In particular, I absolutely agree with this quote. One thing I find attracts me to various games - notably Powered By The Apocalypse and OSR games - is …
It’s The Power Curve
I've not played 5th edition. I own the DMG, PHB, Monster Manual, DM screen and the starter set. When the game came out, I fully intended to run a campaign and I still might. I am hesitant to do so. Just as one can be introduced to a strange food combination like lutefisk ice cream …
Not All Metagaming Is Bad
I roll almost everything out in the open for my Swords And Wizardry game. That includes monster hit points, monster to hit rolls, monster saves and random encounter rolls. The random encounter roll is one that my players metagame all the time. If they make noise trying to break down a door in a monster infested …
Story is Context
In RPG's whether it is on the table top or on the screen, story is the context of the game. It isn't the game itself, it is the context for the game. It is what allows the game to make sense to the players. Why are we going into this subterranean maze full of traps …
Video Game Design and Theory
I use Google a lot when I'm writing some of my posts. Typically the ones about game design theory. It turns out, there is a whole literature about game design from academics and professional game designers in the video game industry. The little bit I've read has lot of the same ideas people in the …
Responsibility is A Better Word
An imbalance of "power" is one of the criticisms of RPG's that utilize a game master. Most table top role playing games have this basic structure. There is one game master and one or more players. The game master decides what the "world" of the game is like. The "world" includes all the people, places …
Grumpy Wizard 
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