Colin Sinclair's Blog, page 6

#RPGaDay 2018: Day 3

Question 3: What gives a game ‘staying power’?

Again that would be background, setting, premise. Something rich enough to sustain the interest of both GM and players going forward.

There’s no point playing the game if the group’s not having fun. We all need a sandpit to play in.

The players need to feel engaged with the world, and also feel like they’re achieving something. At the very least they need to be meeting their short term aims even if they can’t hope to reach their long term goals....

#RPGaDay 2018: Day 2

Question 2: What do you look for in an RPG?

I’m interested mostly in background, setting or premise. It’s cool if that’s accompanied by great design and art, but not essential; we’re all about imagination, after all.

I remain not that concerned about systems and mechanics. I’ll settle for a system that doesn’t annoy me, and if it does irk me but the premise of the game is sound, I’m perfectly happy to strip out whatever carefully judged and crafted structures the game creator has provided and...

#RPGaDay 2018: Day 1, redux

Question 1: What do you love about RPGs?

A few things spring to mind.

First and foremost the imagination and creativity of it all. From a GMing perspective I have to come up with things for the players to do every session. Or at the very least (and unless I’m using a pre-written scenario) I have to construct the initial framework that they’ll wilfully choose to ignore in favour of some ludicrous tangent… And then there’s all the people and places they meet along the way. Or trip over whilst h...

#RPGaDay 2018: Day 1

And so it begins, with me posting something at the last minute, as ever.

First things first, the list of questions for the month ahead:

#RPGaDay 2018

It’s almost RPGaDay time again; the time of year when folk all over the blogs and social media do their bit to spread positive waves about role-playing games and generally share their experiences of playing, GMing, and thinking about games.

As always, I’ll be making an attempt to follow along with the daily posting schedule. This usually results in life getting in the way, and all of my answers arriving in unwieldy lumps towards the end of the month.

Perhaps this year will be different?

randoms xvi: Bil (one L)

Bil (one L) and Crob were married at the second siege of Redraven. It hadn’t been the plan for either of them but fog of war and such—disparate cultures meeting on the field, warriors clashing in the fury of the press, the smoke and steel and cries and blood—these things were bound to happen sure as not.

Battle, as the wise-heads were wont to say, it is a complicated beast.

Moving day(s)

Attempting to move my wordpress blog to my pre-existing web-hosting with a different provider.

So far it’s going well. Although I’m not convinced I have everything pointing in the right direction as yet. No doubt it’ll all shake out over the next day or so.

Write on

Things went off the rails for a while as I injured my back slightly and sitting at a computer (or indeed doing anything much at all) became something of a jaggedy pain for several weeks. Not fun.

Managed to get some stuff done amidst the ensuing doldrums.

Gaming

There was no Achtung Cthulhu since the last episode I mentioned. There should be plenty more to come though, as the scenario we have embarked on is rather long and we have barely scratched the Italianate marble surface.

The game that...

War is not the answer

A change to the usual set up this week, as we start with:

Console Gaming

Could have been PC gaming but despite having purchased the Brothers in Arms 3-game collection at a very low price, I completely failed to install it on my PC. I was distracted by the equally cheap and even more hectic Battlefield 4 on PS4, in which I have achieved very little so far; beyond marvelling at the pretty graphics and the sheer amount of ammunition expended.

Gaming

Achtung Cthulhu continued to happen. The chara...

In the meantime

Back with more waffle about what I’ve been up to lately, in a vague attempt to build up a blogging habit.

Gaming

The proposed launch into OSR did not happen as planned, due to unforeseen circumstances for one of the players, and there was a short discussion about what the rest of the group should do instead. In the end, I decided to run a session/play-test of my fledging ‘game about vampires, and stuff’.

For reasons that may never become clear, the game is called MORTAL. This attempt at a gam...