I recently picked up a copy of Enslaved as a rental, after hearing that it was reasonably short if not completely wonderful gameplay. It sounded like a good diversion, and Enslaved has the kinds of gameplay that I pref. It has melee combat, climbing through interesting terrain, and was advertised as having a strategy/decision making [...]
Monthly Archives: November 2010
The Great Echochamber, or Why the Internet is Bad
November 17, 2010 – 8:47 am
The other day, I was looking on a forum for HTC Eris users about whether we were going to get an official Froyo (Android 2.2) install. The top post on that topic was a link to an announcement, somewhere, and the user’s inference from that that Froyo would be rolled out to us. The following [...]
Basic Update
November 16, 2010 – 2:35 pm
It seems whenever I do these post-a-day commitments, there’s always a day that I can’t make it. Part of that is that I have a huge essay that’s easily 3 times as long as a typical day’s post here (or where I try to keep it, anyway). Part of it is that my work has moments [...]
Why Aspects?
November 15, 2010 – 11:39 am
Now that I’ve described aspects, and talked about them in two posts, I want to talk about why I see such potential in this. RPGs grew out of wargames, and D&D one of the oldest, still uses a battle mat and rules to move around them. CRPGS embraced the stats and strategies or pen-and-paper RPGs, [...]
Aspects in Echo Bazaar
November 12, 2010 – 12:14 pm
Echo Bazaar was first brought to my attention by The Border House Blog. I was at first hesitant — I don’t know how may of these sorts of games I’ve played over the years — but I created an account and made it through the first few tasks. Then I noticed something which I’d seen [...]
Aspects in FATE
November 11, 2010 – 12:00 pm
I was introduced to aspects in FATE, particularly through Spirit of the Century and Dresden Files RPG. In a lot of ways aspects in FATE replace attributes in other games. In DFRPG or SotC, you don’t have Strength, Dexterity or Constitution, although you can take aspects that imply you do. The other side to Aspects [...]
Aspects
November 10, 2010 – 12:00 pm
I recently wrote on Gameful that I was interested in “aspect-based gaming”. I didn’t define it, and no one is out there asking me what I mean, but I want to write about my ideas in relation to this, as I think it opens up some interesting possibilities. There’s more than one blog in this, [...]
Shattered Earth Adventurer’s League : Fire and Ice
November 9, 2010 – 12:00 pm
Zhenette focused her will and channeled her magic into the bit of stone in her hand. Magic flowed from the ether, through her crsystal-bound rune. She shaped it with her intent and words, and then, just shy of triggering it, placed it in the stone. She handed it to Lyp. “Now remember, it’s a touch [...]
Shattered Earth Adventurer’s League : Family
November 8, 2010 – 11:59 am
Foster stood leaning against the stone retaining wall. Keelie stood on top of it, which put her head about even with Fosters. She looked at him and laughed. ”Grass in your mouth and hat and everything. You really fit in here.” “It’s home,” Foster said. “When I’m done I’m going to head back the family [...]
Shattered Earth Adventurer’s League: Briefing
November 5, 2010 – 10:08 am
Commander Bess Nightingale addressed the Silverwings. “We’ve got a couple of assignments for you to pick from. Normal rewards apply.” The Silverwings settled in, their goal was to complete as many missions as possible, and pay back their debts so they could be full Citizens sooner, or at least make a little money out of [...]