Posts

Primary and Secondary Agendas

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It might be easy to say that Forge terminology has become muddied over the years, however as a linguistic descriptivist rather than a prescriptivist, I'll be vocal in saying that it was always muddy. Yes, there were prescriptivists who claimed that there was a correct and narrow definition of the terms, but there were always people using the words in their own interpretations. Sometimes there would be definitions of the words that reflected their usage in more common parlance, sometimes there would be some other contextual spin on the terms. The gatekeeping was problematic, especilly when two people would be talking across each other because they couldn't agree on the basic semantics of what each other were saying.This whole situation is a shame, because there were some really interesting ideas raised back then, especially on the "Forge adjacent" forums. Taken directly from the Provisional Glossary (which is now over 20 years old), three of the biggest takeaways from...
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Another critique

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The last time I responded to someone's ideas about TTRPG theory, it got a bit of traction... if not here, then across several of the social media platforms I'm linked to.     This is a really interesting set of ideas, and it was relatively dismissed on the TTRPG Design Community forum where it was posted. At the time of my screenshot, the majority of the comments indicated something along the lines of "That's certainly an opinion" or "You seem to have a narrow understanding of specific TTRPGs", but comments like that are pretty dismissive. It's got some merits, and yes, while it is an opinion, and while it does reflect a specific style of game, there are some elements that can be delved into.   It's a complex take, and probably akin to the sorts of things I'm often writing here. People look at it ad they say "I agree with this bit, but I don't agree with that...however since the ideas I like and the ideas I don't like seem to be ...
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Art Process

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Regular readers of the blog know that I've got a series of map drawing tutorials, have been commissioned to do cartography for a few companies over the years and have struggled away with creating a comic book and generating imagery for my own games. I've tried a few different styles over the years, using a variety of media, including pen-and-ink, paint, pencils and digital media. I started playing with Photoshop back in the 90s, and have been experimenting with using it as a part of my artistic process ever since.    I've played with algorithmic image generation as a tool, and have tried to push what it can do, but always seem to come back to hand drawn elements. I like the visceral feel of touching pigment to paper, the feel of not knowing how a technique is going to respond, and the idea of going with the flaw when something might not follow the expected path.   I've had artwork stolen, I've seen my own pieces earn other people money. I've collaged ogether ima...
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It's nice to see others saying it...

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  Vampire for 5.5e Why? Well, I can understand why... I saw a recent post on the TTRPG Designers group I moderate on Facebook. A designer shared their experience selling games on various platforms in recent years... here's a snippet The numbers — in broad strokes: DTRPG is my primary revenue engine. Since I went all-in on 5E-compatible content in mid-2024, my monthly revenue there is up roughly 10x from where it was before. Not 10% — 10 times. Launch months are spikes, but the floor has risen every quarter. - Malcolm Harris Between the article and the Facebook post, it's kind of sad. I get the feeling that if a designers wants to get games recognised and seen by a wider gaming community, they just gave to bite the bullet, sacrifice their integrity, compromise their art, and make a D&D supplement. It's been like this for years, certainly for as long as this blog has been running.  On the positive side, this weekend is Free-RPG Day... and I've thrown some stuff into b...
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An alternate paradigm

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I really enjoy seeing how other people view tabletop role-playing games, and I'd love yo know more about the rationale behind his diagram that showed up in my feed. It was generated by John Errwin (@johnerrwin.bsky.social), and when I saw it on my bluesky feed I knew I had to critique it and try to intuit where it was going. I really like the notion that it's a cycle, and that various parts of that cycle influence sequential other parts of the cycle. From the perspective of my own "three-way tension" and "vector theory" about TTRPGs, this whole thing would fit into the "Rules" part of the structure. It's not a perfect fit, but it certainly gets me thinking about how the breakdown falls apart, whether that's my own theories breaking down, or the theories that seem to be alluded to in this diagram. I'll give a description of what I see, then delve deeper shortly.  Starting at the top of this diagram, we have "characters", who se...
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Mage breaks into the Top 10

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    After a decade or so where my top 10 posts have all been mapping tutorials, a recent upswing in views has seen my introductory Mage: the Ascension post crack the list. Now I'm going to have to check if a new edition of the game has been released (or is about to be)... 
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A post about one of my all-time favourite games...

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 It's always fun finding other people's blogs and doing a quick dig through their ponderings and writings. This also means it can be fun to see what things they consider worthy of writing about, and when one of my favourite games of all time is called out (and one that is based on one of my all-time favourite movies), I need to give it a mention.  Ghost Dog     I mentioned it back in my Top 10 games that influenced my game design back in 2018, and it's still a book that I flick through occasionally when I need an answer to a question that isn't quite working out for me. That is all. 
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