Dagbok fra Skippertaksfestivalen 2008 – aka Arcon 24

Av Håken «Kilehånd» Lid

Den ikke helt grå eminensen bak Imagonems og Itras Bys nettsider åpner festivaldagboken for leserne.

Før Arcon
I fjor høst bestemte Ole Peder og Martin seg for å endelig få gitt ut Itras By etter å ha jobbet med det i årevis. Det var på en måte en selvfølge at spillet skulle lanseres på Arcon. Komiteen trengte litt overtalelse før de valgte Itras by som jippo, men jeg håper at også de som var skeptiske i starten synes det gikk inn i rekken av vellykkete jippoer de siste årene.

Jeg registrerte tre rollespill-turneringer og lovte å lage Morgenposten til jippoen. Planen var å det meste klart innen slutten av mai.

Men siden jeg lider av medfødt, og tilsynelatende uhelbredelig, utsettelsesvanvidd og i tillegg brukte en masse tid på å lage nettsider for Itras by like før festivalen, satt jeg Arcon-torsdagen klokken 12 uten verken modul eller avis. Riktignok hadde jeg og Ole Peder skrevet en del tekster på mandagen og jeg hadde funnet en drøss med pussige bilder på Internettet.

Klokken fem hadde Spillskaperlaget årsmøte, som nesten var en del av Arcon, i allefall for meg. Tapas og øl og en tur opp til Blindern for å få tak i nøkkel til Hyperionkontoret der Morgenposten skulle printes, enda et par øl med Ole Peder og Skjalg.

Jeg var hjemme i tolvtiden og hadde fremdeles en halv modul og en hel Morgenpost å lage. Så jeg tok en høneblund.

Klokken syv var modulen ferdig, og morgenposten var klar i nitiden, noe som forklarer ortografien og den spartanske designen.

Planen for Morgenposten var i utgangspunktet temmelig ambisiøs. Den skulle både inneholde tøysenyheter fra Itras by, filmprogram og annen nyttig Arconinfo, rare annonser, tegneserier og hint og tie-ins til Itras-modulene.

Det ble til slutt 99% tøysenyheter, men det funket i og for seg ganske bra, synes jeg.

Fredag
Jeg var ca en time forsinket til første pulje. Å skrive ut seksti morgenposten, fire moduler og seks sett kort til Itras by tok lengre tid en planlagt. Spilledet og arrangerte Søttende Mai, som jeg hadde jobbet med hele natten. Vi ble til slutt fire grupper, noe som var langt mer enn hva jeg hadde forventa. Det var nøyaktig null forhåndspåmeldte spilledere, men det ordnet seg. Særlig takk til Rune som meldte seg spontant uten å ha lest verken modul eller regler. Også takk til Ole Peder og Even som var de to siste spillederne.

Jeg var hjemme i tolvtiden og hadde fremdeles en halv modul og en hel Morgenpost å lage. Så jeg tok en høneblund.

Jeg fikk en kul gruppe og spillingen var vellykket. Men samtidig merker jeg at spillets design virker litt som et tilbakelagt stadium for meg. Det er fint å ha fullført Søttende-mai-trilogien. Kommer nok til å bundle dem sammen, finpusse tekst og layout og legge ut på Lulu. Kanskje selger det tre-fire eks?

Spiste middag med Magnus, Even, Ole Peder og Maja. Av en eller annen grunn holdt jeg på å falle i søvn på restauranten.

Heldigvis undertrykket jeg en impuls om å dra hjem og legge meg og deltok i stedet på Magnus\’ Itra-eventyr «nr 13». Jeg hadde veldig høye forventninger fordi jeg er en fan av både Itras By, Rudolf Nilsen og Magnus. Forventningene ble innfridd. Igjen var det kule spillere.

Neste pulje skulle jeg igjen arrangere, denne gangen «fortellerstund i pøbben». Ca ti stykker var påmeldt og jeg kjente halvparten fra før. Jeg tok med fem-seks ulike spill ned i pubben og forsøkte å finne spillerne mine. Uheldigvis hadde alle de jeg kjente fra før droppet ut. De andre navnene var ukjente, og jeg satte meg ned ved Itra-bordet og håpte at de skulle klare å finne meg. Det gjorde de ikke, bortsett fra en, som fant ut at det likevel ikke var noe for ham.

Jeg merket i grunn at jeg var litt for trøtt for fortellerspill på en bråkete pub og da Morten dukket opp for å shanghaie en spiller til Martins Itra-eventyr ble jeg med ham i stedet.

Martins eventyr het «Sorte Serenader» og var basert på Brechts «Tolvskillingsoperaen». Jeg har hatt mange svært gode spillopplevelser med Martins greier. «Skyggetaket» fra to år siden er en av mine favoritteventyr fra Arcon. Men noen ganger kan eksperimentelle spill faktisk bli _for_ eksperimentelle, selv for meg. Spillgruppa var nesten en ønskereprise fra «Skyggetaket». Meg, Torgrim, Morten og Magnus som SL. Ny for året var Torgrims bedre halvdel, som jeg har glemt navnet på, men som jeg likte godt å spille med.

«Serenader» funket veldig godt i grunn, og jeg synes Martin hadde klart å oversette Brechts metoder til rollespillmediet på en vellykket måte. På slutten kom forfatteren inn og observerte siste scene og deretter diskuterte vi tema, metodikk og Brecht. Alt i alt savnet jeg kun to ting: Kurt Weills sanger og at vi hadde nådd siste pils i pubben.

Lørdag
…sov jeg til klokken elleve og gikk glipp av første pulje, da jeg hadde planlagt å spille Krocket i Apeparken. I stedet brukte jeg tiden på å sette sammen et nytt nummer av Morgenposten. Siden jeg ikke stresset så mye fikk jeg til fire sider og brukte opp nesten alle tekstene som var laget på forhånd. Resten av kvelden ble brukt i pubben.

Jeg nådde akkurat starten på puljen etter nok en tur innom Hyperion for å skrive ut avisa. Spilte modulen «Morgenposten» av Ole Peder. Jeg var spilleder og spillerne var en gjeng gutter fra Kongsvingertraktene, samt en skjønn ung kvinne. Modulen og spillerne passet min spillederform utmerket, plottet kjente jeg fra før for det hadde jeg og Ole Peder laget i samarbeid og modulen var også delvis basert på mitt rollespill «Mårramøte». Spillingen sklei med andre ord veldig bra. Etter spillet ga jeg bort spillkortene og ga guttene fra Kongsvingertraktene ordre om å kjøpe spillet.

Resten av kvelden ble brukt i pubben, og det var veldig hyggelig. Jeg synes ad-hoc-lokalet funket glimrende. Heldigvis hadde Even med laptop slik at det ble mulig å skrive saker til søndagens Morgenpost. Tusen takk til Even, Ole Peder, Anders og Haakon som bidro. Jeg har dårlig samvittighet for at ikke alle bidragene kom på trykk.

Søndag
Kom hjem i firetiden og tegnet ut avisa. En lettkledd kvinne i pubben hadde lovet å sende meg snublepikebilder med Arcons digre sekserterninger på epost, men de dukket aldri opp og jeg bestemte meg for å kutte side tre og fire (hva er vel en søndagsmorgenpost uten snublepiken på side tre). Jeg kan ikke helt huske helt, men jeg tror jeg også fikk en time eller to med søvn.

I søndagspuljen skulle jeg, etter oppfordring fra den velkjente pølsegopheren Erlend Sand Bruer, arrangere en ønskereprise av musikalen «Alle spiser middag klokken to.» For å få tid til å skrive ut avisa måtte jeg utsette spillstart en time og den tålmodige og morgenblide vidundermannen Fred Førde var veldig behjelpelig med det.

Det var forholdsvis bra oppmøte på spillet og antallet passet nøyaktig til to grupper. En stor takk til den vakre og modige Cesilie som lot seg overtale til å være spilleder selv om hun aldri hadde forsøkt det før.

Gruppa mi var hyggelig og morgenfrisk og lot seg manipulere til å synge for full hals og til og med improvisere tekster på sparket. Men jeg merket at modulen hadde noen skrikende svakheter, noe Magnus også hadde rapportert om ved første oppsetning. den veldig lineære og eksposisjonsrike starten der spillederen spiller både forsvarer, anklager, vitner og dommer i en rettsak virker veldig passiviserende på spillerne. Selv om modulen er ment å gi spillerne mye mer frihet etter hvert, endte spillet opp som en mellomting mellom vanlig rollespill, og at spillederen i hovedsak forteller handlingen. Nå er det noe jeg mestrer greit og jeg tror spillerne hadde det artig likevel, men for min egen del foretrekker jeg spilling der det er spillerne som driver handlingen.

Avsluttet Arcon med å se på siste halvdel av avslutningseremonien og deretter skofte unna oppryddingen. Jeg var uansett på ny rammet av en uforklarlig søvnighet.

Konklusjon
Alt i alt var det et veldig koselig Arcon med null dødtid og en drøss med hyggelige mennesker. Jeg var fornøyd med alle spillgruppene og synes Arcondeltagerne blir bare hyggeligere og hyggeligere for hvert år. Gopherne var arbeidsomme, vakre og velduftende. Komitemedlemmene var knapt gretne, i blant til og med muntre. Jeg håper at burgergrilling blir fast Arcontradisjon, og Kristian fortjente virkelig den stående applausen han mottok.

Itras-jippoen funket veldig godt synes jeg. De tre modulene var glimrende og det var gledelig at det var så mange spillere og at så godt som alle bøkene ble solgt. Den endelige versjonen av Sjanse- og Handlingskortene funket veldig bra, og det var spesielt artig, siden jeg har hatt en finger med der.

Matthijs og Gaute var savnet, men Matthijs dukket jo opp etter hvert, og hvis Gaute ikke hadde trukket sine moduler hadde Arcon blitt svært hektisk for min del.

Regncon-Kim nevnte at det var gledelig mange jenter i år, og det hadde han vel i grunn rett i. Jeg spilte fem puljer med rollespill og det var ikke en eneste ren guttegruppe i motsetning til hva tilfellet har vært på mange tidligere kongresser. Håper alle jentene kommer tilbake neste år og tar med seg venninnene sine.

Er misfornøyd med at jeg det var så mange jeg ikke fikk tid til å snakke med, både av gamle og nye kjente. Det kommer både av tidsnød og av at jeg er en svært innadvent type, som det tar en stund å bli kjent med.

Så jeg håper jeg får bedre anledning til å snakke med dere ved en senere anledning. Har, som i fjor, ambisjoner om å besøke Regncon og\\eller Hexcon. Hvis ikke møtes vi vel ved neste korsvei, kanskje Hyperions landsting, Knutepunkt i april eller neste Arcon

Conrapport: Arcon 24

Ole Peder Giæver er medskaper av det surrealistiske rollespillet ”Itras by”, som han har laget i fellesskap med Martin Bull Gudmundsen. Spillet var ”jippo” for årets festival, og den lettere henrykte forfatteren benytter i det følgende anledningen til å takke venner og bekjente for hjelp og støtte:

Denne helgen har vært klimaks og fjelltopp for en syv år lang prosess, og på veien har vi – jeg og Martin – blitt løftet frem av et fargerikt opptog gjøglere, narrer, bohemer, livskunstnere, skøyere, vismenn, lurifakser og fantastisk flotte folk. Uten den drahjelpen, medskapingen, tillitten, omsorgen, interessen og testspillingen vi har blitt til del ville det som skjedde i helgen aldri blitt noe av.

At Arcon-komiteen tillot Itras by å være årets festivaltema har i seg selv vært en veldig konkret og god måte å endelig få satt sluttstrek for arbeidet. Vi visste at vi måtte komme i havn til festivalen, og det klarte vi. Thore leverte som ville faen, og hevet produktet til nye høyder. Roffe layoutet en hel bok på rekordtid. Og Håken har bare vokst til Terrasque-lignende proporsjoner i mine øyne de siste to-tre ukene. Det min samboer har fått til med nettstedet, Morgenposten, scenariene etc beggars belief, som det heter på utenlandsk.

Men ting tar faen i meg tid.

Uansett, nå har jeg endelig landet. Eller tatt av. Mitt livsverk er fullbrakt, takket være dere. Og takket være dere ser det nå ut til at det kanskje vil kunne leve videre, blomstre videre, utvikle seg videre. It’s insane.

Den selvtillitt og energi jeg nå føler vil jeg ta med meg videre inn i jobben min, der det også finnes rom for kreative ablegøyer. Jeg ser frem til å hvile på mine laurbær.

Jeg håper jeg med all mulig tydelighet i det som har vært kommunisert rundt denne prosessen har lykkes i å understreke min TAKKNEMMELIGHET og YDMYKHET over den hjelpen vi har fått. Navnene deres står i boken, takksigelsene står i avisen.

Samtidig vil jeg også unne meg en porsjon STOLTHET over det som har skjedd her, og jeg håper det blir oppfattet i beste mening og ikke som narsissistisk blæring, eller belæring.

Selv om jeg uttaler meg i punchy oneliners jeg vet vil selge til pressen… type sex & glamour, rollespill er punkrock, så lyver jeg aldri (i hvert fall ikke i forbindelse med mitt livsverk). Jeg har ment vært bidige ord, og jeg føler at en del av magien her har vært noen vanvittig positive vibrasjoner på Arcon i år. Det var rett og slett kjærlighet i luften. For en energi! Og bivån nu forum: det knitrer, spraker og gløder fortsatt!

Jeg er vanvittig stolt over å ha bidratt til å sette rollespill på kartet på en POSITIV måte på nasjonal basis. Da jeg første gang fikk se det fysiske produktet sitter det en fyr jeg ikke aner hvem er på nabobordet og bare ”Unnskyld, er det Itras by?” ”Ja, kjenner du til det?” ”Jeg leste om det på nettet i går. Jeg er utrolig opptatt av rollespill.”

Rollespill er SVÆRT. Mange har hørt om det. Mange sitter rundt omkring på nes og skjær og spiller. Og nå har vi midlene til å nå ut, knytte sammen, skape synergier. Og det er passe sweet.

Hippie forever.

I love you guys.

Her er en tekst jeg skrev da jeg satt på Falklandsøyene for nesten nøyaktig et år siden, om en opplevelse jeg hadde i Varanasi for nesten nøyaktig fire år siden:

Han satt ved siden av en shivalingam, i kjortel, med langt jesushår og skjegg. Milde, brune øyne. Han helte honning over shivalingamen. Bier surret ivrig omkring.

– Er du en hellig mann?

– Jeg er hellig, du er hellig, disse biene er hellige.

Han ba meg ikke om en rupi, tilbød ikke å selge meg massasje, spådommer, silkedresser, chai, imiterte Adidas-bagger, hasj, en sari til kona, postkort fra Benares, velsignelser, røkelse eller yogaleksjoner

Slo kun fast vår helligdom. Ga biene honning. Og smilte vennlig.

An interview with Mark Pettigrew

Flashing Blades

Between 1984 and 1985 Fantasy Games Unlimited published five products in the Flashing Blade line.

These products can be bought as pdfs from DriveThruRPG.com

Main box (1984)

Cardinal’s Peril (1985). Four adventures

Parisian Adventures (1985). Four Adventures.

Ambassador’s Tales (1985). Campaign book.

High Seas (1985). Flashing Blades in the Caribbean. Arrrr!

Mark Pettigrew designed the Flashing Blades RPG back in… well, before some of you were even born. He’s been invisible for years, at least to us gaming-oriented types. But we managed to hunt him down – and get an interview!

– First, could you tell us a bit about yourself? What are you doing these days?

– Let’s see, I’m 43 years old. I was born in Boston but I’ve lived most of my life in California. I’ve spent a lot of time abroad, especially in the Middle East and Africa. I have two great kids. I teach as a professor of Arabic Language and Literature at Queens College, City University of New York. I’ve just taken up indoor climbing. That about wraps it up.

– Flashing Blades is a very compact design – there’s a lot of information in just one thin book. Rules, sample scenario, campaign setting, systems for promotions and military campaigns… What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of compact books vs. the big, heavy manuals used by some games – for instance Dungeons & Dragons or Vampire?

“If a book maps out every square inch of a world, provides rules for every situation, leaves no nooks and crannies for your own inventions, then what’s the point?” – If a book maps out every square inch of a world, provides rules for every situation, leaves no nooks and crannies for your own inventions, then what’s the point? – Everything I say about RPGs now is bound to be informed by hindsight. I don’t think I had formed any philosophy of gaming back when I wrote Flashing Blades. Now, I would say that the more a game leaves to the players’ imaginations, the better. The rulebook should provide a framework and, ideally, the seeds of ideas for adventures and so on. I love books with lush illustrations because they create an atmosphere; but I hate it when they cram loads of information down my throat. The whole idea of role-playing is to use your imagination. If a book maps out every square inch of a world, provides rules for every situation, leaves no nooks and crannies for your own inventions, then what’s the point?

Looking back on it now, I think Flashing Blades was a bit too heavy on rules and die-rolling. It could have been even simpler, more streamlined. One of my inspirations was a little game from GDW called En Garde!, which was also set in a swashbuckling milieu. This was a truly innovative RPG: it had no Game Master, just a batch of tables and rules. That sounds like it wouldn’t keep anyone’s interest for long, but my friends and I loved it. It was a precursor to GDW’s original sci-fi game Traveller, by the way, and shared a lot of Traveller’s structural framework. Anyway, the only problem with En Garde! was that we all wanted to continue playing our characters in new situations, in conventional role-playing adventures. This was one of the reasons I started working on Flashing Blades. But if you want to take a look at an extremely minimalist RPG with incredible playability, En Garde! is the perfect example.

 – Flashing Blades has a lot of historical detail. Did you spend much time on research? Why this exact time period?

– I loved Alexandre Dumas, Rafael Sabatini, and Robert Louis Stevenson as a teenager, and I was very serious about fencing at the time. I think Scaramouche was my favorite book for a few years. The time period seemed more approachable to me than the fantasy Middle Ages and science-fiction settings of so many other games. I could never really imagine what it would be like to be a Viking or serf (much less an elf or hobbit or space explorer), but life in 17th-century Paris didn’t feel that distant. By the 17th century urban life, civil institutions, and so on all seem vaguely familiar.

“I could never really imagine what it would be like to be a Viking or serf (much less an elf or hobbit or space explorer), but life in 17th-century Paris didn’t feel that distant.”I did read a few scholarly books on 17th-century France, but, frankly, I «improvised» a lot as well. I wanted to recreate a world of romantic adventure, not the real France of the 17th century, and I shamelessly stole ideas from every novel I read, every movie I saw. Also, at the time, my High School French was very poor. I’m a bit embarrassed looking over Flashing Blades now. I mangled French history and language pretty badly in some places.

Eventually, FGU had the game translated into French (as Les Trois Mousquetaires), and the translators generously corrected my worst mistakes. I recently unearthed some copies of the French edition and took a look at it. To be honest, it’s a much better game in French.

– Some educators are using role-playing games to teach procedures and facts in the classroom. What are your thoughts on that? Have you ever participated in role-playing for educational purposes? How could role-playing games be used to teach history, for example?

– I remember in the early ’80’s a story circulated about a kid who took D&D too seriously and started exploring the sewer near his house as if it were a dungeon. That always sounded like an urban legend to me, but it generated some debate over the dangers of role-playing, whether RPGs encouraged kids to lose touch with reality, and so on. Now we’ve got «Grand Theft Auto» and the debate over «dangerous youth-corrupting games» has moved into a new phase.

RPGs seem wonderfully educational to me. When I was a kid they certainly inspired me to read about all sorts of strange topics. They’re also social. Most video games are isolating, and even multi-player online games don’t have face-to-face interaction. Traditional RPGs are really exercises in cooperative storytelling, and I would think that they would lend themselves to all sorts of educational purposes.

The last game I started working on was not a RPG but was based on the same idea of cooperative play. The rough idea I had in mind was a conflict-resolution game in which players represent various imaginary nations and United Nations agencies. Each player would have randomly assigned goals for his or her faction, and would also have to deal with a randomly generated crisis of some sort. Ultimately, each player would try to fulfill his or her goals through a mixture of competition and cooperation, with the UN player(s) trying to help everyone achieve their goals without conflict. I experimented with a few prototypes of this game but was never able to work the kinks out. It was, I think, my only attempt at an educational game: a war game in which everybody wins if they make peace.

“Rules are really just an excuse to make up a good story.”– Compared to many other games of the period, especially those produced by FGU, Flashing Blades was easy to learn and play. Was this a design goal?
– Yes. Rules are really just an excuse to make up a good story. As a Game Master, I constantly cheated. I bent rules, lied about die rolls, threw out my original plans for endings, anything I had to do to keep things fun and exciting. I think this carried over into game design. As I said earlier, if anything Flashing Blades was too heavy on rules.

– The game had a high focus on court intrigue, exotic locations, colorful characters and cinematic play. What do you think influenced that?
– Well, again, «cinematic» because I was watching films like The Three Musketeers, The Prisoner of Zenda and Captain Blood, so there had to be carpets pulled out from under the boots of the Cardinal’s Guard, swinging chandeliers, etc., etc. And I was a fencer, and wanted very badly to capture what it felt like to fence, to be fighting and thinking furiously at the same time. (I don’t know whether I managed, but I tried.) Emphasis on court intrigue was part of the genre, and a great opportunity for real role-playing. As for exotic locations, I thought the biggest problem with the game was likely to be boredom with the setting: you can only dance across the rooftops of Paris, duel through the back streets of Paris, plod through the sewers of Paris, etc. for so long before things get dull. Eventually, you’ll need to take a vacation in the Caribbean to fight pirates.

– The Flashing Blades RPG was published by FGU in 1984. How did this come about? Did you contact them yourself?
– I sent the game to FGU myself, without knowing anyone there. I had tried my hand at writing other games before that, and although they had all been rejected, I had received some very friendly encouragement, especially from the folks at Flying Buffalo (most famous for Tunnels & Trolls). I think that in those days, everyone was an amateur. We were all gaming enthusiasts.

I don’t know where I found the nerve to write up a manuscript and send it out. I had a lot of support from my friends and family.

“I was 16 when I wrote the game, 18 when it was published.”– So you wrote one brilliant game, and then you totally disappeared from the role-playing business. Why?
– I’m flattered that anyone thinks Flashing Blades was brilliant. I’m glad someone enjoyed it. I did write a few supplements, scenarios and such for other games (especially M.A.R. Barker’s Empire of the Petal Throne). I stopped writing game materials when I went to college, partly because I needed to budget my time for my studies, and partly because my friends all drifted to different parts of the country. The most enjoyable aspect of role-playing for me was spending time with my friends. I was never able to recreate that experience after High School.

I had a surreal experience at a gaming convention when I was 18 or 19. I met some fans of Empire of the Petal Throne who had read everything I had ever written for that system. They seemed very disappointed that I was so young and that I didn’t speak fluent Tsolyani (the language of the dominant empire on M.A.R. Barker’s imaginary world, Tekumel). I loved RPGs, but they were just a hobby to me. I had trouble relating to people whose lives revolved around them. That was my last convention.

– You were pretty young back then – in your late teens, right? Was it common for designers to get their games published at such an early age?
– I have no idea. It’s true, I was 16 when I wrote the game, 18 when it was published. I had the impression that most designers were older than I was.

– Four supplements were released in one year. That’s a pretty high rate of publication! What was that like? (And is there any unpublished material for Flashing Blades lying around somewhere?)
– Once I had a market for my stuff, I really enjoyed writing more supplements. Most of that material was generated for my friends in our gaming sessions. As far as I know, all of it got published. It’s a great feeling, when you’re 16 or 17, to know that someone wants to publish what you write, no matter what it is. It gave me loads of confidence in college.

– What was it like working with FGU?
– I never met the people working there. We communicated entirely by mail. I don’t think they realized that I was a kid, at least at first. I tried to write my letters in a very professional style, though now, I think I must have sounded ridiculous. As far as I recall, the folks at FGU offered me good advice for rewrites and were very supportive.

– Last time I checked, the game was still available through FGU’s web shop. Do they own the rights to the game, and pay you royalties, or how does that work?
– I have no idea. I haven’t seen any royalties in about 20 years. FGU was really struggling to get by in those days. The gaming industry wasn’t really an industry back then, just a bunch of role-players writing and publishing their own stuff. FGU put out some slick, nicely packaged games, but a lot of gaming materials were poorly printed on cheap paper. I was surprised to make any profit at all.

“I loved RPGs, but they were just a hobby to me. I had trouble relating to people whose lives revolved around them.”– You’re not playing RPGs these days. What did you enjoy most about gaming back then? What games did you play, and in what sort of environment – close friends, gaming clubs, conventions etc?
– As I mentioned earlier, the context of gaming for me was always getting together with a group of friends, usually on weekends, usually at my house. I did spend some time at the local game store, which was also a venue for RPGs on the weekends, and I went to a few conventions. But mostly, it was just a small circle of friends. We could have played cards or watched TV just as easily, I suppose. Our favorite games were Empire of the Petal Throne, and Chaosium’s Worlds of Wonder and Call of Cthulhu. I had a taste for exotic, highly atmospheric games, which I guess I passed on to the others. We also experimented with our own designs. Most of these tended to be weird an unplayable (e.g. a RPG in which players control competing, evolving hive-minds on an alien planet–not an idea destined for success)

***

After the main interview, we asked the members of the Flashing Blades mailing list whether there was anything they wanted to ask Mark. Here are their questions – and his answers.

– Many see you as an idol, shaping their RPG lives with Flashing Blades. Some write online supplements or adventures for Flashing Blades. Do you still follow what happens online with Flashing Blades? And if so, what would be the possibilities to obtain a ‘Mark Pettigrew approved’ stamp to those works that are in line with your vision? What kind of advice can you provide?
– I really feel uncomfortable with the word «idol.» I can’t even get my kids to listen to me. I’m the last person who should be idolized.

I am pleased and flattered to learn that so many people enjoyed, and still enjoy, Flashing Blades. I had no idea they had formed an online community until I was contacted for this article, so, no, I haven’t been following it.

“As far as my seal of approval goes, why would anyone need that?” As far as my seal of approval goes, why would anyone need that? One person from the online group recently contacted me and told me a little about his campaign and I was amazed by his dedication and inventiveness. Frankly, it sounded to me as if he and his players were far more sophisticated (and historically informed) than my game. I think Flashing Blades just served as a springboard for him to explore his own ideas, and that’s all it should be expected to do. Once you buy the game, it’s yours to do with as you like.

– There’s also an active online community for Flashing Blades (flashing_blades@yahoogroups.com). You are cordially invited to join, of course; but until then, do you have any words of wisdom for them?
– Thanks for the invitation. I don’t know if I have any wisdom to offer. My fear is that someone will ask me about the cardinal Mazarin’s middle name or how to load a flintlock musket, and then be disappointed when I don’t know. (Actually, it’s «Raimondo,» and the trick is to keep your powder dry and use plenty of wadding.)

Sjanse- og handlingskort

Lei av terninger? Imagonem presenterer Sjanse- og Handlingskort fra Itras By. ‘,’

Regeltekstene under er hentet fra Itras By, et norsk rollespill som blir utgitt i løpet av 2008 og er skrevet av Ole Peder Giæver og Martin Bull Gudmundsen. Sjansekortene er også i hovedsak av Giæver og Gudmundsen, med enkelte bidrag fra Håken Lid. Handlingskortene er laget av Matthijs Holter. Alle kortene er noe omarbeidet og formgitt av Håken Lid.

Får du det til? Trekk et kort!
Last ned: Handlingskort

I Itras by bruker man handlingskort til å finne ut om rollene får til det de prøver på, og hvordan det går. På kortene er det skrevet forskjellige måter situasjonen kan endre seg på. Selve kortene finner du noen sider lenger frem, nedenfor går vi gjennom bruken av dem.

Stort sett flyter spillet avgårde utelukkende basert på samtaler, etter rådene vi gir om improvisasjon over. Spillederen beskriver spennende steder og spiller biroller. Spillerne tar intiativer ved å fortelle hva rollene gjør, og snakker seg imellom og med birollene. Av og til har man imidlertid lyst til å øke spenningen og uforutsigbarheten ved å legge til et element av tilfeldighet.

Vi bruker to kortstokker i dette spillet. Den ene er sjansekortene, som vi kommer tilbake til senere, den andre er handlingskortene. Det er disse man av og til kan bruke til å avgjøre utfallet av en handling rollen prøver seg på.

Bla noen sider fremover og ta en kikk på kortene. Som du ser forteller de ikke bare om du har fått til det du ville; de sier også noe om hvordan situasjonen kan ta uventede vendinger. Disse kortene er designet for å gi støtte til improvisasjonen. Akkurat hvordan tolkningen av kortet blir er opp til den spilleren som tolker det, men man bør kanskje ikke la hele handlingen stå og falle på ett kort. Trekker du kort for å «prøve å finne ut hvem den mystiske fienden er» og får et ja-kort, er plutselig halve eventyret over.

Det passer bra å be om et handlingskort når:

  1. Du har bestemt at rollen din skal gjøre noe.
  1. Denne handlingen er for vanskelig til at hvem som helst kunne klare det, men ikke aldeles umulig.
  1. Utfallet av handlingen vil påvirke resten av eventyret.

Når du ber om et kort, er det en av de andre spillerne som trekker kortet, leser det, og forteller hva som skjer. Denne spilleren har lov til å overta for både deg og spillederen: Både ting som skjer med din rolle, og hva som skjer med verden rundt, kan være med i beskrivelsen.

Selv om det til syvende og sist er du som bestemmer deg for å be om et handlingskort, har de andre spillerne lov til å komme med forslag det når de synes at det passer.

  • Kanskje du skal trekke et kort?
  • Nå syns jeg du burde trekke et kort!
  • Hoppende harmonika, nå hadde det jammen passet med et lite kort!!!!

Spillederen kan også komme med slike oppfordringer, men den endelige avgjørelsen er din.

Hvis du er vant til spill der man bruker terninger og ofte triller tester kan det virke naturlig å trekke handlingskortene hver gang rollen din støter på en hindring. Vi synes ofte det er fint å improvisere frem det meste av handlingen helt fritt, og krydre med handlingskortene kun i helt spesielle tilfeller. Noen retningslinjer for bruk av handlingskortene.

  • Ikke trekk nye kort før man har spilt ut konsekvensene fra forrige kort.
  • Det bør ikke trekkes mer enn ett kort per scene.
  • Hver spiller bør ikke trekke mer enn to-tre handlingskort i løpet av en episode.
  • Spilleren  som skal tolke kortet må gjerne be medspillerne om tips og innspill  hvis han er usikker på hvordan kortet skal tolkes.

Alternativ regel: istedenfor at kun én spiller tolker kortet tar man runden rundt bordet. Alle, bortsett fra spilleren som ber om at kortet skal trekkes, kan komme med hvert sitt forslag til hvordan kortet skal tolkes. Spilleren som ba om at kortet skal trekkes velger et av forslagene.

Sjansekortene
Last ned: Sjansekort

Hvert spilltreff har spillerne, og det inkluderer spillederen, lov til å trekke ett sjansekort hver. Disse er beskrevet bakerst i boken, og påvirker handlingen på ulike vis. Hvert kort har en tekst som forklarer hvordan det skal brukes. Noen kort er positive for rollen, mens andre er designet for å gi dem trøbbel. Spillerne velger når i løpet av spillet de trekker kortet; de er ikke nødt til å trekke, men det blir mer spennende hvis de gjør det.

Spilleren som trekker kortet er alltid den som forteller hvordan det skal tolkes, med mindre noe annet er presisert på kortet.

Rammene for virkeligheten i Itras by er alt annet enn urokkelige. Sjansekort griper virkeligheten ut av skjebnens hender, og overlater den til spillerens fantasi eller den ville tilfeldighet. Noen kort gagner deg, noen kort skader deg, og du kan ikke på forhånd vite hvilket kort DU holder i hånden.

Sjansekortene er laget slik at de kan fotokopieres på tykke ark og klippes ut.

Kortene skal særlig gjøre to ting. For det første skal de gi spillerne økt makt over fortellingen, for det andre å underbygge den surrealistiske tematikken i spillet. De har også en slags oppdragende funksjon, i det at de lærer dem som ikke kjenner Itras by fra før om mulighetene i spillet. Sammen med handlingskortene bidrar de til å utfordre spillederens «absolutte» autoritet.

Noen ganger vil kortet man trekker virke snålt i situasjonen, likevel er det mulig å gjøre alle til en del av handlingens gang. Sjansekortene utfordrer spilleders og spilleres evne til fortolking og improvisasjon, og gir spillet et element av uforutsigbarhet som også kjennetegner byen det foregår i.

Hver gang et sjansekort trekkes skal det leses opp høyt, slik at alle som er tilstede får med seg hva som skjer. Et sjansekort som blir trukket må brukes, spillerne har ikke lov til å ombestemme seg når de har lest teksten.

Dette er blant de få absolutte reglene i spillet, og dere vil få en bedre opplevelse av Itras by om dere følger den.

Hvis det er noen av kortene du ikke liker, eller som har en tendens til å dukke opp ofte, kan du ta det ut av kortstokken. Dere oppfordres også til å lage egne sjansekort.

Hvis du ikke kommer på et bra bruksområde for kortet kan du:

  • Spørre de andre spillerne om tips. «Hva gjør jeg med Draumlingen nå?»
  • Ta en pause hvis det passer i spillet, og tenke deg litt om. (Bare hvis det passer! Røykepause-tid, liksom).
  • Bruke den første og beste nødløsningen du kommer på og la spillet bevege seg videre.

Jonathan Walton: On the fringes of design

There are indie game designers – and then there are indie game designers. Every creative subculture has its undercurrents and countercultures, and if the games spawned by the Forge and its diaspora seem far out to you, wait until you’ve tried Jonathan Walton’s Mwaantaangaand.

Jonathan Walton is a 25-year-old researcher for an independent foreign policy think-tank in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He’s originally from North Carolina and Virginia. His main area of focus is the contemporary religious revival in mainland China and what it may mean for China’s social and political development. He’s in the midst of applying to PhD programs to continue his studies in graduate school. He plays the banjo and is about to get a Zen drum to play in this new musical project. He loves comics and po-mo experimental fiction.

On the side, He also edits «Push: New Thinking About Roleplaying,» a hobby journal which takes a progressive look on roleplaying. The second issue is supposedly in the process of being sorted out, but real life has shoved that aside in the past few months.

He can also be found on the web at One Thousand One, a personal design journal; Secret Wars, the tag-team design blog he shares with Shreyas Sampat, currently on some kind of hiatus; Fingers on the Firmament, a d20-based OGL design project I’m working on with Justin D. Jacobson (firmamentproject.wordpress.com); Story Games; and Knife Fight .

– First of all, a small thing, but something that I’ve been curious about ever since I first read your name… are you related to any of the other RPG-writing Waltons?
– There are other RPG-writing Waltons? I normally just get thrown in with Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart, and John-Boy Walton, from the long-running American TV series «The Waltons.» I’ve definitely heard quite a few «Goodnight, John-Boy» jokes in my life.

– You’ve made some pretty different games. Lots of structure, not a lot of dice. One, «Waiting for the Queen / Tea at Midnight», was published in «Push» volume 1. It has one of the tightest and most constraining structures I’ve ever seen in a role-playing game. Can you tell us a little about it, and what inspired it?
– Sure. «Waiting/Tea» was inspired by those old text-based computer games of the «Get lamp» variety, what are now called «interactive fiction» (a term like «graphic novels» is to «comics,» artsy-ing it up a bit). I was attempting to test out this idea that you could make an RPG with very limited choices as far as character actions go.

The two fixed characters, Gai Zheng and Chema, have basically two physical things they can do: walk to a new location, pick up / set down a bucket. But their verbal and gestural expression is not limited. They can talk, smile, yell, scream, cry, or even improvise «emote» commands like you might in a chat game: for example «Throw snowball at Gai Zheng.» None of the expressions have any mechanical weight, but they add meaning and context to the limited physical actions the characters can perform. The story revolves around two problems, one for each character. Chema is waiting in the cold for someone to come through the front gate («Waiting for the Queen»), based on an old promise she made to her mother. Gai Zheng has been sent out to fetch water from the stream («Tea at Midnight»). There is lots of snow everywhere and both characters are miserable. And the game is about their interactions. It plays in less than 20 minutes, usually, but is radically different every time, even with the very limited list of actions.

Another thing worth noting: the two characters play by slightly different rules. The rules are complimentary and some actions by Gai Zheng open up new actions to Chema (and vice versa). This is something I hope to explore more in the future.

Transantiago. The world is about to end, and bodhisattvas try to resolve the unfinished business that is preventing the metro stations from transcending.

– «Transantiago», written for one of the very many recent design contests, involves drawing lines and stations on a map. What’s that all about?
– Ha. «Transantiago» is a bizarre mashup of «The Line,» this game of «Primetime Adventures» that John Harper («Agon») organized in Seattle, and a previous contest game concept, «When The Forms Exhaust Their Variety,» from Game Chef 2005. The premise is that the world is about to end and several saints, angels, and bodhisattvas have been sent into the metro to try to resolve the unfinished business that is holding the metro stations into this world, preventing them from transcending. The characters, who have no identity or traits of their own -– being pure, refined souls, travel from station to station attempting to resolve whatever situations are there, situations that are improvised by the other players. It’s somewhat absurdist but also focused on real situations, real people, and real problems. It’s like a optimistic Buddhist retelling of Samuel Beckett’s play «Endgame,» but on the subway.

System wise, it’s interesting because you have characters that aren’t really characters in the traditional sense (they have no traits, they are defined simply by what they do) and because the station map gradually develops over time, based on how the characters move around Transantiago.

– These stations represent «a particular Issue that (…) will not be properly addressed until one or more of the characters figures out how to deal with it». Other games, like Shreyas Sampat’s «Mridangam», also use maps to represent scenes and narrative structures. What are the advantages and limits of this design technique? What are some potential implementations in current or future designs?
– I love maps and board games. I think they are a really powerful tool that has not yet been fully appreciated in roleplaying. Relatively recent board games like «Betrayal at House on the Hill» and «The Lord of the Rings» really opened my eyes to how cooperative play can be enhanced by visual tools and diagrams. Eero Tuovinen’s excellent «Zombies at the Door» also does something similar.

Right now, I only see the advantages of these tools. I don’t think I or anyone else has explored the potential of maps and boardgames in roleplaying enough to have discovered what the limits are. Maps and diagrams have always been a part of roleplaying, of course, inherited from our wargaming roots, but they were pretty much always used the same way, to show the physical position of characters and other objects in the imaginary game world. However, when you move beyond physical positioning, maps get really interesting.

Mwaantaangaand. Monsters in the game are represented by changing the themes on the board for a given number of scenes.

Over the past 2-3 years, I’ve been using maps to structure scene framing in a bunch of short roleplaying games. The framing has either been location-based or theme-based, generally. So if my character is on X space, that means he’s in a scene in X location (more physical positioning, but more abstract than in wargaming) or a scene that’s about X. When his piece moves to a new space on the map, the scene ends and the next scene is in Y location or about Y theme. One of the craziest things I did with this was in «Mwaantaangaand,» where the monsters in the game are represented by changing the themes on the board for a given number of scenes. So a space that was about X is now about «Blood and Gore» and space Y is now about «Uncertainty.» This way, the monsters directly impact the experience of play and the kinds of things that are narrated, without having traits or being measured in any mechanical way.

I’ve also been working on a hack of White Wolf’s Exalted, currently on the back burner, where every Charm, every magical power a character possesses, takes the form of a small map. The various Charm maps then connect together, interlocking and overlapping, to form the «character sheet,» the board that a player plays on. It’s possible that the maps of various characters will also interlock and overlap if the players are part of the same group or are in conflict with each other. In such a system, your character’s tokens could actually cross over and be moving around on another character’s map. Honestly, this kind of system is a bit too complex for me to design at the moment, since I haven’t finished experimenting with simpler ones, which is why it’s on the back burner. But I hope you can imagine the potential and diversity inherant in these kinds of map-based systems.

– There’s been some talk about design subcultures, creative networks of friends, and their importance for design. How do you see yourself in this context? Are you part of a specific circle, culture or trend?
– That’s hard to say. One of the great things about being part of the wonderfully welcoming indie games community is that I consider many designers to be close friends, even if our design styles are pretty different, so it becomes hard to distinguish «people I really like» from «design work that speaks to me.» I think it’s generally the case that I am more likely to recognize the influence of people who I interact with regularly, since they are constantly there helping me with my designs. But it’s important to not forget the folks who laid the foundation for what the indie games community has become over the past ten years. According to the survey I conducted among indie game designers on Story Games, The Forge, and Knife Fight, I found that the top 15 most influential games were:

 1. Sorcerer

2-3. Dogs in the Vineyard, Polaris

4-5. Dungeons & Dragons, Primetime Adventures

6-8. The Mountain Witch, The Shadow of Yesterday, Universalis

9. My Life With Master

10. Trollbabe

11-15. The Burning Wheel, Dust Devils, Everway, The Pool, The Riddle of Steel
These games permeates all of our designs, even the work of folks who’ve never read or played their games, because they’ve influenced so many other games.

Regionally speaking, I have close ties to the folks here in Boston (Nathan Paoletta, Dev Purkayastha), the Western Mass Crew (the Bakers, Emily Care Boss, Joshua AC Newman, Julia Ellingboe, and the newer additions Shreyas Sampat and Elizabeth Shoemaker), the Jersey Boys (Kevin Allen Jr., Brennan Taylor), the folks who live near my parents’ home in North Carolina (Clinton R. Nixon, Jason Morningstar, Andy Kitkowski), and some folks out in Seattle (Ben Lehman, John Harper). I also feel like I’m gradually developing a relationship with Fred Hicks, based off collaborating on the Indie Game Passport at GenCon 2007. I also try to keep up with some of the UK folks, especially Malcolm Craig and Gregor Hutton.

“I don’t think there’s anyone who’s really interested in the same kinds of design goals that I am.”Design wise? I don’t think there’s anyone who’s really interested in the same kinds of design goals that I am. The closest ones are probably Shreyas Sampat and Kevin Allen Jr., the hardcore iconoclasts from Jersey (what is it about Jersey anyway?). We like breaking stuff and putting it back together, especially when what we’re breaking is the status quo or our own expectations. We like making impossible or unlikely choices and then following them through to their natural conclusions.

– You and Shreyas Sampat have started the blog «Secret Wars». What’s that? How has it worked so far?
– Secret Wars was started because Shreyas and I are constantly working on games in parallel. The few times we’ve tried collaborating on a project, it’s never quite worked out, but we’re constantly throwing ideas back and forth, leading our games to share certain types of traits. Also, we’re interested in many of the same kinds of issues and have spent the requisite amount of time talking about games together to the point that we often has a pretty clear idea of where the other is coming from and what they want to accomplish. We started Secret Wars to be a shared blog where we could encourage each other to do design work and, specifically, finish up unfinished projects. There hasn’t been much activity on the blog for the past 6 months, which means that its prime period may be over, but it has been really beneficial and fruitful overall. Certainly, a large amount of very exciting design work is contained in the archives. And Secret Wars has inspired a number of other group design blogs, the most notable of which is probably Master Mines. So I would call it a great success, though neither of us has yet to see a completely polished game emerge out of it.

– Apparently there’s some sort of vow of chastity connected with «Secret Wars». You’re not supposed to be designing other games, right? Is that hard?
– Well, it started out that way, but I quickly broke that rule. The idea was that we were only supposed to work on one game at a time and then work on it until it was finished. Unfortunately, my creativity tends to be scattered, wanting to develop multiple things simultaneously. For example, my current projects are Geiger Counter, Transantiago, The 108 Bravos of Mount Liang (a setting for In A Wicked Age…), Fingers on the Firmament, a Warhammer 40K-based hack for 1001 Nights, and Push 2. So yeah, that wasn’t just hard, that proved impossible.

– You’re an active proponent of publishing free games on the internet. Why is that?
– It’s so easy to publish a game in print nowadays, thanks to the rise of Print-on-Demand technology and services like Lulu. And the number of for-pay PDF products is immense, as you can see just wandering around RPGnow. But I guess I feel that the commercialization of every aspect of roleplaying is not a good thing. I don’t think people should feel like they need to turn every useful, fun thing that they could write up into something that they sell. Some publishers approach this issue from an economic standpoint and talk about «flooding the market» or «devaluing other products,» which I don’t believe in. I only have one commercial product (Push) and it doesn’t compete with anything else out there. I could care less how many commercial products are out there.

“Why does anything of value need to be sold?”My issue is more… Why does anything of value need to be sold? This is one of the principles behind the OGL and other open source projects, actually. They encourage people to give things away to the community, allowing others to use them however they will. There is certainly a lot of OGL material that seems to muddy the water by giving the community a lot of crap that’s not very useful or, for example, 250 different types of spoons. You don’t need 250 different spoons. You just need the best, most versitile spoon. This is how tools evolve, right, because a hammer is clearly useful in all sorts of situations. Well, if you develop a versitile tool, something that could be used by hundreds or thousands of other people, or just something that’s really cool, and you’re relatively financially secure… perhaps giving it away is a good choice to make.

Now, I don’t believe in pressuring people to give away material that they want to sell, but I also don’t feel like people should be pressured to sell material just because people say «It’s really good! I would totally pay money for that.» I also feel like free games are kinda «Web 2.0,» you know? I’m not an internet or software design person, but my sense is that free games enable community building and creative sharing in a way that doesn’t focus on generating revenue, which are some of the main principles behind the social software sites (YouTube, until recently Facebook) that make up the Web 2.0 model. And those are values that I believe in.

– Personally, I much prefer having a book in my hand. It feels like someone actually worked and invested time and money to create the game, which gives me the illusion that it’s a finished product. Someone’s blog post or ill-designed PDF doesn’t give me that feeling. Is there a way around this issue?
– Sure. There’s no reason that free games have to lack a physical product. Personally, I’m planning on paying to have copies printed of some of my projects and just handing them out or giving them away alongside other products which are sold. I’ve already talked with Vincent Baker about giving away copies of my Water Margin supplement for In A Wicked Age to people who buy Vincent’s game at GenCon

For those with less capital to invest in a free project, there are plenty of other options. You can easily set up print products on Lulu that are sold at the cost of printing, such that no revenue ever makes it back to the creator (yay, no taxes!). This would be a great way to accompany a free PDF or HTML-based game with a print version. Clinton R. Nixon, when he still worked at Lulu, was interested in setting up a system by which profits from some print products would automatically be sent to charity. I expect that kind of thing may yet happen in the future.

I have to keep a watch out for assassins sent by Malcolm Sheppard when I say things like this. Malcolm, coming from a freelancing background, strongly objects to the way creative workers are underpaid and undervalued by many roleplaying publishers, which leads him, I think, to strongly object to creative work being done cheaply or for free, because that could imply that it’s without value or of low value. I don’t think those two ideas need necessarily be joined together.

– I’d like to talk a little about «Push». It’s «an annual journal of progressive roleplaying thought, creative works, and witty commentary, collaboratively created by a motley assortment of inquiring minds». Why did you start the magazine?
– Ha. The «annual» part of that has become a joke. Each issue has taken at least 2 years to produce.

“The internet is great, but it’s also scattered and there are very few places where people can stop and reflect on what all this means.”  Roleplaying is moving in multiple interesting directions, but there’s not really anywhere where these shifts are being documented in print form, aside from the dozens of new games that get published every year. The internet is great, but it’s also scattered and there are very few places where people can stop and reflect on what all this means. There needed to be a place where these diverse strands can be gathered together.

– There’s very little mention of dice and numbers in «Push». Are all the contributors freeform hippies?
– Hmm… The first issue included articles by Emily Care Boss, John Kim, Shreyas Sampat, Eero Tuovinen, and myself, so… yes, in that case, mostly freeform hippies, though honestly all of us generally play games that use dice. The dice and numbers are just not the most important thing happening at the table. Is this a bias I should fix? Maybe next time I’ll invite my friend Eric Pinnick to write an article on dice probabilities.

– In the design and theory community around the Forge, and the Forge diaspora, it often seems like the design ideas from the nineties – simple, open games like Over the Edge or Amber – have completely disappeared. Theorists like John Kim are few and far between in the landscape. What do you think are the reasons for this?
– Wow, hmm. I’m not sure I agree. I think those kinds of games form the majority of the post-Forge school of indie design. I think most games coming out of the diaspora are rules light systems built around a core conflict resolution mechanic. Generally they also have specific guidelines for scene framing and, until recently, stakes setting in conflicts. Most also take some responsibilities traditionally held by the GM and have them rotate among the players, such as controlling NPCs or framing scenes or describing pieces of the setting. While not all of these traits are shared with predecessors like Over The Edge and Amber, quite a few of them are, and I think the lines of their heritage pretty clearly trace back to games like those. In most post-Forge games, despite the desire of their creators to clearly tie the game system to a specific setting and style of play, you can still swap the setting and play style out for another, without much tweaking.

The games that aren’t like this really stand out for me. My Life With Master is probably the first one to break from tradition in a truly dramatic fashion. Several games followed it that also took a similar path, like Breaking The Ice, Polaris, 1001 Nights, and Bliss Stage. But Polaris also brought us rotating player roles, making it probably the second major game to clearly break with the status quo. Shock: is also a game that I think is under-appreciated for how different it is. What other roleplaying game focuses on cultural change as the most interesting aspect of play? I suspect Emily Care Boss’ upcoming Sign In Stranger will be the next big innovator. It’s possible that Lacuna and Capes might be on this list too, if I was more familiar with them, just based on what I’ve heard.

“Vincent is always doing really groundbreaking work, but he does it in a very familiar framework”Why aren’t any of Vincent Baker’s games on this list? Well, it’s kinda odd. Vincent has brought us some really groundbreaking, crucial techniques that have (or will) become fundamental -– initiation scenes, escalation, fallout, and NPCs in Dogs in the Vineyard; oracles and the We Owe list from In A Wicked Age. But his games still possess most of the familiar traits that I described above. I think that’s partially what makes them so popular. Vincent is always doing really groundbreaking work, but he does it in a very familiar framework that still allows people to take any of his games and, for example, play Hellboy with them (no offense, Harper!). Vincent recently told me «I design conservative games, but they don’t reveal the limits of my vision, just my agenda and its audience. For instance, I know how conservative they are.» That is both genius and madness.

– How important is RPG theory to you, as a designer?
– If you mean theory in the sense of «thinking, reading, and writing seriously about roleplaying,» then it’s critical. I live and breathe it. If you mean theory in some other sense, then I’d have to know what you mean.

– Thanks for doing this interview, Jonathan!
– Anytime! Like I said, I live and breathe this stuff and appreciate the opportunity to share. Let me know if you have any questions or things you’d like me to clarify.

Stemmen fra ådalen

En blog om rollespil af Morten Greis. Fra Tryggevælde ådal en dyb klang. Elverpigernes dans. Røre i det hvide slør. Disen hyller landskabet. De gamle stammer krogede trolde.

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Realm of Melpomene

"I reject your reality and substitute my own!"

anyway.

"I reject your reality and substitute my own!"

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Nørwegian Style

Norwegian roleplaying games in English