The 20' By 20' Room

Variant Roleplaying

Posted by Bryant on June 23, 2004 at 08:45 AM

Steve D. says he doesn't play roleplaying games anymore. Recently, in fact, his games have become a sort of group script-writing session.

This strikes me as rather similar to the fanfic-birthed mailing list or Live Journal roleplaying communities, which are essentially freeform roleplay/story-writing venues. In traditional roleplaying, the GM creates NPCs and sets the parameters of the world. If you're roleplaying in settings drawn from pop culture, everyone knows what the NPCs and the world are like already. Thus, the Steve and his players have achieved auctorial freedom.

If you give them tools, will they use them

Posted by Jere on June 22, 2004 at 08:55 AM

Nifty toys in a game are great, but how many are too many?

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My Intro

Posted by Vincent Baker on June 21, 2004 at 08:04 AM

I had kind of a funny start roleplaying. When I was 8 or 9 I was playing Zork on my uncle's new Atari 800 with a couple friends, and we dug it. At some point we wanted to play it but we weren't at my uncle's house, so I volunteered to "be the computer." We even played it text-based! I'd write a description, pass the notebook, my friends would read it and write their actions, I'd write the results. We kept that up for a while, actually, several sessions, before we figured out that we could just talk instead.

I kept playing my own made-up games with my friends. As a teenager I finally had a chance to play real D&D;. I expected it to be much better than the games I'd made up, because, I mean, it was a real game, right? Published = better, right? I was disappointed.

I lived and gamed with the Ennead in 1995, for those of you who followed RGFA in those days. That's when I started thinking hard about roleplaying theory, and also when I started designing games with other people playing them in mind -- although it wasn't until 1999 that I finished one. Right after I finished my second (infamous) game, I found the Forge, and that was a good thing.

I guess that now I'm a successful indie game designer, because sometimes people I don't know play my games!

Single-Player Play

Posted by Bryant on June 19, 2004 at 07:34 AM

Jeff gets down and dirty and analyzes his GMing in a single-player game he ran a while ago. A lot of the issues he talks about are very familiar to me; I ran a single-player loose-ruled D&D game for a while back in California and yeah. Lack of structure can really be a problem.

I wound up not so much scripting as providing a lot of powerful impetuses for the PC to go somewhere else than where she was at any given moment. The best hook of all was "you are the avatar of one of the four elemental gods and if you don't fulfill your destiny the orc you hate so much is going to take over your role." I didn't really have any doubt that the orc was going to lose, but it still worked very well as a method of creating suspense.

I also had the problem that first level D&D characters are exceedingly fragile but the player wanted the experience of leveling up from first. That's why the rules wound up being used somewhat loosely. It all worked out in the end.

However, I never even thought about the prediscussion of story arc idea he came up with, and I love it. I'm totally going to do that if I ever run for a single person again. Framing it as a formal "next issue box" creates an elegant sense of ritual and I'm big on ritual.

What single-player techniques have you used, as a GM? Or for that matter, as a player?

Game Dreams

Posted by Ginger Stampley on June 18, 2004 at 10:22 AM

Mitch Evans of Doc's Blog has decided to pick up where WISH left off with a new writing exercise, Game Dreams. He posted the first one today. Those of you who need a writing exercise fix, head over that way.

Water cooler talk

Posted by Jere on June 18, 2004 at 09:49 AM

We're just not all that different as a hobby

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Robin Laws Column

Posted by Bryant on June 18, 2004 at 08:42 AM

Exciting news -- Robin Laws' new gaming column is underway. Granted, the first column is mostly setting the stage for answers to come, but he's got me anticipating those answers, which I suppose is the purpose.

New Contributors

Posted by Bryant on June 17, 2004 at 01:05 PM

A big 20' by 20' Room welcome (which means it's at least 30' by 30') to our three new contributors: Matt Snyder, Scott Knipe, and Vincent Baker. They bring us a wealth of game design experience plus, more important, interesting things to say. Contributor bios to come as soon as they get 'em to me.

The Last WISH

Posted by Bryant on June 12, 2004 at 07:26 AM

Ginger has posted her last WISH. If you've never participated or read the WISHes, you've been missing out. Without Ginger's example of gaming blogs as discussion forums, I wouldn't have started the 20' by 20' Room. And so I wanted to answer the final WISH here.

Tell me your favorite war story. Why is it your favorite? What does it show about your character or the game/campaign you were playing? What does it exemplify about why you like gaming?

Continue reading "The Last WISH"

Digital Rights Management and Role-Playing Games

Posted by Emily Dresner-Thornber on June 8, 2004 at 07:55 PM

"Nihil tam munitum quod non expugnari pecuna possit."
(“No place is so strongly fortified that money could not capture it.)
– Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC)

“Counteracting [intellectual property theft] is like trying to make water not wet; it just doesn’t work.”
-- Bruce Schneier, “Secrets and Lies”

What is Digital Rights Management?

The official definition states thus:

Digital Rights Management (DRM) refers to protecting ownership and copyright of electronic content by restricting what actions an authorized recipient of the media may take with the content. DRM gives content producers, in theory, the ability to securely distribute their electronic media (books, periodicals, photographs, educational media, video, music, etc.) and control the use of that content.

Generally, the idea is to use security and cryptography, not to keep private information private, but to make information public without the fear of unauthorized copying and allowing creators to receive compensation for their creative works. DRM allows a customer to purchase a digital item while the creator still protects their property.

Continue reading "Digital Rights Management and Role-Playing Games"