Posted by Jason on January 29th, 2009 — in Uncategorized
Steve gave me a really fine-toothed edit for Fiasco, which I have implemented. Slight mechanical changes are underway, and bringing in feedback from Alameda and Peoria. I’m really fortunate to have friends who will playtest, even when it is painful. Both Chris Bennett and Seth Ben-Ezra have run my game-in-dev twice now and it is better for it. Way better. It’s going to be a good game. The quality of the packages is much more important than I thought. I will make them awesome.
Also I am editing some hambone Macau gangster project for Jonathan Walton and doing a collaborative exercise of indeterminate objective over at Story Games, and now I’m excited about vampire robots again. Two great games this week – Mentzer D&D and Wilson PTA - and Dreamation looming. It feels pretty good!
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Posted by Jason on January 6th, 2009 — in Check this out dude, Design, Fiasco
We’re ruminating on this now. It’s a layout and design challenge. Check this out:
JOEL: I want Stephen and Joy to have a scene. I want to convince her to seduce Pete Branch. [The rules for choosing to establish a scene are on page 55]
Everyone nods – it’s understood that the group will be deciding whether Stephen Caney manages to talk his wife into seducing Pete.
It’s a Friday night and we’re in my trailer. “Time Cop” is on the TV, and Caney’s on the couch in a bath robe, potato chip crumbs in his beard.
JASON: The place smells like ammonia and chicken fat. The shotgun is propped up against an arm of the couch.
Jason and Joel play out the scene in character
We’re out of everything, Stephen.
JOEL: Yeah.
So you’ve got three or four things going on there:
1. Players talking.
2. Observations of what players are doing related to the rules, and actual pointers.
3. Flags regarding player behavior (in this case dropping into IC mode)
4. Characters talking.
And they all get a little mixed up. IC and OOC communication is intermingled in real life, we shift naturally from one to the other, but rendering that clearly in text is sort of hard. Here’s one where IC and OOC get mixed together:
JASON: Pete, I’m so lonely.
MONA: And against his better judgment, against every instinct, he kisses her. Then he runs away.
JOEL: I’m so happy right now. This is all going to end in a terrible tragedy.
So IC speech, then OOC narration, then a player comment. Confusing. Or this:
JOEL: Maybe you ain’t and maybe you are. Maybe the fact that you just aided and abetted a known felon will come back to cause some kind of problem, who knows? I sure don’t. And he hands the doctor the shotgun.
So IC then OOC in the same paragraph. What game book handles this well? How to the JRPG replays handle it? What are some solid layout/typography techniques for making this clear and readable?
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Posted by Jason on January 6th, 2009 — in Uncategorized
We had a fun session last night that was a little off-kilter in a sedate way. There was, at one point, a weird tie, and I resolved to correct that in the rules. When I went to do that, I found that I already had and had just forgot.
Now I’m looking for an artist! In my mind I’m looking for atmospheric, clean-lined pen and ink with a strong bend toward realism, but, you know, stylish. Sort of Tomer and Asaf Hanuka-looking. And professional. If you have any ideas or leads, please let me know.
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