Commercial Gaming!

I dunno if Dev shared this with anyone else, but I think it’s hilarious.

(via Dev)

Next Time I Run The Mountain Witch…

…I will be using these images.

http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2008/03/japanese-toy-designs.html

Damn but I love running that game.

JiffyCon Boston 08

Wow, what a great time!

This my first time co-sponsoring an event (along with Dev) and it went pretty darn smoothly. We had a good attendance of 30+, including peeps from far-flung NYC and New Jersey (thanks for making the trip, yo!) as well as locals and many representative from Western Mass. We even had more people than games in our morning slot, and Dev got to run a playtest of his game The Dance and the Dawn. So it was, like, Boston designer playtest day, between that, my Annalise, and Jonathon’s Geiger Counter.

I facilitated a very solid playtest game of Annalise in the morning, and played Misspent Youth (again, a playtest) in the afternoon. I think Rob got some good feedback out of that game, so that’s a nice feeling.

And I saw friends and had a good solid chunk of social time! Shreyas and Elizabeth were wonderful houseguests, and it’s always exciting to see the friends I’ve made since getting into this fragment of the hobby. Thanks everyone for coming!

And, without further ado, the pictures:

Jonathon and Shreyas have introspective moments while playing Annalise. Prominently displayed is our third sponsor and official morning fuel of JiffyCon, Dunkin’ Donuts. In the background are Melissa, Kat and someone I can’t make out playing the Dance and the Dawn.

Adam Flynn winds up for another knockout punch while running Spirit of the Century! for a full and (from what I was overhearing at the time) enthusiastic table.

There were some kind folks present who have been filming a documentary on Pandemonium, the game store that graciously provided our venue for JiffyCon. They came by and filmed a couple games and did a couple of interviews, and were generally cool people. Yay, JiffyCon on film! I’ll be sure to put a link when the thing is available.

Two friendly fellows whose names I, unfortunately, don’t remember (sorry guys! though, they were playing characters by the names of Sam and Cornelius, respectively) flank Eppy as he poses for me. Ah, always posing for me, thats my Epidiah. We were playing Misspent Youth, by the way.

My Misspent Youth character sheet and notes.

Emily Care Boss playing Shooting the Moon with John and Deanne Adams. John is aghast at the dastardly deeds of Emily’s shootin’ fingers.

Shreyas runs a playtest of Mist Robed Gate for a packed and super-boisterous table. There were tears AND Kung Fu. Most excellent.

So, again, thanks everyone for coming! It was a blast!

Fighting Competition

So, something I think I try in almost all of my designs is to have competition be a thing. Like, there are rewards there for you to mess with other peoples characters, even though you all are also cooperating with each other to make fun.

And it’s something that I always toss out after playtesting, because it always feels weird and forced to me, and I don’t actually like playing with that dynamic!

So, in Annalise, the downward pressure is now purely mechanical, I think. Even getting a lot of what you want out of a given moment will drain your resources (heh, drain, vampires, get it?!), and I think you will always have to be measuring your replenishing resource against whats happening in the fiction. I hope. Play will tell.

Anyway, I’m working on finishing the current draft for JiffyCon, and I think a last piece that I really like just fell into place. See, in the first (well, technically second) part of play, it is certainly possible that you will hit 0 in at least one of your core stats. What that means in the fiction is that the Vampire gains some kind of hold over you (be it mystical, emotional, mind control, whatever). This can potentially happen multiple times, though I don’t see it happening much more than twice unless you want it to happen to your character.

The last (well, technically second-to-last) part of play is about confronting the Vampire. And I was all “so, how should that thing about the Vampires hold over you matter once you actually confront the bastard?”. And I came up with this little slightly baroque thing where you have a consequence (any moment has both consequences and achievements) that is automatically added to any moment during your confrontation with the Vampire. This consequence says “You give in to the Vampire.” Mechanically, if you have no holds on you, it’s present but it is guaranteed not to happen unless someone else at the table rerolls it on purpose, and it becomes more mechanically likely the more holds the Vampire has over you.

It’s a little pure system thing that I think (and hope) will really push the core arc of the game without having to force the people at the table to compete with each other. You can all get along great and really wanna help each other out, and it’s still a possible threat to everyone, all the time.

I hope it works! We’ll see soon!

Don’t Hold Back

I hope somebody tells me when I sell out. Seriously. Just send me an email saying  “dude. This thing you just did? You sold out.” I’ll appreciate it.

It’s kind of nice being around a bunch of people who are designing out on the fringe (Walton & Dev & Shreyas, for the record). It makes me feel warm and safe in my standardized/normalized design and business practices. But then I look back at the people setting those standards (Vincent & Evil Hat & Luke), and go “holy crap, I am doing something wierd and strange, aren’t I?”

I hope y’all don’t mind when I name names. It’s a response to the nethabit of never specifying who or what you are talking about. Particularly when yer yelling about trends in game design and publishing.

In happy news, Annalise playtest at JiffyCon Boston! Once that’s over, I should be able to finish up the current draft and get in touch with you poor bastards who have indicated interest in reading/playtesting. Then, once my current Wednesday D&D game wraps up in a couple weeks, full playtest with that group. Super exciting!