Yak-Hack

for reasons yet unknown, I will not capitalize the first letter in any of these sentences, unless I want to. calm down. have a snack. call a friend. have you been on RPG social media for more than 3 hours? have you ever seen one of those hot-take thread wherein people list obvious truisms as if they were controversial? have you ever seen one of those people who will spend their days arguing against fictional people? then you've probably heard some version of the following: you don't HAVE to play dnd. there are OTHER games, that do what you want BETTER. they're not really wrong. there isn't a sentiment there that we can make any normative claim against. so what's the problem? it follows a narrative we've discussed previously - the design centric perspective . It's follies are as follows: 1. it gives us a value judgement that tells us that specifically curated, "optimized" experiences, that carries with it the intentions of its authors, ...

Recently, I've been questioning the primacy of "Design" within RPG products. There's a kind of determinism that is generally accepted among RPG folks that Design determines what Play looks like. Listening to some versions of what Game Design is, you'd get the sense that the job of a designer is to manipulate and mind-control the people who play it, and perhaps to teach lessons about some things. If they are correct, and game design truly is a form of Vault-Tec style behavioral control, we might have to ask ourselves if this is even desirable? I don't doubt that design to a certain extent shapes the behavioral patterns and the choices role-players make, but I find that designers more often than not overrate their own presence at the table in a rather self-aggrandizing way. There is a famous, perhaps dubious sentiment surrounding Vampire The Masquerade - that the games mechanics seemed so contrary to the intended playstyle of the game that it is a wonder a...

Take the following statement as true: "Level 1 Characters should not have a backstory. The game is their backstory." If this is true, what do we then do to generate interest and investment in the character? I recently made this personality generator for a campaign of ASE  that you can use to flesh out exactly how to roleplay them and instruct GMs in how the world might react to them.  Roll 1d6 per table, and intepret as you wish.  MY GENERAL ATTITUDE IS... Cocky Unpleasant Charming Hyper Cowardly Morose WHEN I EAT I... ... slide the whole meal right down my throat ... take tiny little bird bites ... separate all the different food stuffs into different piles ... I mix it all together into a single sludge ... I chew loudly with an open mouth ... I hide my mouth with my hand MY WALK-STYLE IS... Forward-tilting Crooked Straight-shouldered Stiff-necked Hunched Backward-tilting FAMOUS EXPRESSIONS Ugh! Waaaait a minute......

OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE UR-CORPSE GAME:  The Black Hack 2nd Ed. by David Black SETTING:  Fever Swamp by Luke Gearing LANGUAGE:   Swedish PLAYERS:  Disa  as the Fighter " Pravoslav "Pravvo" Storáková " Elliot  as the Wizard " Eberhardt "Nubbe" Brúntz " Jonas  as the Cleric " Bohumil Storáková " SPOILER ALERT  I trust that if you are going to play this module, you won't read further. If you like knowing all the secrets and pointing out a bunch of meta-stuff at the table is fine with your group, alright. Personally, I think Deadpooling it isn't all that rewarding. Part 1: The Actual Play Upon arrival in the Village of Clink, the players had already heard of the bounty regarding Gert Von Hammer and his research. I also introduced them to the creepy Jasmine - the cult-leader for the water-dead god. I loved the cult, even if I didn't get to play with it (or the Village of ...

OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE UR-CORPSE GAME: The Black Hack 2nd Ed. by David Black SETTING: Fever Swamp by Luke Gearing LANGUAGE: Swedish PLAYERS:  Disa as the Fighter " Pravoslav "Pravvo" Storáková " Elliot as the Wizard " Eberhardt "Nubbe" Brúntz " Jonas as the Cleric " Bohumil Storáková " PREFACE: I had not intended to write a play-report when I started this adventure, so the details are muddy. This won't be a session-by-session retelling, and I might be missing something or misrepresenting stuff. If you are looking for a review: it is very good . This is going to be part a record of a fun mini-campaign and part musings on how stuff could've been done different. Mostly by me, but also stuff about the module and the system. I've decided to split it up into 2 (or more) chapters to keep each post from being overlong. Part 1. Preparations and Translations Fever Swamp, in T...

Expanded from my dice.camp thread : Besides the cultural reasons, the fact that violence is employed in games has to do with the fact that it carries with it inherent tension, which is how I'm thinking about design a lot these days. Inherent tension means the very nature of the action your character takes carries with it significant and immediately recognizable risks. A move that lets you research the lore of the world or location or person is useful for the player and the world, but it is not dramatic. This doesn't mean that the lore of the world is meaningless and ungameable, just that it is not going to drive the game forward on it's own. If, however, you need to speed-read an ancient scrolls to find the magic word that will stop the arcane death traps closing in on you, that carries with it inherent tension. I've been moving in the post-apocalyptic design-space for this reason - it carries with it inherent tension. How do I survive? Any character need to answ...