Hackers, Gamers, Awesome People

[tcpip]

First post of the year; a rather slow start, but I've been somewhat snowed under. I'm undertaking a massive review of the website and internal wiki at work, plus I have two major assignments due early next week for my MBA (marketing and information systems, god help me). In between all this I'm hanging out with the OpenBSD people as they engage in one of their famous hackathons. After that we're off to Wellington for Linux Conf 2010.

Another time killer has been getting the last issue of RPG Review for 2009 out. There are various reasons (including a dodgy provider of a laptop a/c adapter) but it's been released: RPG Review Issue 6 is a bit of a Glorantha special which includes, among other things, an interview with Greg Stafford. Also there's a pretty hefty retrospective review of Torg: Roleplaying The Possibility Wars.

Went to two small New Year's Eve gatherings on the night; one hosted by BarbaraK and the other by Paula. Both gatherings had fine conversation and it was a genuine pleasure to attend. Also, roadriverrail is an awesome person.

Comments

[mr-figgy.livejournal.com]

All hail the hairy hosts of Torg!

[mr-orgue.livejournal.com]

When we played it, instead of a "theme song", one of us would shout out "TORG!" in a gutteral, dramatic voice. And then we'd begin.

TORG!

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Rather like how we started sessions of "Kill Puppies for Satan".

"My name is xyz and I KILL PUPPIES FOR SATAN!"

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I must confeess, Kobolds Ate My Baby is something I have to get around to playing a few times. Or, as is my want, some combination of King Torg and the Gaunt Man.

And maybe Torg from Sluggy Freelance.

[shorxrore.livejournal.com]

yo - happy new year! i wish i knew how to hack....sighs

i wanted to ask you....i'm undertaking the role of "DM" for a play by email rpg...i'm inspired by the on i played with you however many years ago that was.

you got any reading materials that would help me start this up?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Happy new year to you my friend..

I don't have any reading material myself, which probably means that I should write an article on it :)

But in a nutshell, there are two ways that such a game can run. The first is a free-flowing narrative, which is easier for the GM imo, but doesn't have all the crunch.

The second is running it as a normal rpg with round-by-round actions. This usually requires greater input form the players.

In both cases the danger is becoming reliant on one player's actions as they can, for whatever reason, be held up and that stops the entire game.

[shorxrore.livejournal.com]

yea i'm gonna do the free form narrative for now as i barely have time as is (between video games and magic the gathering and....ya know, real life!)

i think i'm just gonna take a bit more control in the story telling so that if a player does something that could hold things up i'll just expand the story to include an immediate response to it...instead of going back and forth with possibilties. i figure that might work better?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

That can work, but make sure that your players know beforehand that that's the sort of ebb-and-flow that you're going to engage in; that if the player doesn't act the story will move ahead and the character will be treated like an NPC when a response isn't forthcoming.

Although it is pretty absolute I would also suggest adding a deadline for responses after posts.

[shorxrore.livejournal.com]

cool - thanks! i'll tell ya how it goes :)