Storytelling Star Trek: Willpower
Mapping Willpower onto Star Trek, along with initial notes on starship combat and lifepaths. Read More …
Tag: EVE Online
Interview at RPGamer
I recently did an interview with RPGamer about Bleeding Edge and some other general topics. I talk a bit about personal stuff, a bit about work routine, and a bit about CCP design philosophy.
X1: The Panel of Dread
I wish I could say I dread moments like these. If you haven’t seen it, basically: We’re at a convention. Player asks a designer why an NPC’s position in a novel isn’t reflected in-game. Designer responds that he thought the character was dead. Player provides supplementary information. NPC is not dead. Designer says they’ll fix Read More …
Canon, Setting, and Transmedia
Canon, it’s been observed, is what people argue is true about stories that aren’t. Continuity, similarly, is what’s supposedly consistent in worlds that aren’t. Metaplot is what you call either one when you want to start a fight. I’m faintly offended by the idea of canon in roleplaying games. RPGs are by their nature varying Read More …
Your quest is not your story
Good morning, MMO designers. Nice day, isn’t it? Well, I hope it is where you are. I’m in Atlanta, where we have “southern charm,” a concept best summed up as “the curse the swamp-witch put on us for choosing to build here.” Or, perhaps, these summers are the ghosts of Sherman’s fires. Anyhow, it’s great Read More …
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
I’m going to raise a bunch of issues here. Fair warning, I won’t be providing the solutions by the end of the article… or all at once. But there are a number of intertwined problems in basing next-generation MMOs on current-generation MMOs, and I need to dump those all on the table before I get Read More …