Dreamation 2012 in Morristown NJ was an astounding convention for a host of reasons.  I drove down from Ottawa with break in Syracuse to meet an old friend of mine in the flesh for the first time. It was a remarkably pleasant time to drive down through upstate New York, but I was most grateful […]

Just a quick update to say that I will be at Dreamation 2012, running a crazy number of playtests of Spark. By crazy, I mean 5 games which could potentially include 28 different players over the course of the weekend.  I have managed to organize things as well as I can and with luck, I […]

I will be on a panel at Gencon on Thursday morning, providing an introduction to independent RPG’s.  I hope to see you there.   Introduction to Independent RPG’s A panel of independent game designers are here to help! Hear about the major schools of rpg design. Learn some GM techniques from indie designers. Discover new […]

Good software is nearly essential for producing a good roleplaying game book.  Over the years I have made a series of choices between different software packages and I thought I might explain my reasoning. Perhaps this may be useful to some of you. Brainstorming:  I am currently undecided between using the technical solution (Freemind) or […]

Storytelling demands creativity.  It’s challenging to design a game system that consistently encourages inspiration.  Fortunately, some great minds have found approaches to solve this problem.  Let’s focus on the first of these approaches today; Creative Constraints. Some games are limited in scope and these constraints can help.  In Vincent Baker’s game “Poisn’d”, players portray rapacious […]

Universal Principles of Design, published by Rockport, has taught me dozens of excellent techniques.  One technique is referred to as “Personas”, where you try to create diverse profiles of potential users so that you can consider each of their needs & preferences.  I suspect that using a technique like that might help improve our presentation […]