tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-167297472024-02-19T02:48:42.436-05:00Consensus GamesBill White's roleplaying game design blog, with emphasis on narrativist or story-heavy games.Bill Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824625064113090248noreply@blogger.comBlogger38125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16729747.post-26438034272444195332011-01-06T12:08:00.001-05:002011-01-06T12:09:23.066-05:00The New World: Breakpoints WantedI'm working on a game of fantastical alternate history that I'm calling The New World. It is essentially Guns, Germs, and Steel meets The Years of Rice and Salt: The Role-Playing Game, with a dash of Roger Zelazny's Game of Blood and DustThe meta-game involves the accumulation of four types of civilizational currency (Warfare [i.e., offensive technology--think guns], Life [i.e., population and Bill Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824625064113090248noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16729747.post-22203519114598014552010-05-26T09:49:00.004-05:002010-05-26T10:17:32.414-05:00Caillois and Creative AgendaIn the rather fraught Internet-mediated discussion of role-playing, few things are more controversial than the Forge-derived typology of the creative agendas of play--the collective orientation of players to the game, in other words--called GNS for its categories of Gamism (or "Step on Up"), Narrativism ("Story Now"), and Simulationism ("Right to Dream"). In a recent discussion, I wondered if Bill Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824625064113090248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16729747.post-24947065989497524222010-05-19T18:40:00.006-05:002010-05-20T06:25:24.347-05:00Castle BravoThe adventure I pitched to Simon Rogers of Pelgrane Press after Gencon last year is finally available as a PDF! I'm very pleased with how it turned out, and I hope people run it and tell me how it went, for good or ill.Here's the premise: It's 1954, and you're a sailor or scientist aboard the USS Bairoko, an "escort carrier" detailed to support secret nuclear bomb tests in the Marshall Islands. Bill Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824625064113090248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16729747.post-82398353645690483412010-03-07T21:26:00.009-05:002010-03-09T11:23:56.301-05:00Civilization and the New WorldSimon Rogers, the impresario behind Pelgrane Press, has challenged me to write a colonization game. The basic framework of the challenge is this: It's a role-playing game, not a god game. You play a character. The fate of the colony is intertwined with your actions as a character in that colony. So I've been doing my homework. I'm not done yet, but it's been instructive. I'veBill Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824625064113090248noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16729747.post-3800808461184995242010-02-21T20:40:00.011-05:002010-02-21T21:07:11.952-05:00Any Publicity Is Good PublicityI was interested to receive this e-mail message today, reproduced below:Hi Bill,You may already know this, but there's a review of Ganakagok in last month's Knights of the Dinner Table (the gaming magazine/comic). The review is a good one, although the reviewer doesn't seem to have played the game. But tons of people read that comic, so good for you.However ... the game is credited to John HarperBill Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824625064113090248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16729747.post-56166275355342633752009-11-12T11:10:00.006-05:002009-11-12T11:46:39.758-05:00Ganakagok and Cultural AppropriationReiterating a point that Jonathan made recently, Chris Chinn posted this severely critical comment about Ganakagok on his blog, Deeper in the Game:Ganakagok is, “a quasi-Inuit Silmarillion as seen from the inside looking out”. A bunch of folks had recommended it as a great game. It uses a sort of tarot-system to set up the situation, the characters, and play out the game. I picked up a copy Bill Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824625064113090248noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16729747.post-61951283514163887912009-10-26T12:46:00.003-05:002009-10-26T13:14:16.033-05:00Two Games, One NameMy friend Nathan Paoletta is running a design contest called "Two Games, One Name," where pairs of designers are given the same title for a game and a set of contrasting constraints (e.g., "design a game for solo play" vs. "design a game to be played via text message") and asked to create games.My assignment was The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, which fit nicely into something I'd been thinking Bill Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824625064113090248noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16729747.post-51912875554581358752009-10-13T09:27:00.002-05:002009-10-13T09:31:37.702-05:00Designing Ganakagok Essay at Flames RisingWhen I was at GenCon this summer, the impresario behind the Flames Rising webzine invited me to write an essay about designing Ganakagok. So I did. Let me know what you think of it, if you get a chance.Bill Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824625064113090248noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16729747.post-82851326829439653232009-10-02T15:26:00.002-05:002009-10-02T15:36:19.788-05:00The New WorldAt Gencon, I played Ganakagok with Simon Rogers, the impresario behind Pelgrane Press. Later, I had a conversation with him, and he told me that there was a game he wanted to play that, based on his experience with Ganakagok, he thought I could write. The game in his head is a colonization game, essentially Guns, Germs, & Steel, the RPG. What follows is what I pitched to him; we'll see Bill Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824625064113090248noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16729747.post-83802370603814376092009-08-06T07:43:00.002-05:002009-08-06T07:46:37.771-05:00This Just In from Gencon 2009I met Ryan Macklin at Camp Nerdly in May 2009 and he's a good guy, a great player, and a clever game designer. This e-mail from him came off the rpgpodcasters mailing list:A Last Minute Request for This Just In From GenConPosted by: "Ryan Macklin"Wed Aug 5, 2009 1:47 pm (PDT)Gang,So, GenCon is a week away! I'm pretty excited, and as many of youknow, I'm doing the almost-live podcast news show Bill Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824625064113090248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16729747.post-16931841377128889532009-06-03T06:13:00.003-05:002009-06-03T08:04:26.455-05:00Fixing Trail of CthulhuOn my brother Mel's podcast Virtual Play, I ask "Is Trail of Cthulhu broken, or is it just me?" To my chagrin, that prompted a somewhat defensive reaction from TOC's advocates on Story-Games. I actually really like the game, and the title was merely intended (a) as an allusion to critiques of Trail of Cthulhu I've seen elsewhere, and (b) to wink at the fact that I made some mistakes in running Bill Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824625064113090248noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16729747.post-693538112171053592009-06-02T16:28:00.000-05:002009-06-02T16:29:38.641-05:00Whither Rune Saga? Post-Nerdly ProspectsI didn't run any Rune Saga at Camp Nerdly 3 this weekend (the run-down on what I did run ishere), but the game wasn't far from my mind, as I considered Bruce's comments in a previous thread: should I use the game to experiment with "jeepforged" structured freeform-type techniques, or develop it as a tabletop story-game. I had thought the former, but Bruce's comments gave me pause.Bruce says:Bill Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824625064113090248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16729747.post-65841210744236364552009-06-01T16:53:00.006-05:002009-06-01T18:28:27.678-05:00The Perilous Realm: An apocalyptic fantasy in three actsHere's a game I ran last year at Dexcon; it proved a little unwieldy but has some neat ideas in it.Act One: By What Strange Alchemy Are We Governed?TO GET READY FOR THE GAME, the Game Master (GM) should prepare a “map” of Prester John’s kingdom consisting of an eight-by-eight grid of Tarot cards. The cards should be thought of as occupying eastings and northings, so that the southeast corner is (Bill Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824625064113090248noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16729747.post-57464117597182639542009-06-01T16:32:00.003-05:002009-06-01T19:05:38.810-05:00The Great CityThis is my design from last year's Game Chef. At Dave Berg's prompting, we tried it out at Dreamation last year; it broke, but could be fixed:The Great City Walks The Great City walks above the world, rising from the back of a mountain-sized spider-creature, epitome of the art of the entomosynitheist.1 Its aristocratic youth revel in stately pavanes and sprightly galliards while around them Bill Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824625064113090248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16729747.post-69601910845902309112009-05-25T20:17:00.006-05:002009-05-25T20:59:13.827-05:00Rune Saga as Structured Freeform"Rune Saga" was the game I was working on when I discovered The Forge, and I drew from it in order to create the tarot-like Ganakagok deck. In the comments to a previous post, Bruce mentioned that he'd like to see some further work on the game, and I'm inclined to agree. A lot of work went into creating the Rune Saga deck -- I'll call it semiotic heavy lifting, if you know what I mean.In the Bill Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824625064113090248noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16729747.post-13831155263435808172009-05-22T10:15:00.004-05:002009-05-25T08:07:32.059-05:00Revisiting Rune SagaOver the next few weeks, I'm going to be revisiting Rune Saga, my unfinished game whose oracular cards were in my opinion ahead of their time. My goal is to be ready to playtest at Dexcon. Held in July, this gaming convention is a particularly friendly venue for playtesting.To get things started, I've created a functional Rune Saga deck, available here as four separate PDF pages plus a separate Bill Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824625064113090248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16729747.post-17771355064583024592009-05-14T08:49:00.003-05:002009-05-25T20:59:13.827-05:00The Ganakagok Home PageThere is now a Ganakagok home page! I will use it to post updates on the game as it moves closer to (re)publication, as well as play aids and other things. There's a set of "jeepforged" rules there, so that you can play Ganakagok in the swinging Scandinavian style if you like. I intend to try those rules out at Camp Nerdly at the end of May; I'll let you know how it goes. There is some interest Bill Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824625064113090248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16729747.post-45548471549910406602009-04-28T13:43:00.002-05:002009-05-25T08:04:12.815-05:00Pick-Up D&D Play AidsHere are some tables and other information you’ll need in order to run 4th age D&D. Monster XP Totals, levels 1 through 7 Level Standard (Minion) Elite Solo 1st 100 (25) 200 500 2nd 125 (31) 250 625 3rd 150 (38) 300 750 4th 175 (Bill Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824625064113090248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16729747.post-60795269361346145502009-04-27T10:40:00.006-05:002009-05-25T08:04:12.815-05:00Fourth Age: Story-Gaming D&DThe heart of this idea is formalizing the “quest” (as discussed in the DMG), which links encounters to the game-world via the medium of the characters. It makes each encounter meaningful in the larger scheme of things, and gives players a lot of power to help author the game-world. It turns D&D into rather more of a pick-up game while at the same time attempting to preserve the coherence of Bill Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824625064113090248noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16729747.post-60916453826867349342009-04-09T15:28:00.008-05:002009-05-25T08:05:33.748-05:00Little Game Chef 2009: Midnight at Burning HorseHere is my game for Little Game Chef 2009, called Midnight at Burning Horse. The PCs are first- and second-generation Japanese immigrants in the Yakima Valley in Washington State during WW II.Midnight at Burning Horse Being Japanese in the Yakima Valley, 1942 Summary. This is a role-playing game for 3 to 5 players, one of whom is the Game Master (GM). The other players are first- and Bill Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824625064113090248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16729747.post-1154166914607126472006-07-29T04:47:00.000-05:002009-05-25T08:03:36.608-05:00Technolust (by Dave Petroski and Bill White)It’s a dark future where the boundaries between human and machine have blurred…or fused. Today, cyborgs are real…and they’re everyone. But no one started questioning what happens when your body becomes more machine than flesh. Until now. We call it technolust: The more you “mod,” the more you want to mod. And the more you mod, the more the mod is you.And technolust can drive cyberdaddies and Bill Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824625064113090248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16729747.post-1153274521689836202006-07-18T21:00:00.000-05:002009-05-25T08:03:36.608-05:00Ganakagok at Dexcon: Legacy of the Ancient OnesIn a fit of what may best be described as hubris, I ran Ganakagok at Dexcon for a group of 7 people. The game rocked, but it was completely and totally draining for me as the GM; it takes a lot of energy to run it, and I was lucky that the players were just so damn good. As one of the players says on his livejournal, by the end we had created “an authentic folkloric fantasy tale about eskimos Bill Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824625064113090248noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16729747.post-1152040978413694892006-07-04T13:49:00.002-05:002009-05-25T08:05:19.369-05:00Fundamentals of Story LogicI'm beginning a new scholarly project that involves reading Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson for its philosophy of science. My initial investigations have got me reading A.J. Greimas, the French semiotician who is mentioned by one of the characters in the novel. It's dense, dense stuff, but one of the things that Greimas does is reconstruct Vladimir Propp's morphology of the folktale in order Bill Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824625064113090248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16729747.post-1150425227722621172006-06-15T19:30:00.000-05:002009-05-25T08:03:36.609-05:00Gumshoe: Watching the DetectivesStep One. The Case.Get four to six people who want to play around a table.Take a piece of paper that's been ruled into three columns and as many rows as there are players. The first column is "Name"; the second, "Case"; the third, "Votes."Pass the piece of paper around the table. If there's a question about what order to go in, go in the order of whoever's birthday comes next.Next to your nameBill Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824625064113090248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16729747.post-1148310788939183842006-05-22T08:47:00.000-05:002009-05-25T08:03:36.609-05:00Gumshoe: A Game NoirGumshoe is going to let players create a story that's like the film noir of the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, or like the stories of Dashiell Hammett or James Ellroy. You've got hardbitten detectives walking down mean streets, where everybody wants something and everybody's got something to hide.Right now, I see the game taking the following form:(1) The players get together and specify a locale and a Bill Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12824625064113090248noreply@blogger.com0