Over the years, I've presented here a number of series of posts about how I think rpgs work. Some of them were fruitful, some less so, but here are a few of my favorites. Dice & Clouds (2009) Prologue: 1-18-05 : How RPG Rules Work 2009-04-07 : 3 Resolution Systems 2009-04-09 : cloud-to-cloud 2009-04-09 : Scale, Depth, Clouds, Dice 2009-04-10...

Over the years I've published a few complete or complete-ish games here on anyway. Some of these are pretty fun! Matchmaker (2001) Otherkind Dice (2003) Toward One (2003) The Nighttime Animals Save the World (2004) Rock of Tahamaat, Space Tyrant (2008) Spin the Beetle (2014) Midsummer Wood (2014) The Vengeful Demon of the Ring...

One is a Twitter thread: Basic moves in Apocalypse World! A quick & dirty thread for PbtA designers! #PbtAdesign The other is An open letter re: Powered by the Apocalypse: Dear friends, fellow designers, critics, and concerned citizens, It was a going topic, not to say a sore point, at Gen Con, so please allow Meg and me to define once...

In Rise of the Videogame Zinesters, my unrivaled favorite book of game thinkery, Anna Anthropy puts forward this thesis*: Just as we draw pictures to examine, explore, understand, or explain things, and just as we write poems to examine, explore, understand, or explain feelings, so we create games to examine, explore, understand, or explain dynamic...

Over at his Patreon, Ron Edwards has just released the very first playtest/notes document for Vigil [patrons only], a superhero game he's working on. I got to try it out at GenCon, and holy mac am I excited for it. In full, sober honesty, I've never once actually cared about a superhero before now. Here's the deal: we sit down and we choose something...

Here's another quick transplant from Twitter. Meg and I went to Hiftory Camp and... Friends, I learned such timely and relevant things today about Shays' Rebellion! Here's the shortest possible summary. 1) Revolutionary soldiers were paid in "continentals," paper currency issued for the purpose. 2) Continentals devalued rapidly and almost completely,...