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  1. Gorgon Zee

    All Characters Should be Good at Talking to NPCs

    Having done a fair amount of both fighting and social interact, this assertion also interested me. And it’s not clear what the answer is. One problem is that while we learn early and often how to interact socially, we learn to fight much later, typically, and in a much less pervasive way. It’s...
  2. Gorgon Zee

    All Characters Should be Good at Talking to NPCs

    For modern systems, I'd argue that most modern systems handle this intrinsically. If you play a few of them (FATE and DramaSystem / Hillfolk would be a great start), you'll see it in action. For older systems, there are two main ways of making it happen. The "Aid Another" aka "Create an...
  3. Gorgon Zee

    All Characters Should be Good at Talking to NPCs

    My overall concern is that everyone should have a chance in the spotlight, and should be able to contribute to a scene. But in my experience, that doesn't mean that everyone has to be able to competently talk to NPCs. As an example. I have a high level Pathfinder Investigator who is phenomenal...
  4. Gorgon Zee

    What Can We Learn from Computer RPGS?

    I just started a very crunchy Fate game (Mindjammer) where characters have 7 aspects, culture, genotype, 3 stunts, 5 fate points, skill pyramid, and buy a host of equipment with a point buy system. It was a lot, so I did exactly as you suggest! I asked people to describe their core concept as...
  5. Gorgon Zee

    What Can We Learn from Computer RPGS?

    This is a bit irrelevant too the argument. The OP is asking "what can we learn from CRPGs?" If CRPGs popularize something that was already invented, that is definitely something we can learn from. So regardless of whether CRPGs invented sandbox play, the fact that they made it popular is...
  6. Gorgon Zee

    Agon 2nd edition

    Here’s a note from a custom Island I designed — this may answer both the above questions: ———— Forest The forest has many raiders, but poorly organized and they do not attempt to attack you. However it is also inhabited by Harpies. You find the discarded clothing of two young persons and bare...
  7. Gorgon Zee

    Agon 2nd edition

    When I roll for the opposition, I set the d20 to that number so the players can see what they need to achieve. it’s not rolled — just used to mark a number. It was actually a little small and numbered cards would have been better, but I don‘t have any. (typo by me in the above — I meant...
  8. Gorgon Zee

    Agon 2nd edition

    Yes. I composited backgrounds from the AGON site and overlaid the central design from the book for conflicts, then added the player sections in each corner. Here's the (100MB+) photoshop file: http://willsfamily.org/files/rpg/misc/28x24_Graham_Wills.psd I am happy for other people to use it as...
  9. Gorgon Zee

    Agon 2nd edition

    Yes, I ran a 7 session campaign of it. Some short notes: It is a ton of fun and captures the epic feel of Greek legends well. Players will be declaring their actions in formal style: "I, Minros the Big-Hearted, accept the challenge of the Sphinx and will call on my friend Cyrene the...
  10. Gorgon Zee

    Evil protagonists from fiction - or 'Examples of how to play the bad guy without being a total jerk'

    LIGHT YAGAMI, from Death Note. Never have I rooted so strongly for someone who has made killing people his raison d'être. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_Yagami
  11. Gorgon Zee

    Real Religion in Adventure Design

    This has been a good discussion; I appreciate the genuine desire to do the right thing in it. Let me tell you a little about my experience. I am a Christian from a mainstream denomination; I’ve always been a Christian and I’ve been a role player for 30+ years, of which the last 20 I have been...
  12. Gorgon Zee

    Players establishing facts about the world impromptu during play

    The entire roleplaying experience is about jointly creating a reality. Even if players ask "is there an inn in town?" they are expressing a desire for there to be an inn in existence. There's a continuum of creation from "My character always carries spare food in their pocket" to "the forest by...
  13. Gorgon Zee

    The Six Cultures of Gaming

    if someone asks you to put a seatbelt on, do you wonder exactly how fast they are going to drive, and then worry about trusting the other passengers not to use it to leave you trapped in the car? I wonder if it’s just the novelty of the X-card that surprises you; I believe that when seatbelts...
  14. Gorgon Zee

    The Six Cultures of Gaming

    I want to highlight this point. It’s almost a truism that a fundamental of a good game is that you trust the GM, and the GM is trustworthy, but so many threads are based on problems that boil down to lack of trust that it seems we need to keep saying it. Trust is also something that needs...
  15. Gorgon Zee

    D&D General Introducing political intrigue in D&D is NOT hard

    Indeed. My group plays a large mix of systems, with Fantasy d20 games maybe ¼ of them, and political shenanigans is way down the list of things they find fun. There's a fair amount of it in the Mindjammer (FATE) game I've just started and I think I'm going to have to cut back. When the players...
  16. Gorgon Zee

    The JRR Tolkien Pronunciation Poll

    um, well, that's a long topic. But in English, most oft them are borrowed or assembled from outer languages. An example is "tele-vision" which is made up run the sense of being coined, but it's not made up from nothing; there are rules that dictate how good words are assembled. For me, one...
  17. Gorgon Zee

    D&D General Introducing political intrigue in D&D is NOT hard

    Hmmm. I've generally heard the opposite. Even in Living campaigns there has always been a sizable group who didn't care about whether group A, or group B was running city C. They had the following attitude:
  18. Gorgon Zee

    Which non-Star Wars or non-Star Trek Sci-Fi RPG do you currently play?

    Currently running a hard sci-fi campaign using Sarah Newton's excellent Mindjammer sourcebook for Fate sci-fi play. Very different feel from the Bulldogs Fate-based sci-fi game I was in a few years ago, and from the Savage Worlds Flash Gordon game I ran a 24 session campaign over Discord.
  19. Gorgon Zee

    The Six Cultures of Gaming

    Thought experiment time: A: If you were to observe a randomly-chosen set of players during a roleplaying game session, how likely do you think you would be to correctly assign that session to one of the categories in the article? B: If you were to observe a randomly-chosen set of players...
  20. Gorgon Zee

    The Six Cultures of Gaming

    Skipping your continued insinuations that I’m not paying attention; since the blog specifically mentions other written materials and organized play, it’s a bit silly to say “if you just look at the books” Really, you think saying you are strong supporters makes you look like crackpots? That...
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