Theory From the Closet

Show019: Interview with Paul Tevis

Here’s the second interview with an Ashcan Front contributer. This time we have Paul Tevis from Have Games Will Travel. We discuss his game, “A Penny For My Thoughts.” Some of the interesting things we talk about are; procedural rules, improv and how the game relates to it, and quite a few other things.

Show018: Interview with Ryan Macklin

This is the first of my interviews with the folks at the Ashcan Front booth from Gen Con. I spent a good portion of my Gen Con time trying to get all of the participants in the booth to record interviews with me. I came up short on that goal, much of the limiting factor was my present equipment’s bulkiness and need for power.

I really want to see the Ashcan Front be successful. There are a lot of really great ideas happening in the creator controlled space of RPG designers. I think the Ashcan Front is a great thing if we want to keep seeing the revolution that’s been going on in roleplaying design for the past years. Anyway….

I interviewed Ryan Macklin, my enemy, who produces the podcast Master Plan which is about game design. We discussed his game, Know Thyself. We also touched on what is good game design, and the difference between, “I will not abandon you,” and “nobody gets hurt.” There were also quite a few other tangents which I may come back and detail later.

Show017: Game Design for Game Designers with James Brown

Here is the first of my Gen Con interviews. I had scheduled to record with James Brown, designer of Death’s Door, Brick Battles, and Blood and Bronze, on Wednesday night. We couldn’t find anywhere to record, so we did a commando recording in the lobby of my hotel. It gave me a chance to use my new omnidirectional microphones and doesn’t sound as bad as I imagined.

James and I discussed Game design, starting with some questions you should be able to answer:

1. What is your game about?
2. How is your game about that?
3. What behaviors does it encourage or reward to achieve that?
4. What do the players do?
5. What do the characters do?
6. What is fun to you and why do you want to play this game?
7. Who do you want to play the game?

We then talk about the elevator pitch, and that you need to consider how art, text, and everything else you do expresses the games mission. Then we discuss various elements of Game Design.

• The reward system: Is a feedback loop that can have positive or negative reinforcement. It’s a way to get players to engage a mechanic or behavior that you want to encourage.
  • A positive example; fan Mail in Prime time Adventures.
  • A negative example; the loser keeping the token in Death’s Door.
• The social dynamic
• Currency: What the game rules give the players and GM to interact with the fiction.
  • In a lot of storygames this will be dice.
  • Can also be statistics on the character sheet. For instance Strength in D+D defines how the character can interact with the environment like doors, weapons, armor, etc.
• Fortune, Drama, and Karma.
  • Fortune is using some element of chance in the resolution.
  • Karma compares things and then the result is generated.
  • Drama
• Escalation
• Player interaction
  • I’ll be there for you.
  • Nobody gets Hurt.

This isn’t quite finished yet, but I need to take a nap and go to work.

Gen Con was tiring. I did around 12 or 13 recordings. Those interviews are going to be coming fast, faster than the normal once a week, be prepared. I’m working on getting some on the computer right now. I want to get back to boring you with my monotone theory discussions as soon as possible. Otherwise I’ll never get to it as I am likely to have more interviews coming up in September for Geek.kon here in Madison, perhaps OshCon, RockCon, and Dreamation.

Hungry Hungry Hippos equals a bloat.

Show016: Interview with Mike and Kat Miller

So this one everything was working fine with the microphones, but I accidentally recorded over the first two minutes. Fortunately it appears I got everything important. I spoke with Mike Miller creator of With Great Power, and Kat Miller who is working on a investigative crime drama RPG called Serial.

We discussed both with Great Power, and Serial. Then we talked about Indie Games Explosion, something they organize for Dreamation, Origins, Gen Con, and other cons, plus we discussed Games on Demand something they organize for Gen Con. We talked about their motivation for taking on this organization, and tips for folks who might want to try the same thing.

I think this went really well, I can hardly notice that I didn’t have my usual outline.

Show015: Editing for Game Designers with Thor Olavsrud

This time we have Thor Olavsrud, editor of Burning Wheel, Burning Empires, etc, talking to me about editing from the perspective of RPG’s. There’s quite a bit of static in the recording. Thor unfortunately was on the bad microphone, so his stuff had to be really boosted. More coming I swear… I’ve been busy.

Show014: Google for Game Designers with Alexander Newman

How many times can I get Alexander to say, “It’s a great pleasure to be here Clyde?” Never enough. Notes to come…. No. Really.