Uprising

It really was the best three days of gaming in 2010. I know that sounds like a big call, but it's true. If I consider the quality of the gaming, the social aspects of the three days, and the depth of content from seminars and workshops, it tops the charts across the board. And if I throw in the amount of fun we all had? The charts just won't be good enough to handle the score.

I ran games of Siege and Don't Rest Your Head, and even managed to play in a game of Smallville, run by Steve D. With Nathan Russell, I finished the first Stockade project and launched new games into the wild. With the assembled game designer crowd, we started four more game design projects in the Game Design Roundtable. And I was even witness to the first ever Iron Chef Board Game Challenge, in which four board games were designed from nothing in just two hours - with the privilege of being one of the judges alongside guys from Monty Haul.

And best of all, I met new gamers and we made stories together.

Yep. It really was the best three days of gaming in 2010.

From the Ashes of GenConOz 2010

Australian gamers were dealt a terrible blow a fortnight ago when Ian Houlihan regretfully announced the cancellation of GenConOz 2010. This was widely regarded as a Very Sad Thing.

Several smaller groups started working on their own activities to fill the void, and after a week started talking to each other about working together. And that's how it is that from September 24-26 in Brisbane Australia there will be Uprising. If we can't have the Best Four Days of Australian Gaming, we'll cut it down to three instead.

Alongside Warmachine, L5R and Magic there will be seminars on GMing, seminars on game design and workshops on game design, featuring some of Australia's finest freelancers and indie game designers.

Watch for updates at The Stockade.

Planning for Gen Con Oz 2010

I have officially started to plan my events for Gen Con Oz 2010. Stay tuned for more info, but in the meantime...

indie games on demand

game design workshops

...and the big new one for the year: Launching games from the Stockade project.

Winner!

Rules Sequence

I was writing the rules for Siege and it occurred to me that I had no idea how to order my table of contents, my text structure. I've seen roleplaying texts take various forms in the solution to this problem. Clearly this is something that requires a bit of thought and planning.

For now, the approach I'm taking is to sequence it according to what a player needs to know in order to play the game. Whether this will eventually be the structure for the final text remains to be seen. I can see some good reasons to keep it that way, however.

Writing a draft of the rules

I'm part of the way writing the rough and ready version of the Siege rules. It's an interesting exercise to do this, converting the concept into sentences. So far, I've learnt that it takes some considerable skill and text to be able to adequately explain a rule. What seems easy to understand in my mind needs to be easy to read and understand for someone else.

The other thing I've learnt is that by writing it down I can start to see what's missing. The image in my mind of how the game will play needs to translate to text. I actually have a mental picture of people sitting at a table, writing on paper, flipping over cards, rolling dice. It's wonderful guidance. I'll be able to explore that mental image (footage?) to find the game tools that are missing from the text.

This game is part of The Stockade project.

Out of control

One element that I want to bring into the experience of Siege is a sense of being out of control. The Police player must feel as though his character doesn't control the whole situation. If the Police did, there would be no danger to the Hostage. Likewise, the Hostage player must feel out of control because the Hostage is in peril. And the Hostage-taker (still working on a better name - suggestions are welcome) isn't in control, otherwise they'd have what they were demanding.

To facilitate this, many of the narrative declarations about characters will be contributed by the other players. In doing this, the player will experience the unfolding of secrets and facts, as well as the uncertainty of being out of control.

This game is part of The Stockade project.

Initial comments about Siege

Siege is a game that will capture the feel of a siege-based movie. It will play through in a single session of two to three hours, with no preparation beforehand. Just like a movie, facts about the characters will be revealed in play, making the players just as much audience as they are story-makers.

Characters in this game will take the roles of Police, Hostage or Hostage-taker. With more than three players, some of these roles will have more than one character.

Throughout the game, as facts are revealed about characters and situations, characters will gain advantages over other characters. These advantages could relate to the situation, such as "The doors are wired with explosives" or relate to characters, such as "I know that you've embezzeled from the pension fund." It will be up to the players to create these advantages and then to react to the advantages that others have over them.

The whole game will be forced into an end-game situation when any of the characters have nothing left in Resolve or Patience.

That's it for now. I have several mechanisms in mind to facilitate all these, and I hope to have a quick set of rules available soon to start playtesting with some amiable people.

This game is part of The Stockade project.

Siege is my new project

So at Gencon I joined in the mad project of The Stockade and have in mind to take a game from idea to playable publication for Gencon 2010. I'll be posting about its progress here, rather than at a separate blog, but all the relevant posts will be tagged as Siege.

What's it about? You'll just have to keep this feed in your RSS reader to find out.