As a kind of author’s note, I’m cross-posting this piece I wrote on RPGnet this morning, in response to the question of resemblance between the World of Darkness (of Vampire and Changeling) and the real world. Read on after the jump.

// Click to read this one

Word has it that these are the final nominees for the 2008 Origins Awards. The annual question: How much do you care? What does an Origins Award mean for you or for the product? And, for me, the real burning question: Did White Wolf even submit anything to the awards this year?

// Click to see the nominees

I’ve hit a wall. Though I’ve been paying for it, I haven’t played Lord of the Rings Online in weeks. I’ve been busy, but I’d been busy before. So why haven’t I been playing? It is a unique, MMOG-centric experience to hit a point where the game, all at once, no longer holds its appeal… and yet you keep paying for the privilege of playing again one day.

Call it the Wall. But where does it come from?

// Click to read this article

This piece is republished from an article I wrote for Games Quarterly Magazine.

The way roleplaying campaigns work is well enshrined: A group of people play a series of games to tell a continuing story. One gamemaster creates the story and runs the game, and the same (more or less) cast of players play the same characters in session after session. Notwithstanding a few exceptions like Ars Magica — where the gamemastering duties can rotate and the players share some characters in a common pool — there’s been little innovation in the basic campaign format over the years.

This article proposes a new campaign format. Called the mobius campaign, it’s theoretically endless and puts a half-twist on the traditional RPG campaign setup.

// Read more…

Click any image in this article for a larger version.LOTRO is rated “T for Teen” on account of tobacco and alcohol use (also violence), but the purpose of having your character drink alcohol or smoke tobacco is questionable; they have no meaningful affect on the game. Their effects are purely cosmetic. Drinking affects your display of the game world, while smoking merely creates amusing smoke rings and shapes—yet both of these effects cost money that you earn through actual play.

These cosmetic amusements—optional, voluntary, and mostly harmless—aren’t really elements of the game. They’re elements of the game world, pastimes within the game. Toys.

Well. Most of the time.

// Click to see Hobbit drinking games