Here’s a question that’s occurred to me quite a lot over the past couple of weeks, since Gen Con. I offer it up without much preamble, save for this: Whether you’re hacking a tightly focused game like Apocalypse World or devising a campaign for something broader, like Dungeons & Dragons, you’re almost always moving around a game’s central axis. Maybe you’re in a tight orbit. Maybe you’re drifting away. But at some distance from that gravitational center, you presumably break free and enter either the void between games or the gravity well of some other shining touchstone. So:

When are you no longer playing the game you purport to be playing? When are you so far removed from your game of origin that you no longer tell people that it is what you are playing?

“It was on the tip of everyone’s tongue. Tyler and I just gave it a name.” —Narrator, Fight Club

First things first, you should probably get your hands on Apocalypse World.

D. Vincent Baker has created something remarkable with Apocalypse World—it’s a major conversation piece and probably a landmark in the development of RPGs. The influence of this game can already be felt throughout various design circles and it’s a conversation you maybe want to be a part of.

Vincent Baker is today’s entry at “Hell Yeah, Gamemasters.” You know about that site, right?

Actual GMing methods and styles are, so often, on the tip of everyone’s tongue. Vincent Baker set out to give them names. I applaud his motive and his decision to pursue the goal. I’m not sure I care for the names he’s chosen. He’s presented his GM principles dressed up for a desert-wasteland post-apocalyptic world, but big deal, right?

Apocalypse World was my first purchase at Gen Con 2010. I set out to get it early on the first day. I knew I needed to be conversant in this game.

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Craig Mod has written a profoundly beautiful and informative essay, “Kickstartup,” about how—and why—he used Kickstarter to republish his book Art Space Tokyo after it had fallen out of print.

If you read nothing else this week, Craig’s essay deserves your time. He has achieved and effectively communicated what’s frankly profound insight about using Kickstarter not simply to fund some project, but to jumpstart larger, grander opportunities.

With Kickstarter, people are preordering your idea. Sure, they’re buying something tangible — a CD, a movie, a book, etc — but more than that, they’re pledging money because they believe in you, the creator. If you take the time to extrapolate beyond the obvious low-hanging goals, you can use this money to push the idea — the project — somewhere farther reaching than initially envisaged.

[…]

[Y]ou’re not just raising money, you’re also building a community of supporters through the fundraising process.

Why is this relevant at Gameplaywright? Because anyone paying any remote attention to the business of RPG publishing these days knows that our markets are small but devoted. These models of publishing are already taking off in tabletop gaming (e.g., Happy Birthday, Robot!). In many ways, the tabletop gaming business is a step ahead of traditional publishing in learning and applying these forward-thinking guerilla publishing lessons because our markets were always small. For us, it has been and remains a battle of necessity.

“Kickstartup” is both wisdom for game creator-publishers and a beautiful piece of writing, web design, and product promotion. And it’s inspirational, on top of all that:

My hope is this article helps at least fifty other creators accomplish something similar. Fifty creators achieving our meager level of success means unlocking over $1,000,000 in money to flow into creative and socially important projects. All the successful projects on Kickstarter are indisputable proof that this is possible.

Do read it, and expect more on this topic in the weeks to come.

Chris Sims has a post up today at Critical-Hits.com about how RPG designers and developers often use canon badly, inventing background and backstory for their games that’s pointlessly limiting, unfun, or worse. His section on how to do canon right—”Defining Differences”—dovetails nicely with Justin Achilli’s recent worldbuilding post about defining the core of what’s weird in your world and leaving the rest of it alone.

Chris’s piece is definitely worth your attention if you’re a developer or designer, and provides an interesting bit of publisher-level perspective to GMs and players as well.

Cover by John Harper

Zombies control the city. Humanity holds on within a towering enclave. Precious supplies remain out in the abandoned city, waiting to be reclaimed. To get these supplies, you must go roof-to-roof, dodging zombies and staying clear of the lethal mist that clings to the streets. In other words, the situation is this: Parkour or die.

From Daniel Solis (Happy Birthday, Robot) and John Harper (Lady Blackbird), comes this clever hack of Apocalypse World about inventory management (using stacks of coins), rooftop acrobatics, and menacing zombies, called Dead Weight. You now know almost everything I know about it, but if you want to you can see John Harper work on this thing, practically in real time, by following along on this thread at Story Games. It includes links to a live Google Doc containing the nascent designs behind this free game. Have a look.