by Jeff Tidball | Sep 17, 2009 | MMOs, Story
In the comments on my post “The Point of Levels and Experience,” Helmsman ended his insightful comment with this: “So I guess my question is, what is it you’re really after in an MMO?” First, a disclaimer: As a distinct type of game,...
by Jeff Tidball | Sep 15, 2009 | MMOs, Video Games
A friend of mine sent me a link to an article at Kotaku about forthcoming MMO The Secret World. According to the article: [The Secret World] is a game that takes place in the real world of today, only everything is true. Aliens and demons exist. The world is hollow....
by Jeff Tidball | Sep 8, 2009 | Books, Dice
Even before we began writing Things We Think About Games, Will had started noodling around with some sections of a book that he was calling “Dice Magic,” about the rituals and relationships we—gamers —have with our dice. That book, now called The Bones,...
by Jeff Tidball | Sep 2, 2009 | Dice, Musing, RPGs, Story
Last Sunday night, I was the guest on Geekerati Radio. We talked about games and narrative, topics lodged firmly within the Gameplaywright wheelhouse if not also sown broadly about its idea farm. You can listen to the roughly hour-long discussion at blogtalkradio.com....
by Jeff Tidball | Aug 19, 2009 | Conventions, Fan Culture, Musing
Much of fan culture comes with a casual sense of superiority. Those of us who aren’t furries have at least some group of geeks to look down on, as Lore Sjöberg’s classic Geek Hierarchy illustrates. While working the Adventure Retail booth at Comic-Con, it...
