by Jeff Tidball | Jan 9, 2008 | Board Games, card games, Musing, Story
This post about first acts continues a discussion of dramatic structure in games. The introductory post in this series is called I, II, III. In my last post, I targeted my discussion of division into acts pretty specifically to the orbit of acts around a dramatic...
by Jeff Tidball | Jan 4, 2008 | Story, Writing
A story can divided into three acts that work in more or less the same way from story to story to story. This is not a controversial point of view. And honestly, it had not occurred to me that the idea of dividing story-games likewise into three acts would be...
by Jeff Tidball | Jan 3, 2008 | RPGs, Story
Today on his LiveJournal, Robin Laws brings his superior perception to bear in pointing out a unique improvement that the tabletop RPG brings to the typically tiresome, and rarely dramatic, mystery-story denouement. Do check it out.
by Jeff Tidball | Dec 28, 2007 | Board Games, Fantasy, Movies
One of my recent projects at Fantasy Flight was adapting Kingdoms into Beowulf: The Movie Board Game. The FFG webmeisters have recently posted my design notes on BTMBG, which touch on the difficulty of adapting a story to a board game, especially one with...
by Jeff Tidball | Dec 27, 2007 | Board Games, Horror, Story
You’ve heard of Last Night on Earth. ICv2 tells us that it’s the #3 board, card, or family game, if an unqualified statement like that can have any meaning at all. Actual play, Last Night on Earth style. A ring of zombies closes in and takes down the last...
