by Will Hindmarch | Feb 17, 2010 | Books, Design, RPGs, Story, Writing
This is the second half of a two-part interview with Fred Hicks, Ryan Macklin, and Leonard Balsera on the design and development of the Dresden Files RPG — an adaptation of the Dresden Files novels by Jim Butcher. Read part one here. Where do you find the balance...
by Will Hindmarch | Feb 15, 2010 | Books, Design, RPGs, Story, Writing
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been talking online with Fred Hicks, Ryan Macklin, and Leonard Balsera, the designers of the forthcoming Dresden Files RPG from Evil Hat games. I’ll admit two things, right off: I’m excited to see this game, and...
by Will Hindmarch | Feb 5, 2010 | Board Games, Design, MMOs, Movies, RPGs, Video Games, Websites, Writing
Here’s something I wrote about games as art, eons ago, when somebody on the Internet made me all mad. Someday I may finish it, and update its bunch of busted links, but for now I offer it up in rough form, in honor of the Art History of Games (#AHoG), happening...
by Will Hindmarch | Jan 14, 2010 | Design, RPGs
During a recent D&D game, a question came up about friction in the game mechanics between the resource-management portion of play — that is, the selection and deployment of daily powers — and the vagaries of random chance. Does it suck too much to have a daily...
by Jeff Tidball | Jan 5, 2010 | Design, Question
While sitting at a table watching Nanocon attendees playtest a nearly finished board game it occurred to me that all of the players seemed to be in an unverbalized conspiracy to not win. They weren’t deliberately trying to prolong the game, but neither had any...
by Jeff Tidball | Dec 28, 2009 | Design, Writing
Last week, I ran across a link to a recent multi-author e-book masterminded by Seth Godin, “What Matters Now.” Its format reminded me a little bit of Things We Think About Games, in that each page contains a discrete thought, unconnected from the thoughts...
