Month: August 2015

Today’s topic is Favorite Revolutionary Game Mechanic.

This is one where I will not be writing an entry.

Not because I don’t have one (I have several, from the Chase mechanics in JAMES BOND 007, to the flip-flopping percentile dice rolls in UNKNOWN ARMIES, to the diceless system of AMBER, and more), but because I was honored to be Dave Chapman’s special guest in today’s video entry, so you can just watch the video and get my response…

Today’s topic is Favorite House Rule. Another difficult one for me to answer, since most of the stuff that I house-rule, I end up publishing as rules.

That said, I do have a house rule that I use, whenever I run a superhero game. No matter what the system, I always make it a feature of my campaigns:

I always put in “Easter Eggs” in my campaigns — little inside-joke references to comics history (either the fictional history, or the history of the industry). The players might be facing down a super-villain in Fawcett Park, for example. Players who spot the reference to Fawcett Comics (Golden Age publisher of Captain Marvel comics) get some kind of in-game benefit (depending on the rules system being used — for example, in ICONS, I might give a free point of Determination). Even better, if the players can improvise their own references, they get added to the game setting canon, AND they get an in-game benefit. Basically, it just adds another layer of comics nerdery to our roleplaying nerdery.

So, there’s my favorite house rule. Let’s check out Dave Chapman’s video entry for the day, with special guest Grant Howit:

Today’s RPGaDay Topic is another odd one: Perfect Game For You.

I’m going to keep this one pretty short, because, beyond a general set of conditions, I don’t know exactly how to answer this.

The perfect game for me is one that emphasizes speed of action over complexity, and character and story over number-crunching simulation. That’s pretty much ideal for me. If you can also throw in some random-generation systems (on the player AND gamemaster side) to spark ideas, then that starts moving it into “perfect” territory, for me.

Here’s Dave Chapman’s video entry for the day, with special guest, Norwegian RPG designer and journalist Ole Peder Giæver: