This is Faith in Play #85: Codes, for December 2024. In any village, any city, any region, any world, characters are constrained. They are, of course, constrained by the local law. I have written extensively about that elsewhere, particularly in The Source of Law, The Course of Law, and The Force of Law. That, though, … [Read more…]
This is RPG-ology #74: Senseless, for January 2024. Our thanks to Regis Pannier and the team at the Places to Go, People to Be French edition for locating a copy of this and a number of other lost Game Ideas Unlimited articles. This was originally Game Ideas Unlimited: Senseless, and is reposted here with minor … [Read more…]
This is RPG-ology #68: Expertise, for July 2023. I was packing up ground beef for the freezer. Generally if I have a bit of money and there’s a good price for it, I buy between ten and twenty pounds, and try to repackage it in zipper bags of about three pounds each which I can … [Read more…]
This is Faith in Play #68: Prayer, for July 2023. This arose in discussion on the Christian Gamers Guild mailing list. It seems that someone mentioned a new role playing game in which players were expected to verbalize the in-game prayers of their fictional characters to the real God. Guild members had mixed reactions to … [Read more…]
This is RPG-ology #66: Identity, for May 2023. Our thanks to Regis Pannier and the team at the Places to Go, People to Be French edition for locating a copy of this and a number of other lost Game Ideas Unlimited articles. This was originally Game Ideas Unlimited: Flirting, and is reposted here with minor … [Read more…]
This is RPG-ology #57: Ives Loves a Parade, for August 2022. Our thanks to Regis Pannier and the team at the Places to Go, People to Be French edition for locating a copy of this and a number of other lost Game Ideas Unlimited articles. This was originally Game Ideas Unlimited: Ives Loves a Parade, … [Read more…]
This is Faith in Play #53: Synchronicity, for April 2022. On the Christian Gamers Guild discussion board, Michael Garcia raised a familiar question with a new twist: how do you bring the hand of God into a role playing game without going over the top? In a game like Advanced Dungeons & Dragons™ magic is … [Read more…]
This is Faith in Play #22: Individualism, for September 2019. Quite a few years ago now I was playing a character in an experimental Attorney class in a game largely based on original Advanced Dungeons and Dragons™. I had just successfully defended a player character (an Antipaladin) on a murder and robbery charge, and the … [Read more…]
Perhaps it was just a passing thought; perhaps it was a sudden inspiration. One of the members of the Christian Gamers Guild who has in the past suggested good ideas for topics for this series (including the Sex and Gender discussions) asked whether there had been an article on archetypes, and suggested that it might … [Read more…]
More than two decades ago now, before I’d ever heard of role playing games or Dungeons & Dragons™ or the hobby game industry, I took an undergraduate course in creative writing, specifically writing fiction. I suppose I had some distant dream of retiring and writing the next great fantasy novel, and I thought this would … [Read more…]