This is RPG-ology #78: Recoil, for May 2024. One of the purposes of this series, drawn from its predecessor Game Ideas Unlimited, is to provide you with tools you might use in your games. This might be one of those tools. Some years back at The Forge a designer was seeking a way to make … [Read more…]
This is Faith in Play #78: Stakes, for May 2024. In my book Why I Believe I wrote, “Tests are merely games, and if you go into them thinking of them as games and relax and enjoy playing, you will perform better. What makes people nervous is not the game but the stakes.” I had … [Read more…]
This is Faith in Play #56: Guidance, for July 2022. In most of our games, either God or the gods are irrelevant, or we via our characters tell them what we want to do and ask or sometimes tell them to help. Sometimes the referee decides that we will go on a quest, and a … [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…]
STRESS STRESS is a mechanic which represents characters pushing beyond their physical limitations. For every 1 point of STRESS, a character is -1 to attack, armor class, saving throws, stat checks and skill checks. A character reduces the STRESS penalty by their WISDOM bonus. So it is not uncommon for some characters to carry … [Read more…]
The following article was originally published in June 2001 on the Christian Gamers Guild’s website. The entire series remains available at its original URL. When I was working my way back toward the fundamentals of our game experience last month, just before I reached the point of discussing social interaction I mentioned mechanics. Mechanics are … [Read more…]