Cataphracts Design Diary #3 - Sam Sorensen
Cataphracts commanders: there is no actionable intelligence in this post. Read on. Previous design diaries: Entry #1, Entry #2. Running Cataphracts| samsorensen.blot.im
When they step into moonlight, those bearing the lycanthrope’s curse transform into wolves. Magicians can learn magic spells from ancient books| samsorensen.blot.im
All of the entries posted on Sam Sorensen tagged design| samsorensen.blot.im
The latest entries posted on Sam Sorensen| samsorensen.blot.im
Cataphracts commanders: there is no actionable intelligence in this post. Read on. Previous design diaries: Entry #1, Entry #2. Running Cataphracts| samsorensen.blot.im
Cataphracts commanders: there is no actionable intelligence in this post. Read on. Since my first design diary entry, quite a few people have| samsorensen.blot.im
Cataphracts commanders: there is no actionable intelligence in this post. Read on. About two months ago, I reread several series on military| samsorensen.blot.im
My roommate ty asks an important question of each game he plays. The question first emerged, I believe, during hours-long sessions of mid- to| samsorensen.blot.im
Remove instances of“to be” verbs: be, am, is, are, was, were, being, and been. Instead of“The goblin is dancing,” write“The goblin dances.” In most cases, this also includes the added benefit of changing the passive voice into the active voice. In cases like“The goblin is wet,” instead say“Water drips down the goblin,” or simply“The wet goblin…” Remove instances of“to have” verbs: have, has, had, and having. Instead of“The guards have the keys,” write“The g...| Sam Sorensen
Ten years ago, Steven Soderbergh released an unusual cut of Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark: he put the entire film in black and white,| samsorensen.blot.im
Hello again! Sorry it’s been so long—life’s been busy. You can read previous session reports here: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, and #6. This report comprises some eleven sessions. 8th Day of the Month of the Imperium Today, two convenient new recruits appeared: Zit, Fighter 1; a goblin burglar. Khib II, Fighter 1: another goblin burglar (no relation, of course, to Khib I). The two goblins headed down, bound for the second floor, and immediately ran afoul of some skeletons—skeletons who many ot...| Sam Sorensen
About four years ago, my friend and longtime collaborator nuclearobelisk and I made a campaign guide for running a West Marches-style game, specifically for 5e. At the the time, we were game development students in college, seniors about to graduate. I’d been running a campaign that she played in (one of about a dozen players) for close to two years. We ran a Kickstarter and raised about $25,000, but really needed that cash ourselves and had lots of shipping and printing to pay for, so our ...| Sam Sorensen
In 5th grade, my first year of middle school, I joined the Dungeons & Dragons club. My first GM was my art teacher, Mr. Bennett. We played some odd hybrid of 3e and 3.5e, running through what I discovered only recently was, I think, an adventure by Harley Stroh—Tower of the Black Pearl. It lasted about three sessions. In the months after, I tried playing some loose games with my friends and our Star Wars Legos, one on one, where I was a kind of undefined GM and they guided a single charact...| Sam Sorensen
Hello again! You can read previous session reports here: #1, #2, #3, #4, and #5. 2nd Day of the Month of the Imperium Today, the party consists of: The Eldest Orphan of Forsaken for Eternity by Birth, Fighter 4; mohawked noble with aristocrat’s boots, a miser’s flute, a necklace of fireballs, and a ghostly right leg to match Sōt’s left. Sōt III, Butcher of Bugs, Roller of Rugs, Squandering Hugs, Fighter 4; a knight dressed in bone mail-and-plate, missing his left ear but blessed with ...| Sam Sorensen
Does the MDA Framework Apply to Tabletop RPGs? No, it doesn’t. I’d argue it doesn’t even apply to videogames. Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics is a self-professed formalist approach, a“framework,” to games created by Robin Hunicke, Marc LeBlanc, and Robert Zubek, three videogame developers; Zubek also teaches game design at Northwestern. Since its publication in 2004, MDA has been quite influential—4220 citations on Google Scholar as an easy statistic, at time of writing. MDA, ...| Sam Sorensen
We’re back! You can read previous session reports here: #1, #2, #3, and #4. This is a particularly long one, since I’ve been so late on writing these—this covers some seven sessions. 20th Day of the Month of Grief Today, our party consists of: The Eldest Orphan of Forsaken for Eternity, Fighter 3; a mohawk-sporting, shockingly clean noble, dressed in aristocrat’s boots. He carries a necklace of fireballs, a miser’s flute, and shockingly un-notched weapons. Sōt III, Butcher of Bugs,...| Sam Sorensen
On Monday, my Mothership adventure Time After Time released. I started working on it in the winter of 2021, during grad school; I Kickstarted it in February 2022 for ZiMo’22, which I also helped organize. It was supposed to release December 2022. I rebooted the project almost from scratch in late the summer of 2022 (when it was about three-quarters done), taking it from the intended 36 pages to more than double that. Today, Wednesday, my toolbox setting guide Seas of Sand released. I starte...| Sam Sorensen
Something I’ve noticed: it takes about five sessions to get a campaign going. That means five sessions, in a row, with everybody showing up, meeting at your weekly time. This plays out across multiple levels. Logistically, five sessions are enough that they’re starting to become a habit, an assumed default rather than an exception to carve out for. After five sessions, if somebody misses a session or you have to cancel, you aren’t at risk of the whole thing collapsing. (Five weeks is al...| Sam Sorensen
In tabletop RPG books, dice are correctly notated as“1d6,” that is, [quantity of dice]d[die size]. 1d20, 6d6, 3d8, and so on—all correct. Much as the serial comma is the Oxford comma, in this case the quantified 1d6 becomes the New York 1d6. Compare: “roll 1d6” (correct) vs“roll d6” (incorrect) vs“roll a d6” (incorrect). “1d6 goblins” (correct) vs“d6 goblins” (incorrect). “longswords deal 1d6 damage” (correct) vs“longswords deal d6 damage” (incorrect). Withou...| Sam Sorensen
It’s been a minute! Read reports #1, #2, and #3 of my ongoing open-table megadungeon campaign project, working-titled“Pandemonium.” 13th Day of the Month of Grief Our party consists of: Sōt III, Butcher of Bugs, Roller of Rugs, Fighter 3; a haggard knight missing his left ear, clad in bone mail-and-plate, wielding Righty, his unmagical but very notched longsword. Old Iron Grip, Magic-User 2; a recently-recovered illusionist, his medical bills and carousing cash paid for by a comrade, n...| Sam Sorensen
Recently, I started an open-table megadungeon campaign using a megadungeon I’m working on, working-titled“Pandemonium.” Here are reports #1 and #2. 9th Day of the Month of Grief Our party consists of: Sōt III, Butcher of Bugs, Fighter 2; a scraggly, haggard knight missing his left ear, clad in mail-and-plate made from bone, wielding Righty, his unmagical but heavily-notched longsword. Erasmus Karl, Fighter 1; an amiable, balding tourist taking photographs for his travel [b]log readers ...| Sam Sorensen
Can rules elide what doesn’t exist? In a word: no. But not for the reason you think. When Jared talks about “rules eliding,” he refers to endogenous| samsorensen.blot.im
Recently, I started an open-table megadungeon campaign using a megadungeon I’m working on, working-titled “Pandemonium.” This report covers session| samsorensen.blot.im
Recently, I started an open-table megadungeon campaign using a megadungeon I’m working on, working-titled “Pandemonium.” This report covers the| samsorensen.blot.im
Today is January 30th, 2024. ZineMonth & ZineQuest start in about 48 hours. In the vague popular wisdom, January is thought of as a slow month for| samsorensen.blot.im
A manifesto. In everything you do, ensure that the fictional world is first. If, at any point, any aspect of the game begins to clash with the| samsorensen.blot.im
Defining Games and Play In their landmark 2004 game design textbook, Rules of Play, Salen & Zimmerman devote a chapter to definitions of games. They run through eight definitions of games and play from various scholars—Huizinga, Caillois, Abt, Avedon & Sutton-Smith, Suits, Crawford, Costikyan, Parlett—and compare them in a single charming chart: Table of game definitions from Rules of Play (Salen & Zimmerman 79) There are, obviously, many other definitions of games, but I think this chart...| Sam Sorensen
I recently read Bernie De Koven’s The Well-Played Game all the way through for the first time. Here are some of my favorite bits. --- …as our play community develops, there are particular times when we seek out games withy fewer and fewer rules. We have so affmired our ability to play well together, to be safe with each other, that rules begin to get in the way of our freedom together. As we begin to sense our power to create our own conventions, as we discover that the authority for dete...| Sam Sorensen
On December 16th, 2022, I saw Lingua Ignota live at Pioneer Works in Red Hook, Brooklyn. In a word: Prophetic. Transcendent. Messianic. Rapturous. Revelatory. Apocalyptic. The most affecting performance I’ve ever witnessed, and one of the most intense emotional experiences of my life. The setup was simple: a stage at the front of a large warehouse music hall. She had a modified piano, a laptop connected to gargantuan speakers, and a microphone. In the background, a video looped, showing cut...| Sam Sorensen
Preface Wolves Upon the Coast is a“grand campaign” written by Luke Gearing—of Gradient Descent, Fever Swamp, Acid Death Fantasy, and many others—and is, basically, brilliant. What is Wolves Upon the Coast? What it says on the tin. Wolves is a giant campaign, one that has everything you need to sustain sessions for months or years. The slightly longer answer is that it’s several things: an oddball D&D clone, a vast semi-fantasy-historical viking hexcrawl, a boatload of magical items,...| Sam Sorensen
In a past life, I played a lot of Gwent, the Witcher-brand digital card game that grew out of the minigame in the Witcher 3. It’s good. It’s got lots of interesting builds and decks, the balance hasn’t been truly terrible in years, and the card art is phenomenal. In Gwent—and other card games—there is a strategy called“bleeding.” When you bleed, you play shitty cards from your hand on your turn in order to extend the round, thus forcing your opponent to play good cards. You’re...| Sam Sorensen
This blot is an update from my old blog, Caput Caprae. It’s a lot messier and has lots of old junk on it—some stuff I’m proud of, but plenty that| samsorensen.blot.im
A question: you ever try to run a campaign with a city in it? Not just a town or settlement or fort, but a proper city, one with an actual street| samsorensen.blot.im
