On My Shelves: Tails of Equestria

I've been a roleplaying gamer for the majority of my life – 41 years as of now. I've seen and played dozens, perhaps hundreds, of RPGs, beginning with the original three-booklet version of Dungeons and Dragons and then going through Monsters! Monsters! (the "bad guy" version of Tunnels and Trolls), Rolemaster (descended from the three separate works of Arms Law, Spell Law, and Claw Law), the Arduin Grimoire supplements, The Arcanum, then through the ages to things ranging from Vampire: The Masquerade to Feng Shui, AMBER Diceless Roleplaying, [ Continue reading... ]

Just For Fun: Tabletop RPGs 2: Effects Versus Causes, OR Why I Hate _Champions_

In my prior RPG discussion I talked about my basic approach to running a game – that the world is the important thing that I'm presenting, and the rules are the tools – often imperfect and clumsy tools – used to help the players (who are stuck in our world) interact with the game world through the characters, who live in the game world. But what makes a game world a functioning world rather than, say, a bunch of settings, people, and things? My simple answer for this is that it is a place with an underlying logic to it. Our world has the [ Continue reading... ]