A Message for a Young Game Writer

This was originally posted 28th May 2017, the day after the Swansea Comics and Gaming Convention last year. This year's is happening this coming Saturday (5th May), where I'm going to be giving the panel on Finding Your Identity in RPGs. I never found out if this message reached its recipient. 

Yesterday I was once again fortunate enough to be present at the Swansea Comics and Gaming Convention. It was a lovely, friendly event, and Simon, Adam and Ricky ran a supportive, active and helpful team. Well done, guys. As I had last year, I gave a panel (inasmuch as it counts as a panel when you're the only one doing it) about first principles of rpg design. It was well attended and full of people who wanted to engage and participate. Afterwards, I got to have a lot of conversations with people who had really exciting ideas and got to sell a bunch of books too, which was nice.

Some time afterwards, though, as the event wound down, a young man approached me and handed me a note. He explained that his friend was at my panel and had wanted to ask some questions, but lacked the confidence to ask me face to face, and he asked me if I would write some answers for his friend. It was a lovely note and the questions were thoughtful, so I briefly dashed off a reply, but of course you never answer the way you want to, and some of the questions my anonymous audience member asked deserved better, fuller answers. I was moved by the note I received, and if you read on, you might understand why.

Inner Worlds: Love, Politics and Role-Playing Games

I've now published Inner Worlds: Love, Politics and Role-Playing Games, a short monograph compiling the essays I published last autumn on the imaginative spaces of role-playing games, in which I wax lyrical on politics, social mechanics, sex, magic and imagination, and ask the question: "is it really OK?"

(Spoilers: yes.)

It's not yet available in print form (and while somehow I can't imagine there being much call for the print version I'm going to have a bundle of printed copies at May's Swansea Comics and Games Convention). You can buy Inner Worlds here.

Guest Post: Women in Historical RPGs

From the British Library collection.

First up, I have to tell you that my project The Age of Miracles is still funding, still crawling towards its goal. Help a neomystic cryptotheologian out, people?

While I'm working on it, I've commissioned some guest posts, which I've scheduled to appear in the next couple of weeks. First comes Dymphna, someone I've enjoyed interacting with over the last few months, and who very kindly agreed to supply some words for my Inner Worlds series on a subject that I felt very strongly needed someone more qualified than me to write about properly.

Inner Worlds #6: Conflict and Agency

One of the biggest things that I'll probably change should I ever get to doing a second edition of Chariot is having dramatic scenes be called Conflicts. Which is a problem because it explicitly defines peacemaking as an act of conflict. And I mean, yeah, it's based around the idea of dramatic or narrative conflict, but the thing is, there has to be a better word for it.

Inner Worlds, appendix: "Nothing about this hobby is OK"

I can say this is not OK because I developed it and so it's my fault.

So all of the Inner Worlds posts of the last couple weeks have inspired dialogue to some extent. On a Facebook thread discussing the most recent one, a game writer who is better known than me said this:

Be sure to let me know if you find a way to pursue this path of analysis without reaching the conclusion "nothing about this hobby is OK."

Inner Worlds #5: Just Sex

Monsterhearts.

(Everso mild TW for discussion of consent and associated issues.)

So yeah. The heart is a dangerous thing. Being in love is powerful; it remakes you, transforms you, for good and ill. I mean, I could talk about how it changes your chemistry, how having loved and lost brings irreversible changes to a person. It defines us. It is where we come from.

Inner Worlds #4: In My Power

Mia Sara in Legend, when she gets turned evil (but only for a bit).

Today, my series about the mind and the heart in role-playing games moves outside of things that reflect the real world and into the realm of that sci-fi/fantasy/horror staple: mind control. Some of this I wrote before, in the mail list discussion that made me write these essays in the first place.

Inner Worlds #3: Mind and Body

sian: now 20% less empathic.

So this week I've been dealing with how you model the inner life of a character in a role-playing game, and I've talked about issues of right and wrong and come to no conclusion whatsoever, and I've talked about social interactions and how they get complex, with slightly more conclusion, and now it's time for mental health and trauma.

Inner Worlds #2: Rights and Wrongs

From my first edition Player's Handbook.

So in Dungeons & Dragons, there has always been this thing that annoys a lot of people –

Inner Worlds #1: Connections and Consequences

The skills list.

I decided that I'd talk about game design. Specifically, about the design of language, thought, morality, social interaction. This is the first of a short series.