There was a thread which started up on the Pinnacle site during my plague ridden month of March. I just noticed it yesterday. It was discussing one of the two words I really, really do not care for existing in the lexicon of gaming. Admittedly, it took some time to concede the necessity of the words flavor and crunch. You might say, “Hey, Sean, you’re being too sensitive. We’re just talking words here.” Here’s the deal. Words are what I deal with. They are fueling my economy, my life. As such, I live in the sorcerous realm of semantics and, [...]

Yesterday, with the announcement of the new iPad, I read through the features until I came to a phrase which stopped me dead in my tracks. It had nothing to do with the processing speed, nor the nifty new display, or anything of the sort. It was the phrase, Post-PC world. I paused and went “huh” the way my folks must’ve done when we suddenly were thrust headfirst into the Digital Age after spending the whole of humanity (as far as we know) up into that point in a strictly analog environment. Ultimately, why we didn’t take to the stars, [...]

There are a lot of ways to approach game and adventure design.  I’m going to share my standard approach with you today. You’ll find it simple which thematically reinforces said approach, because it’s all about keeping things simple. Now, you might immediately say I’m co-opting the KISS (Keep it simple, stupid) philosophy, but that is not entirely true. A lot of times the simplest and most elegant things require a huge amount of work. What we as designers and developers should do is make certain the information is two-fold: 1. Make certain the information is distilled down into a comprehensive form. 2. [...]

While I’ve attended to some layout issues, I’ve made it a point to carve out some time today to read some gaming material. My mind has been turning around some ideas for the past handful of days which I’m pretty excited about, but not at the point to talk about in case it’s just my restless nature betraying me. I need to finish gathering some information, process a bit, and then compartmentalize. The restless nature of working on one thing and wanting to do something else. What I call “The Grass is Green Syndrome”. I saw a video some time [...]

Today we’re going to go to the well and bring back a quick tip for a Monday afternoon. This would’ve been longer, but a few technical issues cropped up out of nowhere (hey, it is Monday, right?) This tip is what I call Wrong Can Be Right. It’s where you come up with an idea and discover it isn’t the right one. Is your time wasted? Absolutely not. By bouncing it off of other folks, you can reach something which may well prove itself to be better than what you first thought of, but you wouldn’t have gotten to that [...]

I almost called today’s article The Tables Have Turned, but thought better of it. I have a tremendous amount of layout work before me. That’s a good thing. Right? Means there is a lot of stuff at that stage [1.That stage being the one where the line between conception and completion blurs.] Usually, I can make pretty good time. There is one big exception, though. It’s when I have to deal with tables. In RPGs, tables are as frequents as nachos at a Mexican restaurant. Seriously, they are part and parcel of the experience. When the words are largely my [...]

One of my resolutions for the new year is to get more gaming in and I mean the electricrified hi-pixel variety. I want to catch up on some games I missed when they first dropped as well as stay current on some upcoming releases, such as Mass Effect 3 and Bioshock Infinite. Logistically, it’s difficult to game even once a week for myself and my crew. Someone always has something which comes up. That often happens when people grow up and aren’t within the development community. I suppose I could (and should) try roleplaying online again, but there still seems [...]

Today, I realized I took an entirely new approach to my most recent read-through of a pending project. With a heavily marked-up Ravaged Earth word document and no satisfactory solution for reviewing track changes on the iPad2, I opted to give it a fresh look and saved the file with the final view sans markup as a PDF. In turn, I opened it up in GoodReader and annotated it–I didn’t expect to make many observations and it worked well. What I took away from this experience is I read the whole document thoroughly and carefully, yet I still had the safety [...]

One of the guys, Kristian, pointed out a number of egregious grammatical errors I made in yesterday’s Razorwise Report. Through the power of the internet, he sent them via instant messaging to which my answer was pretty much “blah blah blah”. Don’t get me wrong. I know I’m supposed to be putting my best foot forward when I’m communicating with you here, but if I have to watch every, little detail, it’s going to feel an awful lot like work (which isn’t a bad thing, I love my work), but it’s going to become a huge time sink. For those [...]

Continuing with what’s become this week’s theme (and will run on, I’m certain through next week), I turn to the next question, this one posited by Jake Ivey. Jake asks: Do you find that working on so many projects at once allows you to retain your focus, or simply provides more avenues for distractions? My short answer: As the overarching mastermind, I have many irons in the fire, but I am not forging them alone. Over the years, I’ve developed a good team and the discipline to apply my focus where most needed. Are there times when I’d just like [...]