Another fantastic playtest conducted tonight with some folks on Skype. Jimmie Bise, Jr (of The Sundries Shack)., Jake Ivey (Gamer extraordinaire) , Eric Avedissian (of Ravaged Earth reknown), and Michael Wolf (of Stargazers World) joined me! And boy, am I tired. I hope they forgive me for not putting links. It’s been a terrifically long day. I want to hit a few points. They dug the character creation. They dug the game. A lot. Most importantly, they got to go through the town creation process which really blew their minds. I need to get into that a bit deeper in another [...]

Since we’re trying some different stuff with talking more openly about tremulus and its development, I am proud to say I have hooked up a number of folks today with the playtest documents. In a series of first, this is the first time we’ve created a project specifically for outside playtesters in Basecamp. This will give the select individuals an insider’s peak into a bit of how we do things, as well as make it far easier for us to disseminate documents and distribute information. We have a variety of folks of all experience ranges and gaming backgrounds. It’s not to [...]

First off, thanks again for everyone’s enthusiasm and such regarding the ENnies. Very exciting for us. Did I go celebrate or go mad? Nope. I largely did what I’ve been doing lately. I wrote and playtested more tremulus. I did have a few hard ciders yesterday. All they did was make me sleepy. I’ve barely sat still lately. After the second one, I dozed off. Yay?! Onward. Over the weekend, I got the opportunity to expand out some more details for tremulus. As the title of today’s article may have suggested, I worked on Mental Disorders and mechanized them to work within [...]

This past weekend, I worked on refining frameworks for tremulus. Frameworks enable you, as the Keeper, to build a complete structure for you and your friends to tell your own story. Allow me to explain a bit. Frameworks consist of hazards which are made up of threads which have both a linchpin and a texture. No. I’m not doing alien speak. Hazards are all the elements of the story which are at odds with the characters and/or have their own end goals. Hazards are linked together to form a thread. The number of hazards in a thread can vary wildly. [...]

I’ve been derelict in posting for a handful of days due to the horrible heat which has been sweeping across of lot of the country. Now, I have been working away, busy scribbling down materials for tremulus. The thing is, after that, I am markedly exhausted. I’ve been putting in long days, and I’ve thought to hit the RWR the first thing in the morning, but I have been so excited to work on this project, everything else has been pushed over to the side. I’ve been getting in playtests as often as I can. I’ve been having conversations with folks. [...]

Today was a blisteringly hot day today here in the environs of Memphis. The heat index brought us to 110 degrees and, here in the Mad Lab, work continued apace. I’ve just wrapped up a great chat session over at Beautiful Brains. I have to tell you…these days have been long and sapped a lot of me. Seriously, I’m close to dozing off as I write this… However…I’m going to cheat a little bit and not leave you with nothing…go read about what Justin thought of the tremulus playtest last night. Come back and let me know if any questions arise. Until next [...]

Today, we’re going to get into the realm of semantics. Hold on tight. And, yes, you may provide feedback. You may always comment. You know that. Just give me a moment. I’ve been wrestling with what to call the GM in tremulus. Do I label him GM? That sounds a bit generic for me, for this. Do I label him Keeper? That sounds good and I’m still up in the air about this. It’s certainly proven and familiar in the genre. I’ve tossed about other names, such as Narrator, and have settled upon Doomsayer (at least for the moment). Why? [...]

As I work on tremulus and the project is beginning to seep into the cosmic consciousness (or what you may call the Internet), I want to clarify exactly what  I’m talking about when I am saying this is a storytelling game of Lovecraftian horror. A designer should set out some design goals for what his plans are before he just leaps into the writing process and those words are stating it clearly and plainly and, perhaps, with a bit of subtlety. And that’s the whole point. Right? Lovecraftian horror is, painting it with the broadest brush possible,  cosmic horror of the unknown. [...]

I wasn’t around yesterday, but I’m fine. Usually, I can get to the RWR on Mondays, but since my kid graduated and got a car the world has become topsy-turvy. That’s okay. It keeps me on my toes. Right? Right. Now with the personal stuff out of the way, on to business. I got to playtest tremulus this past Saturday. I don’t want to get into the details quite yet. I want to be fully cognizant and not fatigued when I break it down for you. I will tell you some of my thoughts post-play. What I had in place [...]

I had the opportunity to be a guest blogger on RoleplayDNA today. I know they’ve been riffing on design a good bit lately, so I thought I’d jump in with my now less-than-secret new project, tremulus. I want all you investigators to go check it out and come back here and let me know what you think. (I’ll be watching for your comments below.) Thanks! Now, about the rest of the day? I continued to work on some of the secret bits of the town, some of the things that are going to make this book pretty sweet, and I [...]