Rise: Capping Off a Story

Dear Readers: This is NOT a review of The Dark Knight Rises, because I haven't seen it yet, though I do plan on seeing it at 10 PM tonight. I just like the picture and theming, and considering that it's opening day for the final Bat-Nolan trilogy, it seems quite fitting. So, then, let me present to you: my thoughts on wrapping up a story with a bang.

Paper Empires: Stability

The Roman Empire fell because of internal squabbling and invaders from the outside. The British Empire, once spanning the whole globe in some capacity, was hugely diminished as their colonies rose up against them. The stability of your own empire is of critical importance in Paper Empires. Each province, from the start, begins to generate Unrest, and you must also keep building your Dynasty's strength up.

Dark City: When Mafia Met...Cards?

So, folks! Today, I typed up some rules for a game I call Dark City, a live-action variant of Mafia that spans a much larger space and time. Oh, and there's a freelance assassin on the loose, too. Have a look, it's only two pages! I plan to do some fleshing-out in the future, and I'm sure it could use a lot of fun theming...

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Dark City by Andrew Hauge is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Unspent: The Child

Here's a link to a listing of the Unspent posts, if you're a newcomer to this.

At this point, we've had the second monster of the Unspent campaign rear its head, and I'm sorry that it took so long to get back to a recap. However, things are going along at a pretty good clip now. Hopefully, I can get things all caught up very soon. (Same for the other campaign...) Indeed, at this point, it's feeling like Unspent is approaching a conclusion, even if that's not very evident in the recaps yet.

Back and Forth: Plot Twists and You

I really, really, really hope you understand what this picture has to do with this post. But if you don't, I guess that's okay. SPOILER ALERT! ;) At any rate, we're here to talk about plot twists. They're hard to do right, really bad if done wrong, and incredibly satisfying when they work. I'm here to talk a bit about how to do them well, and also about how they're not just for GMs. (Yeah, I just said that.)

Saying Yes: Dynamic Tests

And I'm finally back to a post about Burning Wheel! I seriously can't get enough of this system... Before I break into some sort of rant, let's have a little summary of the topic to be covered today. It's a rather simple principle that Luke Crane has instilled into Burning Wheel, actually taking the concept from Vincent Baker's Dogs in the Vineyard. It's a strong way to make every die roll meaningful: "Just say 'Yes'."

Unspent: Complications

Here's a link to a listing of the Unspent posts, if you're a newcomer to this.

When everyone got the mysterious warning to "run" (via Ivy's note...), they booked it. The cats were all around the church, so the statues didn't have a chance to move. The group went outside, and found an unoccupied police car. Sharon was able to confirm it as the Sheriff's car, based on the stuff inside. Uh-oh.

Unspent: Further Investigation

We resume our recap of the Unspent campaign with a recap of last week's session, which introduced a new player. Her character, Sharon, was a forensic investigator, who (as we're going to see) was very understandably skeptical of the goings-on at St. Luke's. The group wound up digging into the past of St. Luke's, uncovering some interesting dirt, and then went back for another investigation.

Unspent: St. Luke's Church

So, I've also recently started up a World of Darkness campaign for some friends over the phone, which is a vastly different medium than that of my other campaign (Dystopia and Giant Robots). I'm exploring a few different things here, including pitting the players against some very...unique critters. And, well, you'll have to see for yourself. This campaign is titled "Unspent", for reasons that will eventually become clear...