Summary: Conflicts can be more than physical or social and can take place on a timescale that isn’t moment-to-moment. I’m running a Musketeer-style game and the PCs are trying to sail into the port of a foreign country that has closed their borders. They would like to do this legally for story reasons (but are… Continue reading Getting Permission to Enter a Foreign Land, Run as a Long Conflict (Fate RPG)
Designing NYU’s College of Global Public Health New Website
“Designing an Energetic and Entrepreneurial Website” talks about the discovery and design process for NYU’s new website for the College of Global Public Health. Creating the design for CGPH was satisfying on a lot of levels. The new site has strong, captivating visuals and represents their desire to “reinvent the public health paradigm.”
Ethics of Web Design in 2017: How We Can Do Our Best
I recently gave a talk to the Refresh Pittsburgh Web tech group called Ethics of Web Design in 2017: How We Can Do Our Best. This was the first run for the talk. I’ve posted my script for it here.
Circumstantial PC Aspects in Fate
One of my favorite things about the Fate RPG is that all of the mechanics of the game are really just ways to redirect focus on the narrative of the game. The most potent tool for this is the Aspect. These bits of description tell us what is important and define when it can be… Continue reading Circumstantial PC Aspects in Fate
Dear Old Geeks, It’s Time to Welcome the New Geeks
We are in a golden era of geek culture. Our movies are killing it in the box office—Avengers, Star Trek, Star Wars, etc, and they are some of the most popular shows on TV, like SHIELD, Agent Carter, Gotham, Supergirl, Flash, Green Arrow, etc. Geeky things are now the mainstream. It wasn’t always that way.… Continue reading Dear Old Geeks, It’s Time to Welcome the New Geeks
The Disposable PC, for Fate
[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”] [et_pb_row admin_label=”row”] [et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text”] Sometimes random people show up for a night of gaming and no one (GM or player) has had time to prep a character for that person to play. Sure, they could play one of the NPCs, but only if there is a fleshed out NPC with a character… Continue reading The Disposable PC, for Fate
How I Evaluate my Fate PCs
Building characters in Fate is pretty easy, but sometimes I wonder if I’ve made a good one. I’d like to acknowledge that “good” is subjective. If you’re having fun playing your character and everyone in the group likes having them there, you have a good one. You’re a winner! Despite this, I have a habit… Continue reading How I Evaluate my Fate PCs
Goodbyes and Hellos
I’ve joined up with Four Kitchens and resigned my position with Williams Randall Marketing. I’ll be working remotely. I promise to wear pants. This will impact everything in my life. What I will be doing I’ll be doing the front-end development for big Web sites, mostly in Drupal, my favorite CMS. Maybe I’ll build other… Continue reading Goodbyes and Hellos
Further Thoughts on Cinematic Universe Style Campaigns
In a previous blog post I commented about running an RPG campaign Cinematic Universe (CU) style, like the Marvel superhero movies. If you haven’t read my article take a moment and go give it a read. The basic premise for a CU style game is that you start with the collection of heroes for a… Continue reading Further Thoughts on Cinematic Universe Style Campaigns
A Few (Random) Tips for Running Long Fate Games
I’ve found the following tricks useful for Fate campaigns (running more than a few sessions). Framing — Narrative is a powerful thing. If the PCs start out as privates in the army and get promoted as the campaign marches on to sergeants, then the scale of influence they have has dramatically expanded. Another use for… Continue reading A Few (Random) Tips for Running Long Fate Games