Actual Replay

Actual Replay #2: Epiphany: A Christmas Story-Game

billwhite@actualreplay.com (Mel and Bill White) — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 22:59:42 PST

I had the opportunity to design and run a brief story-game at Sunday school this month. No, really! There's actually a small cohort of middle and high school boys who play Magic: The Gathering who go to our church, and my wife (who's on a committee) invited me to design and run an "Advent-themed role-play game" (as she says) as part of a whole month's worth of intergenerational Sunday school to

Virtual (Re)Play: Skill Challenges in Dungeons & Dragons

billwhite@actualreplay.com (Mel and Bill White) — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 18:29:44 PST

I'm posting a link to Virtual Play 34 in the Internet Archive, since someone expressed interest in it. It gets mentioned in Narrative Control #39, and so I'm glad I was able to find it and put it up here.Mel excerpts the game of D&D 4th edition I ran during Fall 2008 for the fellows down at the Compleat Strategist in Falls Church, VA, a few times. I had a lot of fun, and tested the principles for

Actual Replay #1: Structured Freeform in the Indie RPG Design Community

billwhite@actualreplay.com (Mel and Bill White) — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 17:35:22 PST

Finally! Here is the first new episode of this actual play podcast in a long time. It marks a departure in format, though, since it consists of excerpts of conversations I had with indie RPG designers about "structured freeform," a game design aesthetic that emphasizes shaping the social experience of play rather than providing rules for resolving conflict in the fiction. I hope you'll find it

Virtual (Re)Play: How to Run Ganakagok

billwhite@actualreplay.com (Mel and Bill White) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:29:39 PST

The last episode of Virtual Play was #42, How to Run Ganakagok. It's available on the Internet Archive here.

We're Starting Over

billwhite@actualreplay.com (Mel and Bill White) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:24:36 PST

"Virtual Play" is dead; long live virtual play!We don't know what happened or how, but apparently there was a problem with the files for Virtual Play, the podcast of RPG audio excerpts and commentary my brother Mel White created over two years ago. For weeks, anyone typing in the Web address "virtualplay.podbus.com" would get only a blank page. The people at podbus.com investigated and determined