The Player's Side of the Screen

Unspent: Shadows Rising

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hauge) — Sat, 26 May 2012 11:00:00 +0000

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

So, you may really need to recap, because now we're diving into the next big bit of the story. Also, I am terribly sorry I haven't been on the ball...my posting seems to have dropped to one post every week or week and a half. Oops. At any rate, the whole group was just about to head off and investigate the theater, and then--Leona showed some reluctance. She didn't want to go...Read more »

Identity Crisis

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hauge) — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:06:00 +0000

Go read this, and then come back here. If you care about roleplaying games, about the RPG industry, or about game design, you're going to want to read this. If you have any concern about the fact that non-WotC RPGing is a complete fringe hobby (awesome as it is), you must read this. I saw it, and it's provoked some mighty powerful thoughts on my part.Read more »

Death to Teal and Orange

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hauge) — Sat, 12 May 2012 19:48:00 +0000

If you haven't heard of the "Teal and Orange" effect, please do behoove yourself and read up on it, also being aware that it will literally tint your entire experience of movie-watching. Whenever this cheap trick is employed, it'll stick out like a sore thumb to you. At any rate, I have plenty of ranting about that, but it misses the real point I'm going to make, which uses Teal and Orange as a handy analogy. For what? You'll see...Read more »

Assembling Action

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hauge) — Sat, 05 May 2012 16:12:00 +0000

We interrupt this normal broadcast of The Player's Side of the Screen to bring you a review of awesomeness...and perhaps an observation to help your gaming. I just saw The Avengers last night, one of the most-anticipated movies of the summer. And it was smashingly fantastic. I'm gonna embark on a spoiler-free review, along with some thoughts on action in gaming.Read more »

Light. Bulb.

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hauge) — Wed, 02 May 2012 00:23:00 +0000

You know, it's funny how good ideas come: at the strangest times, from the most unexpected places. Brainstorming can be one of the most informative exercises a writer engages in, resulting in plenty of "I never would have thought of that!" moments. It's immensely important to keep your ideas fresh, and when it comes to roleplaying games, those ideas can come from a place that's rather in line with this blog: the players.Read more »

Paper Empires: Stability

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hauge) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 21:12:00 +0000

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.Read more »

Dystopia and Giant Robots: A Ghost

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hauge) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 21:01:00 +0000

I'm gonna start divvying up the posts into "dreamworld" and "real world" segments, now, because that's a simple way to manage them. There isn't a whole lot of intercrossing between the two, so they shouldn't be hard to line up right. So without further ado, let's have a little more of what happened outside, while Paige was dreaming away...Read more »

Dark City: When Mafia Met...Cards?

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hauge) — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 19:28:00 +0000

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...

Download Link

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

Paper Empires: Actions

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hauge) — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 19:21:00 +0000

There's one last little detail before the basic framework of Paper Empires is complete, and that's Actions. After that, I'm going to start delving into the nuances of the game, fleshing out details and explaining how things work. Theoretically, with the details you have here, you could almost hack together a very basic game. I'm about to add more game elements, though, including an explanation of how the tech tree actually works. Oh, and a concept of a world map.Read more »

Paper Empires: Assets

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hauge) — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 16:18:00 +0000

Assets are the last thing which floats around in Paper Empires 2.0, being a little less powerful and a little less tied down than Provinces. Although they're not quite a core of your empire, they're the tools which you use to take various actions. Every action works through an appropriate Asset, and you'll gain a great advantage by having the right Asset.Read more »

Dystopia and Giant Robots: Slipping Into Crisis

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hauge) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 11:30:00 +0000

So, last week, we started to dip into Paige's ventures in dreamland, as everyone on the outside tried to figure out what had just happened. We met a new character, and Janice started dream-crashing.Read more »

Raise Dead! Raise Dead!

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hauge) — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 14:33:00 +0000

Ahem. I really, really hope that nobody got spoilered by that picture. But, honestly, if you're gonna be playing fantasy RPGs (which I assume pretty much all of you are), and you didn't know about *points up*, you deserved to be spoiled.

I suppose, by way of note, I should add that I am a full-fledged Roman Catholic, and so I will be speaking on religious topics with no apology. ;) Not to mention, it just seemed terribly apropos...I finally figured out a good post topic for something going up around Easter. Okay, okay, maybe it's a little cliché, but oh well. Here's to nothing.Read more »

Paper Empires: Provinces

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hauge) — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 11:00:00 +0000

The second main part of my revitalized Paper Empires project is the provinces, those little bits of territory that make up your empire. Dynasties are defined by characteristics, and by the knowledge possessed by the Dynasty. Provinces, in contrast, are primarily defined by the resources and goods they produce. They can be invaded, infiltrated, built up, and settled. Your Dynasty may be your empire's heart and soul, but your Provinces are its hands and feet.Read more »

Unspent: Dark Times

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hauge) — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 11:00:00 +0000

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

Aaaand, we have a previously-only-seen-once character, Joel, who I believe Leona mentioned as being one member of a Changeling group that stayed in touch across the country. He's shown up at the apartment, as Sharon uncovered word of some more of the Child's doings in the town. So, what does he want, and what help can he offer the group?Read more »

Paper Empires: Building a Dynasty

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hauge) — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Okay! This is the first post in my rebuild of Paper Empires, and I'm going to do two things. First, I'm going to explain (to the newcomers) exactly how Cortex+ works. Then, I'm going to outline how the concept of Dynasties will apply to this game, because Dynasties are a core component of this new edition, which I'm still trying to figure out a good name for. At the moment, Paper Empires+, Paper Empires 2E, and some totally unrelated title are my best options. Any input there?Read more »

Unspent: The Child

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hauge) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 11:00:00 +0000

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.Read more »

Paper Empires: the Revival!

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hauge) — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Here it is, folks! Like I mentioned last week, I've had a bit of an RPG-tinkering idea. This time, I'm revisiting the game Paper Empires, a sort of "Civilization meets RPGs" combo that, while an interesting concept, had some real problems. I'd sort of left it by the wayside, but now I think I've stumbled across the perfect way to reboot it. It's a system that's flexible, has a lot of moving parts to tinker with, and it's a system with a strong narrative focus...

Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to Cortex+, the game powering the Smallville, Leverage, and (most recently) Marvel Heroic roleplaying games.Read more »

Dystopia and Giant Robots: New Faces

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hauge) — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 16:33:00 +0000

Kicking off this session, we brought in a new character, played by a friend whom I'll refer to as Torta. She's the newest out of all of the RPers, having had only a small exposure to roleplaying in general. She's done some extended freeform, but nothing with any semblance of rules. Even though I run Mecha (a rules-lite system) pretty light on the rules, that's still more of a structured game than she's ever played. Torta plays Ivy, a young Godblind who makes her way into the story via an unusual method...Read more »

RPGs: Good and Free

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hauge) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 02:10:00 +0000

Okay, wow! Somehow, I got totally behind on things, and never actually put out a post for the second half of the week. Grar. Okay, give me about five minutes, and I'll come up with something incredibly compelling to write a post on!

*tick tick tick*

Okay, is time really up? Drat. Okay, then. I guess it's up to me to pull a topic completely out of nowhere. Hmm...oh, I know! Time for a really quick roundup. See, one of my little hobbies is finding cool roleplaying games, and some of the coolest roleplaying games are this lovely little thing called "free". So, before your very eyes, here's a round-up of five excellent (and free) roleplaying games.Read more »

Dystopia and Giant Robots: Out of Sight, Out of Mind

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hauge) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 15:00:00 +0000

At this point, Paige's arc took a rather nasty turn, with her facing off against a sort of psychic invader from the walls of the Free City. Now, she was comatose, with the whole group watching over her. The question is: where will this take everyone?Read more »

Spoilers! (Plot Twists, Redux)

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hauge) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 15:30:00 +0000

To those of you who recognize the picture: you are cooler than fezzes. You'll probably also have a bigger handle on the concepts I'm about to approach, but that isn't to say that the rest of you won't be able to grasp it. So! I'm going to approach the topic of plot twists again; this time, I'm talking about "secrets"...Read more »

Back and Forth: Plot Twists and You

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hauge) — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 15:30:00 +0000

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.)Read more »

Dystopia and Giant Robots: Shadows

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hauge) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 15:30:00 +0000

Well, folks, it's been a while. (My apologies to you, Kureaa, I know you've been dogging the mech recaps with great zeal. They're back!)At any rate, we now enter the period of the story where, after promises of marriage, things become most dire for the romantic couple. They also get a bit trippy.Read more »

Unspent: New Problems

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hauge) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 15:00:00 +0000

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

After the crazy stuff happened at Bryce's apartment, everyone opted to stay the night at George's place. In the morning, Sharon got a call from one of her co-workers at the police station, saying that "weird stuff" was going on, that it was complete bedlam over there, with everything unraveling. She headed out to go see that, and then other people started to wake up.Read more »

Fight the Power: A Review of "Misspent Youth"

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hauge) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 21:34:00 +0000

WARNING: This RPG contains frequent instances of strong language, and is therefore NSFW. The review will follow usual blog guidelines, and be SFW.

Misspent Youth is a game about adolescent rebellion and sticking it to The Man. It's also a game that completely took me by surprise, doing things that I never even considered doing in a game. It's loud, authoritative, intense, character-driven, and even tragic. It's also a great example of a tightly focused game; instead of giving you the tools to make certain elements of drama happen (this is the case with roleplaying systems), it structures the game so that certain things just happen.Read more »