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A General Update
I had started writing a design journal post about Fantasy Friends, and then I realized I had made such a post before and I was mostly rehashing stuff I’d already written about. In a way that kind of...
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Maid: The Role-Playing Game and Star Line Publishing
Beginning in 2014, Star Line Publishing will be taking over handling Maid: The Role-Playing Game in English. Maid RPG is a slapstick anime comedy RPG, and an earlier work by Golden Sky Stories designer...
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Yaruki Zero Podcast #21: Today in Geek History Part 2
This special episode is a compilation of the second half of the “Today in Geek History” daily podcast I posted on Tumblr. (Here’s Part 1) This is a part of I’ve been working on a humor book titled “I...
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Roles
I’ve been saying for a while now that I’m really looking forward to the games that draw on D&D4e for inspiration but improve on its ideas in various ways. (And I really need to get around to...
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Magical Burst Update
I’m getting fairly close to finishing the 4th draft of Magical Burst, which as I said will hopefully be the last major revision before publication. Naturally when I could’ve been working on it I...
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Conventions
It was in May of 2013 that I mostly swore off going to conventions. Not permanently or absolutely, but indefinitely, and for health reasons. I have problems with anxiety. In scientific terms anxiety is...
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D&D 5E First Impressions
On July 3rd the free PDF of the D&D Basic Rules went up on the WotC site, and the Starter Set went on sale at local game stores (with a wider release to come on the 15th). I’ve had a rather unusual...
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Being Human Together
The past few weeks have been kind of bizarre for me. D&D5E and the issues surrounding it have me feeling pretty much done with D&D for the time being. I may wind up playing it if my friends...
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Inclusivity Stuff
For a variety of reasons I’ve been thinking a lot about diversity, about identity politics, and about my role as a creative person. I feel like I’m in the middle of a slow and at times painful process...
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Choose Your Own
The notion of a book where the reader makes choices as they progress through a story seems to have first appeared (being described but not executed) in a Jorge Luis Borges story. The early branching...
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Making Stuff
On Friday, November 14th, I got laid off from my day job. I don’t want to get into that too much here, but suffice to say I should’ve started looking for a new job before events forced the issue....
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2014 in Review
2014 was a really weird year for me, and insofar as arbitrary numbers on years have any significance I can’t say I’ll miss this particular one. I got a lot of stuff done (including finally publishing I...
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Magical Fury and Magical Burst
On Sunday I launched Magical Fury as a PDF product on DriveThruRPG (also, an updated version of Entanglements as a Pay What You Want product). As I mentioned earlier, it’s a much simpler dark magical...
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Patreon
For those of you who might not be familiar, Patreon is a newer crowdfunding platform that’s been growing quickly. Where Kickstarter lets creators realize a single project in a month-long funding drive,...
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Updates on Assorted Projects
Fullmetal President The game is coming along nicely. I did some important revisions based on the first playtest and some feedback, and I’m going to be doing some more playtesting soon. I also included...
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Thoughts on Board Games
Today I bought a card game about farming beans. Specifically, Uwe Rosenberg’s Bohnanza. My interest in board games has increased quite a bit lately, and although I don’t have a lot of money to throw...
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Ewen’s Tables
The other day I finished the 36th and (for the time being) final installment of Ewen’s Tables, my series of little PDFs of d66 tables. Some turned out better than others, but the best ones can produce...
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Randomness in RPGs
I’ve been reading Steward Woods’ Eurogames, a book that aims to lay out an overview of the origins, design trends, and culture around German-style board games. There’s a lot of interesting stuff there,...
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Persona 3 & 4 (and Zero Hour)
A while back I took advantage of an Amazon Lightning Deal to get a PlayStation TV, which in case you don’t know is basically the guts of a Vita in a little box that plugs into your TV. The selection of...
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RPG Combat (and Zero Breakers)
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how RPGs handle combat. It’s one of those things that people are weird about. People who enjoy entertainment without fighting on a regular basis and whose RPG...
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