Inept Writes Games

Last week, I went to a talk hosted by the British Library to round off their excellent Fantasy: Realms of Imagination exhibition. Sadly, the exhibition is finished, but it was a fantastic look at the history and breadth of fantasy in fiction, folklore, and popular culture; with many of its talks still on the British Library's Living Knowledge Network. This talk, about the history and early days of Dungeons and Dragons 50 years ago, was mediated by Matthew Clayton with two speakers: Sir Ian Livingstone; co-creator of Games Workshop, Chairman of Eidos Interactive, and author of many of the Fighting Fantasy book series. Mark Hulmes; GM for High Rollers & Nights of Evenstar, and regular GM for Wizards of the Coast, DnD in a Castle, and many others. Each speaker was given some time to give a short talk, then there was a short discussion between the panellists, and finally there were questions from the audience.  Sir Ian’s talk was focused on the intersection between his company, Ga...

Or, As Little as Possible, As Much as Necessary In a recent conversation with a friend of mine elbow-deep into their latest WIP , the topic of worldbuilding came up. More specifically, about when and how to worldbuild in the context of writing settings for a gamebook. My view? As little as possible; as much as necessary. This is a fun phrase, but it’s also pretty trite, so let's unpack it. We’ll also talk a little bit about what draws me as a GM to a particular system’s setting, and how I adapt setting guides into my storytelling and play, and what sorts of lessons we can draw as designers from that. To be clear - we’re working from a philosophy here that prioritises time at the table over time in prep - if you enjoy reading a tie-in novel to get you in the mood, for example - this won’t necessarily be useful to you. Here’s a (partially) rhetorical exercise: When I’m running a game, 90% of that setting’s lore is functionally useless. What does the snake kingdom of Najara have to do...