Writing… about role-playing?

This site is about fantasy role-playing and computer games. I am particularly interested in the development of role-playing worlds and systems, and the relationship between the two. I am also interested in some of the cultural phenomena of role-playing, and what role-playing books and media can tell us about the world around us, about nerds, and about our current culture. Since no-one will read this, it hardly matters, but still, if one has an opinion…

13 Responses to “Writing… about role-playing?”

Andy K Says:

June 16, 2010 at 1:03 am
Heya, you probably saw my posts already on your Doublecross 3 threads. If you haven’t already, please join http://www.j-rpg.com ! We’d love to have your insight, especially me, as DX is one of my favorite RPGs in concept and form.

http://j-rpg.com/talk/comments.php?DiscussionID=42&page=1

Plus, in one of the hidden-to-outsiders chats, we’re talking about a private translation for owners of the book:

http://j-rpg.com/talk/comments.php?DiscussionID=45&page=1#Comment_323

Thanks!
Andy K aka Diamond Sutra
faustusnotes Says:

June 16, 2010 at 7:19 am
Hi! I’d be interested in getting involved in your chat and forums, but I should warn you my Japanese really isn’t very good – I don’t know that I’d be much use. But I’ll toddle over and have a look!
Scott Shafer Says:

December 24, 2010 at 7:57 am
Where are you located in Japan? I have not had much luck trying to find local gamers in the Yokosuka are.
faustusnotes Says:

December 24, 2010 at 5:34 pm
I’m in rural Japan, in Beppu in Kyushu. I found my players by searching online in Japanese. Maybe you need to search that way too. But in Yokosuka there is a marine base isn’t there? If so you should be able to find players through that world pretty easily if you can find a bulletin board of some sort.
Scott Shafer Says:

December 27, 2010 at 3:39 pm
Its a Naval base. I’m a chaplain on a ship, but wanted to check out more of the local gaming scene.
armor body Says:

January 3, 2011 at 8:50 am
The text is jammbled is there something wrong with the site?
William Huber Says:

September 4, 2011 at 3:45 am
Hello, faustusnotes –

Perhaps I’m being clueless, but I was looking for contact info to send you a quick email. I pretty much just wanted to cite a couple of your blogposts (in my diss.), and was hoping to be able to use your real name. Would you be able to email it/message it to me, if that’s ok with you? Otherwise, I’ll just cite “faustusnotes” and my committee will roll its eyes all the more.

The posts about post-scarcity in fantasy (I’m actually amazed by the extent to which D&D is based on the Protestant work ethic, as an aside) and women in TRPGs are especially strong.

Many thanks.
Claytonian Says:

December 17, 2011 at 8:03 pm
I don’t know how to contact you either. Let me just say that if you are ever up for gaming in Japan (including constacon-style stuff) shoot me a line!
Dennis Langley Says:

February 21, 2012 at 3:40 am
I have nominated you for the Versatile Blogger Award. Check it out at: Permalink: http://langleyblog.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/positive-reinforcement/
I am always interested to see your posts as you have a unique approach.
Thank you.
faustusnotes Says:

February 21, 2012 at 9:54 am
Thanks … hope I win!!
Dennis Langley Says:

February 21, 2012 at 9:55 pm
You did by being nominated. Congrats.
Phil Says:

July 6, 2014 at 7:55 am
Why why helloooooo S.G! How are you?
Mark Dekin Says:

March 21, 2020 at 5:55 am
Hello, I stumbled across your site and I noticed you have an invested interest in RPG systems. IDK where else to message you so I will do it here. Now I am not going to claim I found the one dice system that is better than any other, but I was messing around with anydice.com and found a dice system that seems to exactly match the probability curves that I wanted: a bell curve with better
roll average with better skill and a steeper curve (i.e. more consistent) with better skill as well. Now it is NOT a dice pool system, to which I was originally a fan of. But at any rate here is how it works:

There is 3 dice you roll for each “test” One for your attribute one for your skill and another from whatever would make sense for the system, i.e. general proficiency, splitting body/mentality, etc. Rolling 3 dice and adding them together gave me that nice bell curve. So each of these is ranked from d12 to d4, reducing the amount of math, we are already adding the dice changing the amount of sides would resolve some modifiers.

Sound similar to Savage Worlds I bet? Well, here is where things get turned on their heads; the part that makes it a good fit. When you improve a skill by raising the amount of sides you run into problems, you get into a lot of situation where attempts are impossible where they should actually be improbably, also when you raise the amount of sides on a die you get less consistent rather than more consisted, i.e. a flatter bell curve. It’s only natural to think you want to roll, but in this you want to roll low. so having 3d12s is bad where 3d4 is great.

With rolling low you flip it on its head, you steepen the curve, become more consistent while still improving you average. Now you may still need to add modifiers here for conditional stuff and other surrounding things related to the rest of the system. But thought I’d share it with you. I am trying to make a home-brew system off of this, but it is a large endeavor.