Compromise and Conceit

Infernal adventuring…

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An Australian statistician and role-player living in Japan, interested in the theory and practice of role-playing…

Category: Game reviews

  • Japanese role-playing game Double Cross 3: Scenario Craft Random Modules

    In my previous post about playing this game on Sunday, I mentioned that we used a type of module called “Scenario Craft,” in which every element of the module except a vague skeleton of the plot is random. This post gives a little more detail about the scenario craft process. The book The scenario craft…

  • Play-testing the Japanese RPG Double Cross 3

    At this month’s Oita Evil Spirts Konkon convention, I got a chance to play in a session of Double Cross 3 (DX3), which is the Japanese RPG I’ve been putting up information about here. This was my first (and only?!) chance to play this game, and so even though I was sorely tempted to join…

  • Japanese role-playing game Double Cross: Skill resolution

    We saw in my previous post how a simple character is made in the Double Cross role-playing game. I have subsequently skipped across the more complex character generation rules straight to the bit about how the characters operate in practice, i.e. how tasks are resolved. This is basically divided into two parts, the standard skill…

  • Japanese role-playing game “Double Cross 3”: Character Creation

    I promised I would read through this game and give a full report, and by now I’ve read far enough through to make an attempt at character creation. There are two methods of character creation, Quickstart and Construction. The former is done by choosing a sample character and then developing a life-path for it; the…

  • Current reading: Warhammer 3

    The owner of my FLGS gave me a copy of Warhammer 3 (yes, in Steamy Beppu, the FLGS really is Friendly) to read so I can run a game in Japanese, so recently I’ve been reading it and doing some trial fights[1]. I don’t get to run a game until late June, but I think…

  • Japanese Role-playing game “Double Cross 3”: Introduction

    I’m playing at my local gaming convention this Sunday, and there’s a risk that I’ll be invited into a Japanese-made role-playing game, so against this risk I thought I’d read one of the more popular (and cheaper) Japanese-made games, both to get an introduction to the feeling of Japanese games and to learn some language;…

  • Current gaming: The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness

    This game gets added to the small list of games I have managed to complete, so it enters the hallowed halls alongside Baldur’s Gate 2, Freedom Force vs. the Third Reich and Halo. It’s a short, horror/comedy game apparently based on a comic book from Penny Arcade, and is completely hilarious from the opening moment.…

  • Current playing: Exalted

    I started playing in an Exalted game yesterday. Until yesterday I didn’t really know much about Exalted or the World of Darkness games, which are apparently related to it, and I had heard rumours that it is a little too complex to be played sensibly. However, I like the basic idea for the world, which…

  • Further comments on Feng Shui’s 2056 “dystopia”

    Goddamn! The things one has to do just to get an argument these days! This is a response to my friend’s response to my previous post about Feng Shui’s 2056 dystopia. In essence, Paul objects to everything I say on principle, which makes it easy to argue with him. I just need to disagree with…

  • Feng Shui’s strange future “dystopia”

    Our DM (who is so old-fashioned he doesn’ t even have a blog) is drip-feeding us information about the Feng Shui world, so I can’t say too much about where we are or what we are doing, but our characters have ended up in 2056 in a strange future “dystopia” controlled by a bunch of…