Having heard about the beta testing that Disney started earlier this year in February, I have been looking forward to the chance to check it out. And have to say, it was a lot of fun.
Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom is an interactive CCG that takes you around the lands of the Magic Kingdom – with the exception of Tomorrowland – as Merlin’s apprentice, battling an array of Disney villains working for Hades. In each of the lands you’re accompanied by various Disney characters that work with you to thwart …

Probably one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned trying to continue gaming while pursuing my career and becoming a homeowner is that you’ve got to come to each session with a lot of flexibility. Whether it trying to schedule the session itself, or the inevitable curve ball your players throw your way, you’ve got to be ready to change course – especially midstream – and continue on.
I’ve already talked about how breaking your sessions up into individual scenes that can be more freely moved around in your timeline can allow …

A few years back I adopted the practice of prologues – or cutaways – at the openings of my sessions to help establish the events that were responsible for starting the plot moving, while providing some background details about the activities of the antagonists, and in general for signaling the beginning of the session and easing everyone into the game.
But I also find it a useful vehicle for letting the players see the impact of their characters’ actions on the unfolding plot. In fact I find this is good …

Recently I started up a mini-series, and decided I’d share my tips on how best to tackle such.
With most RPGs, and tabletops in particular, it’s very easy for one to become accustom to running an ongoing series of chronicles with characters that span years of roleplay.
So the idea of running something a little more condensed can seem daunting.
The one-off is especially tricky, requiring you to be at the best of your game from start to end. With the mini-series you at least get a little bit of leeway, …

SBS, a network in Australia, aired a three-day television ‘event’ this summer called ‘Go Back To Where You Came From’.  It follows “…six ordinary Australians who agree to challenge their preconceived notions about refugees and asylum seekers by embarking on a confronting 25 day journey. Tracing in reverse the journeys that refugees have taken to reach Australia, they travel to some of the most dangerous and desperate corners of the world, with no idea what’s in store for them along the way.”

The video – above – shows an obviously emotional …

A few years ago we had the opportunity to participate in the Waking City alternate reality game that had you solve a series of puzzles as you progressed through the storyline – something I’ll write a bigger post about later on.
One of the things I really enjoyed about it was how it took us through different parts of the city and really made us examine our surroundings. It was like rediscovering the city.
One such location for me was Croft Street.
An area that I’d passed through on many occasions, …

Gamers aren’t just playing games any more. Now we’re solving scientific problems.
Online gamers have been brought together and in a surprisingly short period of time – three weeks – were able to generate an accurate model for the monomeric retroviral protease, a virus from the HIV family, which had stumped scientists for the last decade.
Limited by the traditionally two-dimensional depictions of these viruses, the University of Washington in 2008 developed Foldit and open sourced their research efforts.
The culmination of which is a fun-for-purpose video game which organizes online players …

Among the various games I’ve run, my Flesh & Blood LARP – Live Action Role Play for the uninitiated – has to have been one of my all time best.
Obviously some part of that needs to be credited to me, but I think the freshness of the setting and overall shake up of the material did good things for a gaming community that was otherwise stagnating. Anyone who predated the Camarilla – a fan organization who facilitates game play across a multitude of countries – had generally lost interest …

Now that the weather seems like it’s finally going to stay above the freezing mark, I thought I’d get started on some spring-cleaning and sift through the files recently transferred off of my old computer to figure which of this stuff I really need. Working my way through the mound of notes that was my old Requiem LARP, ‘Flesh & Blood,’ I’ve been rediscovering a lot of the work I’d done trying to make that a successful game, and thought that I should share some of that gained insight.
While there …

Over the years I’ve run tabletops and larger live action games in a variety of ways, and nothing yet has proven to have the same ability as music to propel the game and set the mood.  Tried and true this method is often utilized to signal the beginning of a game, and a great aid for getting the session started on time (a feat I know many of us have struggled with).  Whether it’s the opening theme song chosen for the game, or some generic music the storyteller has found …