Primeval Games Press

Trials of the Grail

Assume the role of questing knights in an archetypal Grail Quest of your own making.

City of Birds

Take your place in the greatest of cities through diceless stoytelling.

Blessed

Post-apocalyptic RPG. Serve your corporation; cleanse the world.

Me and the Rat

A tactical parlor game of resource trading and hammy spy action.

Clash of the Ancients

Crush your pitiful enemies in this live-action strategy game.

Role-Playing Structures II

In my previous essay, I introduced what I see as the two major “structures” of role-playing, mechanisms and imaginings. Here I’ll explore them further: their components, their interaction, and their use.

Exchanging Nouns for Verbs

RPGs have generally organized things into nouns and verbs. This is the distinction Chris Crawford makes regarding computer games—and I’ve written about applying this framework to RPGs—but it is tacitly done already.

RPGs and Interactive Design

The following is a rumination on role-playing games and their design, in response to Chris Crawford’s The Art of Interactive Design. Crawford is writing principally about computer software. I’m merely taking some of his ideas and applying them to role-playing. My thoughts are highly influenced by Ron Edwards’ System Does Matter and the “lumpley principle” by Vincent Baker, but this essay is not about them per se. Crawford’s ideas point to similar conclusions, but frame them in a somewhat different way. I’m responding here to just a part of Interactive Design, so there may be more ruminations to follow.

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