Roleplaying games from historical research
I’ve been collecting books for years. In part this is because I’m a librarian, and so I’m trained to see the value in written things. In part it’s because I’m an Ars Magica author, and so I have a tendency to pick things up and think :”One day I may need this for a book…
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It’s still fermenting away on its own page. New this week: complete stats for the other three Companion level characters. Next week I’ll be skipping for the holidays, then returning with some grog kits, and the beginning of the serious folklore work. You might think the 5 000 words of folklore you see there now…
Read MoreSo, the vanilla covenant project is moving forward again: stats for specialists this and next week. Also, I found this on my hard drive while I was cleaning out. I’m guessing I did it before the associated book came out?
Read MoreI was interviewed about a MOOC I was studying, and the interview has just been published. It’s at the tail end of this bio piece about my lecturer. http://www.westword.com/2013-10-24/news/william-kuskin-university-of-colorado/
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Over on the Ars Forum, people have been suggesting we don’t have enough material for new players, and so I’ve decided to write some material which is based on making the obvious design choices. It’s about a covenant which is a castle on a hill by a faerie forest. It’s in Summer, and has senior…
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An explanation for why the blog has been so quiet of late, and a rough draft for my graphic novel essay. Final submission draft It is very similar to the rough photos. I tried to redraw it, but when I laid out the first grid, it looked too artificial. I like that this has the slightly warped…
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In the first session I played Lady Blackbird. We did some character generation, and my take was this: Rodriguez the Space Ninja Silence (Movement, Attacks, About Motives) Destroying Things (Precision, In Person, Retrotech) Gadgets (Improvised, Retrotech, Stolen) Keys: Impatience with frivolity Desire to perform a single, decisive action which resolves situations. Secrets: One Perfect…
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So, listening today to Kate Bush and “Wuthering Heights” I was struck by a few questions. Why does the ghost have to keep telling Heathcliff it is Cathy? Surely he knows what Cathy looks like. It’s not an amorphous blob. It looks, if we are to believe the film clip, rather like a woman in…
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I’m wanting to give strong direction to new players here, so the virtues can’t just be “Divide by 2 rather than 5 for spellcasting totals”. I’m looking to give a serious twist to the characters, and put in some Victorian steampunk pseudoscience too. Here are the basic virtue sets Monkey Testicles Your character has eight monkey…
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A quick note to mention my latest Librivox recording: Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic is useful for Ars Magica players whose stories are set along the great Ocean, and is interesting for folkloristis generally. My part’s about Antilia, which I’ve been trying to shoehorn into Ars for a decade or so. Sadly…
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Games From Folktales 