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Category Archives: Editorials

A Rule Book for Each Player

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Have you ever noticed that board games come with one rule book, but they are typically designed for two to four players? Why? They come with more than one token — one for each player. Why not include more than one rule book — how about one for each player?
What would be served by including [...]

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Notes on Skills 2

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Exactly a year two years and a day ago, I posted my Notes on Skills, and quite coincidentally I have been thinking about skills in Fudge again. The most important thing to remember about skills is that they need to be self-explanatory, especially if you desire to comply with one of the major design principles [...]

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Separation Between Attributes and Skills

Monday, January 12, 2009

The topic of whether and/or how one ought to link attributes and skills is a perennial one in Fudge discussions. It’s understandable, too. Fudge doesn’t link them. Ironically, the deliberate separation between attributes and skills is one of its greatest innovations, yet it is the first thing that many want to change. This is an [...]

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Promoting Clarity in Gaming

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

To promote clarity in gaming is to promote gaming itself. If one wants to reach others, one attempts to communicate with them. Most game companies do not wish to exclude potential customers, but sometimes their adherence to old habits of convenience (such as the ridiculous overuse of acronyms and initialisms) is more an obstacle than [...]

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Deliberate Obfuscation in Gaming

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Sometimes a little issue reminds one of a bigger issue. In this case, the little issue is that of the occasional difficulty of interpreting a role-playing game’s attributes so I can include them in my List of Attributes by Game. Sometimes the only access I have to a game is its character sheet, which is [...]

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Yet Another D&D Edition

Friday, August 31, 2007

Most game companies want their prospective customers to know what they are offering with as little fuss as possible. Most game companies will go out of their way to provide a little information for free about a product that is no longer a secret. This is not the case with Wizards of the Coast. It [...]

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Mana Everywhere; It’s Like Manna

Thursday, July 19, 2007

House rules for magic systems are not in short supply. Whether you are searching for variants of your favorite system, adaptations from one game system to another, or unique systems that have been fashioned by skilled craftsman who suffer for their art and offer it to the world without monetary compensation, they are abundant. One [...]

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