Two-Player Creativity Is Harder

Of course not every game of In This World has been magical, but when I hear about sessions that dragged, they often have one thing in common:

Only two players.

In a high creativity game, the difference between two and three players is bigger than it seems. When there’s only one other person in the game, you’re the only one listening to them and thinking of responses. It’s more like tennis, where you have to field every volley. It’s all on you. You never really have the option to kick … [ read more ]

In This World, Playtesters Are Awesome

“This was the first time someone said, ‘I wish this was our world.'”

The playtest reports for In This World keep rolling in and I could not be happier with them.

Playtesters, you’re doing a great job. I don’t respond to every email unless I have some questions or don’t understand some of the feedback, but trust me, I am pouring over every one of your reports with a fine-toothed comb.

Keep it coming! If you’ve already played it and get to play again, I’d love to hear about it.

God Is the Algorithm

I blame Caroline, for making a world where God decides your social media feed based on your virtues or sins, but is also totally cool with virtue signaling.

New Version of In This World Is Ready

Updated rules for In This World has gone out to playtesters!

If you signed up and didn’t get an email, scream and shout! (Unless you just signed up in the last day or so, in which case you get a link when the next batch goes out in a day or two) And if you are interested in trying it out but haven’t volunteered, now’s your chance.

My plan for this update was just to clarify some bits that tripped a few groups up, but then I dove in and … [ read more ]

More Playtesters!

I’m preparing a new revision of the In This World rules. No major changes, mostly clarification and text tweaks. I’m also opening up the playtest for more volunteers. So if you want in, sign up!

Playtest Sign-up for In This World

If you signed up for the last round, you don’t need to fill in the form again. You’ll get an email with the new version as soon as it’s ready.

Because in this world, we do more playtesting.

Santa Walks Among Us…

The Sunday night crew took a break from Kingdom to playtest some In This World. Our topic? XMAS!!! So much fun! And only 50% dark! Check out this write-up by Caroline:

less than three blog: In This Christmas

And next xmas eve, remember to douse the holiday lights so Santa can’t find your house and steal your toys!!!

In This World, Two Things Collide

We playtested a slight variation on the rules for In This World: instead of just picking one topic, you pick two that relate or intersect, then make statements about one or both of those things. For example:

family + nations
war + technology
food + ecology

I think there are generally two cases you’d see. One is where the two topics are pretty closely related, so by including both you’re getting a tighter focus on a particular subset of the subject matter (like war + technology). The other case is … [ read more ]

One Missing Corner

Game design metaphor time, because what game designer doesn’t like metaphors? Are not all our games metaphors??? Anyway.

When I’m stuck on a design, it almost always looks like this:

I’ve got a solid idea of what I want the game to be (it’s a square!) and I’ve got most of the procedures that create that thing (three corners are set!). But then… there’s a missing bit. The last corner. I know the exact size and shape of the gap, but I’m not quite happy with what I’m putting there … [ read more ]

In This World, You Can’t Stop Thinking

I love how after you’ve played In This World, just hearing real world statements gets your brain juices churning:

Pet owners outlive their pets
Priests believe in god
Food is made of plants and animals
Space is mostly empty
People apply for jobs

Those are totally innocent, factual statements. But once you’ve got In This World in your head, when you hear them you can’t help but ask “yes, but what if..???” Statements become questions. Simple observations become springboards for examination.

That’s what I’ve been doing for months and … [ read more ]

In This World, The Playtest Chugs Along

The playtest for In This World is chugging along nicely. We’ve got over a hundred volunteers, which should do very well, so I’ve closed the sign-up for now.

I’ve already started getting great feedback. Some very interesting worlds being made, and also a few places where I clearly need to tighten up the game text.

Thanks playtesters, and keep it coming!

“the stories it lets me tell with my dearest friends”

Sometimes it’s very nice to check your email:

As we’ve gotten to the end of the year, folks are reflecting on the tabletop we’ve gotten to play over the last 12 months, and the standout for me was an incredible four-session run at Kingdom 2e that I’m going to be thinking about for ages. That alone is worth reaching out to you for… but that Kingdom game was the resolution of stories we told over the two years prior in a setting we all built together with Microscope!

Our little

Ghost of Astariole’s Wife

Old school D&D story time:

During an attack on the Wizard’s Guild, Astariole’s wife was caught in the magical crossfire and killed. But Trey (Astariole’s player) decided not to raise her from the dead because she was Druidic and therefore all about reincarnation instead.*

It was really a “meh” decision for all of us, an opportunity to write-out an uninteresting character. Despite being introduced years before, when we were all just kids, she had never been fleshed out as a person — which, as the DM, was all my fault. … [ read more ]

In This World, It’s Time to Game

In This World is out! For playtesters anyway.

If you signed up to playtest you should have gotten an email with a download link Friday night. If you don’t see it, and it’s not in your spam, drop me a comment below to make sure you get hooked up. If you signed up after Friday, I’ll send out another round in a day or two, so don’t worry that you’re missing the boat.

We got *a lot* of volunteers for the playtest, which is very exciting. You are many, but … [ read more ]

Playtest In This World

My new game, In This World, is ready for outside playtesting. I’ve played it a bunch, made some tweaks and refinements, and now it’s ready for you:

Playtest Sign-up for In This World

It’s a very accessible game, probably more than any other game I’ve made. I think it would work great even for people with zero role-playing game experience. And as always I’m looking for playtesters who will get people together and play, not just read the game.

After we get some people signed up I’ll send out … [ read more ]

Uncanny Valley Androids & Secret Sacred Laws

Just played two fantastic games of In This World, back-to-back, with Story Games Seattle veterans Ace and Joe.

Yes, we played one game, and then got so excited we jumped right back in and played another.

Why? Because after the first game, which got us chatting a mile a minute, Ace made a comment which led Joe to ask, hmmm, what about using this In This World in this way instead..? So we turned on a dime and tried it and damn if it didn’t work great. Surprisingly great. … [ read more ]