ars ludi

Trying something new! I’ve uploaded a gameplay video of one of our In This World sessions. The topic for our worlds: Vacations! I’ve never tried posting video of our sessions before, but a lot of people have asked to see what all my games look like in action, so we’ll see how this works! It […]

A quick interview with the nice folks of Pizza Games in Milan: I would definitely double down on the idea that the purpose of game rules is to help us get the most out of our time. All the other stuff — having fun, getting on the same page, being clearly written — comes back […]

This interview I did with Dave Pruner on Electric Dice was a ton of fun. Is it gaming advice? Is it advice for living your best life? Who says it can’t be both!?! Note to self: do more interviews and panels. Talking about all the awesome games and all the awesome gamers is always fun. […]

I’m going to be doing a live interview / chat with Dave Pruner on Twitch this Thursday. We may be talking about everything from Microscope to West Marches, and if you show up you can spam chat with your own deeply thoughtful questions. Electric Dice on Twitch Thursday May 7 7 PM EDT If you […]

Back with the fine folks at HyperRPG, talking about Microscope. And a bit about Follow. And West Marches. And Braunstein. And Pokemon Go. We cover some territory, we do. The bad news is, I have no idea why there is jazz playing the whole time. We couldn’t hear it in the studio. Yeah, it’s kind […]

I was on my way to make a surprise appearance on Strix’s Weekly Affirmations show on HyperRPG when it occurred to me that in the seven years I’ve been playing Microscope, I had never recorded a session I played. Ever. So if you’ve been curious to see how I play and teach Microscope (with occasional […]

Yesterday we brewed the strong coffee (and tea) and sat down and talked about the wonders and woes of Kickstarters. (depicted: me doing some kind of magic trick, apparently) There’s an audio malfunction for about a minute towards the end that gives my voice a robotic, destroy-all-humans quality. You can’t make it out, but I […]

We got together to film Caroline’s new game, Downfall, so you can watch the action in living color. Was there drinking? There might have been some drinking. I’ve been playtesting Downfall over the last two years and I have to say, it rocks. It’s on Kickstarter right now so check it out!

Story games documentary time! https://www.lamemage.com/friends/Story_Games_by_Film_342.mp4 [ don’t be alarmed, the first thirty seconds or so is black, but if you have trouble here’s a direct link ] That’s me, J.C. and Natalie playing, plus Ashley and Ed at the interview table. The background action is all the awesome folks of Story Games Seattle playing at […]

Meaty, behind-the-scenes documentary examining how our dark and epic Salem Fiasco game was translated into a movie, The Devil Walks in Salem: [ direct link ] Tons of fantastic moments with Caroline Hobbs, Jerome Virnich and Pat Kemp talking about our session and story games in general. Some great examination of the wheels-within-wheels that make […]

Great interview with Tre’ and Pete for LUG Con (“Let Us Game”), an online gaming convention. We pre-recorded it back in August, but it just went online. We were supposed to talk for 30 minutes but we got on a roll and time slipped by and then the sun came up. Tre’ also hosted a […]

The video from our Collaborative World-Building panel at ConTessa is up: I think we could have talked about this for hours. And hours. And then a few more hours. Thanks to Meguey Baker, Brad Murray, Lowell Francis, and our host Sherri Stewart for a very fun and insightful discussion.

Jay Loomis put together a great video interviewing folks from the Seattle-Olympia story games family, including yours truly, flanked by ducks. “Play more! Less talk, more play! More play!”