ars ludi

Despite the pandemic — or more likely because of it — I played more role-playing games in 2021 than any other year since I started logging my games back in high school. It’s a fact. Playing online via video chat used to seem like a pale imitation of face-to-face gaming, but for logistics it can’t […]

Lo and behold, after twenty years one of the original West Marches players popped back up and shared some memories in the comments, and frankly they are too good not to give a post of their own. Tommy, aka Lucky, aka Briarweed, sez: I stumbled onto some discussions of “West Marches” DM style, and followed […]

“Run the simulation in your head: who moved here, what did they build, what happened to them, and then what came next?” Logic is the cornerstone of a sandbox. If things make sense — if there’s an internal consistency to what’s there and where things are — then players can make good decisions. Paying attention […]

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 […]

Writing about world-building in the expansion to Microscope got me thinking about West Marches again (more on that in part 2), so I’m taking a break from my kickstarter to answer some questions that have piled up. Some of these ideas I’ve mentioned before but never elaborated on. Other bits are things I’ve never talked […]

I came to Wizard’s Creek, but there was no wizard I went to Pike Hollow, but I didn’t see any pikes I looked in the Golden Hills, but I didn’t find any gold So why the hell did you expect me to know there was a centaur in Centaur Grove? –pre-emptive euology of Revor, barbarian […]

In Ben’s original West Marches campaign, he arranged the adventure-filled regions of his wilderness in order of challenge, more or less. The further you were from town, the more likely you were to be in an extremely dangerous place… Ben tells an anecdote about his players fleeing from goblins for days, ultimately having to run […]

Emerald City Comic Con has added a gaming track. I wanted to do this for PAX last year but it didn’t come together. Now the stars have aligned. Sandbox RPGs: Running A “West Marches” Style Campaign Sandbox RPGs put the players in the driver’s seat. Go where you want. Do what you want. Learn dark […]

Seriously, that’s how they explained D&D to me. Listen to the interview, it’ll make sense. Ben Robbins Interview with Bad Wrong Fun This interview brought to you courtesy of Alex Guzman, mastermind of Bad Wrong Fun. They’re running an insane campaign combining Microscope and West Marches. I warned them there were Things Man Was Not […]

Oh sure, you could use Microscope to make an epic history, defying chronological order and jumping back and forth to explore the moments in the history that interest you. Or you could hold up your glossy black book and yell “too easy!” and use it to do something else entirely… City Building with Microscope — […]

The big finale! You thought we’d never make it. We’re continuing from part 5, but if you’re just arriving (because you’re seeing the last post first) you probably want to jump straight to part 1 and start there. Indie 306 So… we’re just about done, unless people have questions? One thing I want to point […]

After West Marches I ran a long-term superhero game, New Century City. Unlike West Marches it followed the more traditional “the GM creates a situation and the players have fun with it” model, which was fitting because superhero games are one of the most reactive genres you can play: villains hatch schemes, heroes react to […]

I got my copy of Open Game Table, The Anthology of Roleplaying Game Blogs. Is there some ars ludi in there, you ask? On yeah. The Braunstein: Roots of Roleplaying article is reprinted, along with all five West Marches articles and Making the Party: Wedge Issues. My only regret is that because of concerns over […]

Alarming fact: brave GMs all over the place are taking up the torch and starting their own West Marches games. Scary isn’t it? I’ve already had some private email conversations about how one would actually build and run a West Marches of their very own. Maybe you’ve got the bug too. Early symptoms include a […]

When you look out from behind your GM screen at all those beaming faces, there is a natural human tendency to focus on what is interesting. Chuck is doing cool stuff, so you pay attention to Chuck. You react to what he’s doing, which means the game world does too. The other players aren’t doing […]

As I’ve said before (and any of the players will tell you) West Marches was dangerous by design. Danger encourages teamwork because you have to work together to survive. It also forces players to think: if they make bad decisions they get wiped out, or at least “chased into the swamp like little sissy girls” […]

Did you read part 1 and part 2 already? No? Go do that. Running frequent on-demand games is a lot of work, but because the campaign was set in a fixed region there were ways I could maximize the reusability of some material I prepared. Recycled Maps: Evolving Dungeons Maps were a good example — […]

Players sharing information was a critical part of the West Marches design. Because there was a large pool of players, the average person was in about a third of the games — or to look it the other way, each player missed two-thirds of the games. Add in that each player was in a random […]

West Marches was a game I ran for a little over two years. It was designed to be pretty much the diametric opposite of the normal weekly game: 1) There was no regular time: every session was scheduled by the players on the fly. 2) There was no regular party: each game had different players […]

I always name games I run. Whether it's going to be a campaign or only one or two sessions, a distinct name gives the players a point of reference, both immediately and long after the game is over. What's more memorable, saying you played in West Marches or “that low level game, the one with […]