Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Mapping the Blogspace

What RPG blogs out there should I be reading? I already read anyway and Shining Dodecahedron pretty often. I get the 20x20 livejournal feed, too. A lot of other blogs get occaisional hits.

Who else has a frequently updating blog that talks, thoughtfully, about role-playing games and their design? Feel free to pimp your own site, or recommend someone else's.

Thanks!

26 Comments:

Blogger Ed H said...

Ben --

"thoughtfully" is more than I could possibly offer; lately I've just been snarking, but http://esotericmurmurs.blogspot.com/ is where I post my random subjective bleats about maters roleplayey and gamey.

11:24 AM  
Blogger Ed H said...

Man, I can't believe I'm the only one that commented. Are you reading both the Matts' blogs, Snyder and Wilson?

2:26 AM  
Blogger Sven Holmström said...

Well, this is not really what you are asking for, but I write about rpg, focusing on Swedish Freeform and larp at http://polyfem.blogspot.com/

On Sunday there will be texts on the larp we will join this Friday.

5:48 AM  
Blogger John Harper said...

I write about Danger Patrol development and some general design stuff here:

http://mightyatom.blogspot.com

I also participate in a group game design blog called Attacks of Opportunity:

http://attacksofopportunity.blogspot.com

7:20 AM  
Blogger Ben said...

Sven -- that's exactly what I'm looking for. I am interested in all schools of serious thought about RPG, including freeform LARP (which I have done my fair share of) and especially the scandanavian schools.

yrs--
--Ben

P.S. I owe you a well thought out GNS explanation. Would you like your own thread in this blog, to handle it back at the LJ open house, or to do it by e-mail? I'm open to any of them.

11:05 AM  
Blogger Joshua A.C. Newman said...

Well, I'm working on RPGs, and I talk about it over at Monkey King, but I talk about other stuff too. Little of it is theory, though I find its discussion enlightening.

Currently in process:

Book design for Mountain Witch
Book design for Dogs in the Vineyard, 2nd ed.
Under the Bed - a game of magical childhood (and maybe horror)
Science Fiction - The World's First Science Fiction Role Playing Game.

10:31 PM  
Blogger Sven Holmström said...

"and especially the scandanavian schools."

We seem to have kind of a bad rep, but at the same time people are curious, because they don't understand what we are doing. Have you seen Paranoia-Costikyans report from meeting Swedes in Denmark? It's linked near the top at my blog (the link is to ugly for this comment).

" I owe you a well thought out GNS explanation." Well I thought you never... That would be great. There are actually questions to follow that one, but I will come to that later. I would prefer to keep the discussion on web. If it should be on blogspot or livejournal doesn't matter to me. It's upt to where you want to write.

BTW I will write some kind of lengthy comment on your Gamism rules all-rant; I got so many conversations in my head while reading it that I have to make som noise. On my blog it will be. At the moment I have to get away to prepare larp. (No, I won't do costumes. This is Sweden. We will prepare by playing out a few everyday activities by people in Stockholm, 2005. And there will be some talk about sexual rituals I guess.)

12:19 AM  
Blogger Jonas Karlsson said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

4:06 AM  
Blogger Jonas Karlsson said...

Re-post: Html screw-up.

Of course I'll have to pimp my blog Jonas dagar. I only recently started writing in English, the older stuff's in Swedish, but I write about my two interests: RPGs and film. My latest RPG topic is a comparison between Stephen King's suggestions on writing novels and Vincent Baker's article "Creating Theme".

Other blogs I frequently read, apart from the ones already suggested (I read all of them), are Jared's Memento Mori journal (he mostly talk about his latest dark superhero project Darkpages and not roleplaying in general), Andy K's, Jonas Barkå's (a friend of mine and Sven, he writes about nordic lajv, freeform and White Wolf products since he's the main reviewer of their products for a Swedish magazine).

Since I'm not allowed to comment in Sven's GNS thread, I'll say here that I like the idea of personal but public discussions, it's a lot more useful for the rest of us than an e-mail discussion between you two. I'll follow it with interest. If you're interested in Swedish roleplaying, both tabletop, freeform and lajv, please bring questions to the blogs of Sven or me. Hmm, I think I'll add a "Suggest a topic" function on my page, since it's hard to know what discussions people are interested in. I guess the only thing holding me back is the prospect of 0 suggestions the next couple of months.

4:38 AM  
Blogger Cayzle said...

Well, let me whore my own blog, as well as that of my friend, Nexx.

My blog, Cayzle's Wemic Site comes out thrice a week: once on wemics, once on D&D rules, and once on interesting game stuff I find online.

Nexx's blog, The Cranky Gamer offers constructive rants on what he sees wrong in D&D and other game systems.

Please try both!

11:25 AM  
Blogger Ben said...

Thanks, Jonas! Yay Scandanavians!

Yay Wemics, also! Wemics are the bomb. In that they explode, and kill people.

yrs--
--Ben

12:49 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm starting up a humble webblog for amateur game design here: link

Well, for what it's worth :)

11:01 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ben:

As someone who can only respond with argumentative commentary on other's original blogs, I shouldn't tell you about my blog.

But, lateral tangents is the place where I'm trying to work out my own practical ways of thinking about roleplaying, rpg design, and a few socio-political issues that catch my fancy.

Cheers,


Jason
"Oh, it's you...
deadpanbob"

9:19 AM  
Blogger Ben said...

Jason -- Are you and Tim Kirk the main contributers to Rainfall?

yrs--
--Ben

10:09 AM  
Blogger Ben said...

New policy, everyone -- You have to tell me your full name to be linked. Period.

yrs--
--Ben

10:10 AM  
Blogger Nathan P. said...

Heya - just started my (occasional) theory and (more likely) design journal blog here. And I mean just started. But my..uh...June resolution is to regularly update! I did post about bricolage, though, so it's not a total wasteland.

Name = Nathan Paoletta.

2:44 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey Ben,

I'm blogging a bit more these days.

http://gildedmoose.blogs.com/gilded_moose_games/

It's not rpg exclusive though...not even mostly at this point.

- Scott

8:34 AM  
Blogger Ben said...

Scott --

Yeah, I'm kind of torn.

On the one hand, it is more about basketball than gaming.

On the other hand, my fanboy meter is going SCOTT KNIPE!!! OMG!!!

(yeah, I really liked Wyrd and Charnel Gods.)

I'll chew on it.

yrs--
--Ben

9:26 AM  
Blogger Brand Robins said...

I just started an RPG theory blog of my own. Not really got a solid direction to it yet, other than "talk seriously about games" but hopefully it'll grow.

It's at: http://yudhishthirasdice.blogspot.com/

12:03 PM  
Blogger Martin Ralya said...

Okay, I'll pimp: I started Treasure Tables, a weblog for GMs, last week (treasuretables.org). Five fairly thoughtful posts in the can already.

I'm using TT to keep my creative juices flowing (I do freelance writing), and to share ideas with other GMs. Take a peek, if you're so inclined, and let me know what you think! :)

11:31 AM  
Blogger Martin Ralya said...

D'oh! The above would be Martin, as in Martin Ralya. I didn't catch the bit about full names until I'd already posted. (Sorry about that!)

11:34 AM  
Blogger Christopher Moore said...

pimping:

yurugames.blogspot.com

I'd love for someone to come and critique my new game.

7:19 AM  
Blogger NOBODIE's said...

I was just coming to pimp, yurugames.blogspot.com but I see Mr. Moore was already here. I play in his group and let me say - I was a Virgin to gaming until I became part of this group, and if it wasn't for the changes Chris has made I know I would not have kept playing.
So I wanted to give props and pimp him out.
~Peace Out~

3:25 PM  
Blogger Troy_Costisick said...

Heya,

I recently generated a design blog, Ben. Here's the address if you are interested in linking it on your site: http://socratesrpg.blogspot.com/

Peace,

-Troy

10:29 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey, I want to add my RPG blog to the list:

www.livejournal.com/users/incitefulgames

I've been focusing on the design elements of my own games thus far, but it could evolve from there.


Thanks!

12:11 PM  
Blogger Rob Muadib said...

Ben

Hey,converted my blog to word-press and moved my blog to choicer digs at http://wildmusings.wildmusegames.com , This is R.A. Mosley (AKA Rob Muadib)

10:31 AM  

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