Knight-Errant of Precious Snowflakes

A sandbox setting can be described as one where the player-characters can go and do whatever pleases them--or at least attempt to do so--rather than following a plot.

A railroad campaign can be described as one where the player-characters follow the dictates of the plot, and have freedom only within its confines.

We can thus place Railroad (all story, no roaming) on one end of a scale, and place Sandbox (all roaming, no story) on the opposite side. I posit that these are not binary opposites,… Continue

It seems as though if one works at game design long enough, one tends eventually toward game theory. Specifically, there is a trend towards categorising game systems. This is my effort, and not a very serious one; merely something to think about.

Game systems are either solid, semi-solid, or made of components. These descriptions are not judgemental; one is not inherently better than the others. These descriptions are only meant as an observation. They are descriptive, not proscriptive. I confe… Continue

I actually wrote this about four years ago, but never posted or published it anywhere until now. It is meant as a customised introduction based on the player's prior gaming experience. It's written for new players to Midian, but most of this fits just about any rpg.

• I played other tabletop roleplaying games extensively


• I've only played d20


• I used to play D&D in high school or junior high

… Continue

Once again, someone has probably beaten me to this idea, but here it is anyway. I do not claim that this is new, unique, or revolutionary. I claim only that it is a neat and thought-provoking idea, and that it was independently thought of by me.

The idea is to have an editable rules system. This could be edited (and hosted) on a wiki or something similar. Anything and everything would be fair game. You could, for example, add a new class, change the attack roll from 1D20 to 2D12, rename hit poi… Continue

This is a random idea for a narrative/lite style game engine. The basic idea is to have game characters similar to those in a novel. You may have a highly skilled character, but you don't have to invest as much time & effort into character generation. This also serves to make the character easier to 'get into' as much of the skillset isn't revealed initially. There is no game engine for this, and there may never be--the idea itself isn't married to any particular mechanic.

As always, there… Continue