Diary of a Failed Game Designer

Hey this is my  300th post..  CELEBRATE.... ok STOP! No more celebrating. Or I'll tell you what I want ... Whichever. On with the  post. The Thing I always appreciated about the Forge * early on was that ideas, good, bad, or indifferent all got thrown around, talked about, and chewed on. If someone posted there with an RPG idea and presented it that person was guaranteed fast feedback. If that feedback was, "I think that idea doesn't work" usually it was followed with a "here's why." If that feed back was "that's, good" it was usually followed with a "how about..." I always found that incredibly interesting to read, even if I lacked the confidence to take part at the time. I think I am a bit of a natural Lurker. That kind of  exchange is what I'm looking for now. Does anyone know of an active group, forum, or other online resource that is dedicated to the open exchange of  RPG ideas?  Not the discussion of a single rpg produc

As a Gm/Dm I feel D&D and any other traditional Role playing game are a two sided coin. One side is the Player centric side. I feel a great desire to listen to my players and try to tease out ideas that they might be interested in. If a player creates a proselytizing cleric, I will drop in people to preach to. Perhaps a town that needs some spiritual guidance.  For example my current party in the  long languishing Aleria campaign contains just such a priest. The town they are settling in  has a church, but it is a bit of a derelict building  left over from more  proserious times. The  player might want to set up shop there preaching his religion, I don't know if he will, but it's there. The other side of the coin: The world focused game is imagined before the players arrive and  everything is in place. The players will make their opportunities in the world as they adventure. Naturally a GM has to adjust a bit with the world reacting to what the players do, but before the pl

Question? Is a game where the Game master is also played like a character? Not a GM less or shared GM game. Rather a game where the Game master starts out with limits, earns a sort of experience, which grants levels, and in turn opens up new play options in the game. I have seen this sort of thing in board games where the person running the game is limited in what they can put into play by points. That's not quite what I'm  thinking of however. Has anything like that been done in the context of an actual RPG? I have never seen a game written with that kind of subsystem. I also know my knowledge of all  the RPG's out there is far from encyclopedic.

I have a senario I have run a few times since I was in high school, usually for new players. It's  ostensibly called the  Dirt Monster adventure. Some of my players might remember running it though to be honest it has been a long time. The game is set up for low level Players. A very simple, cliche set up. Players are in a town , hear a rumour of a local who is having trouble with what little live stock he  keeps. Livestock mostly pigs are showing up dead but uneaten, stocks of  bagged up  walnuts ransacked. So here is the  backstory.  These things can be found out by talking to the farmer. The  farmer a year ago expanded his far to include new grazing lands. In doing so he cleared out some of his old and overgrown  walnut trees. The trees have always been there but are not as productive or as profitable as pigs, so down they came. What nutts he could harvest were bagged and put in the barns basement (which has a floor made of large flagstones) for sale at market latter in the mont

Back to Loot-Box A-Go-Go though this will likely be my last post on this subject (excluding  actual plays) for a while. The comments on my last post  had me thinking about  math, the nature of our brains and what we choose to ignore or include when playing. Prepare for a digression: Source On youtube there is a video I did awhile back for my friends introducing old school car wars. In that video I straight up FORGOT THE RANGE MODIFIER ON ATTACKS. WHAT? that's so basic to the game? Worse yet, I know that rule. I can quote that rule. I'm not Car wars expert or anything but I  played a good deal of it over the years. Even if it had been years since I had played it. My point being  when playing a game, or in that case setting up a 20 year old game, trying to read the rules again, and getting a webcam to hang nicely from a chandelier. Things slip. I decide what I wanted for Loot box is a way to  reduce that "slip." A streamlined way to visually manage modifiers for combat