Hello, all, 
Since about a few months back, I began noticing a disturbing trend: more and more people were listening to my experiences, then turning to me non-challantly and saying, “meh, that’s not role-playing”. Invariably, they then proceed to “explain” to me what role-playing is, and how it needs this and that and those other things like, say, a Game Master, and conversation generally degenerates pretty quickly from there on.
Ahey,
Clinton and I […] want to keep the Forge’s function right where it started - finding people in the canebrake, struggling with their designs, or having produced an amazing design but not knowing what to do with it. We like it working best and most for the guys with a crappy Geocities website and a neat game idea, who aren’t quite sure how the internet can help them further.
Read this thread. The relevant post is Ron’s third post in the thread, specifically, post # 18.
Enlightening.
Cheers,
J.
Hey, all,
Duval, the elven Ammenite with a conscience, is no more.
In the brief days of his existence, he participated in a full moon feast, chased a manipulative rascal, made friends, saved lives, got fallen in love with, was imprisoned, rescued, ambushed, fought, and was called a traitor, and then a hero.
In his finest hour, he single-handedly fought and defeated over fifteen of his own countrymen, who, acting on the orders of the commander of a much more sizeable force, were poised to stage a large-scale invasion of his friends’ land.
Through his actions, he stopped the invasion on its tracks and went on to end the war itself. Of course, in the long run, the Ammenites can’t be trusted, but for the time being, at least, the Khaleans can sleep soundly.
And when it was all over, he walked off into the sunset, never to be seen again.
Actual Play at The Forge, as usual, with some substantive content regarding the game play, and yes, I’m being immodest about it. 
Cheers,
J.
Ahoy,
Deepness!
Yeah, I’ve been looking for deepness to write about for a while, because, you know, I like deepness, but the fact of the matter is that, of late, my gaming sessions have been all fun and wholesome and fulfilling and whatnot, and as such, there has been no need for deepness.
And yet, it’s about time I try to come up with something deep to write about, and so this is it:
Think about the games you like to play, and about how you like to play them. Do you like to go all out and explore the hell out of the system, trusting that the game play will be satisfactory, or do you like to have your play be about something other than the system, trusting that the system will support you?*
Hey,
Man! I used to love Lisbon in August. There’s like nobody here.
But now, half my gaming buddies have jobs and all, which means they have vacations and stuff, and you know what? Nobody’s here!
This sucks! My D&D campaign totally froze, right when I was getting ready to take it in a new direction, at the collective request of my players, no less.
Fortunately, September is upon us and the next session has finally been scheduled. Yay!
In the meantime, Joshua “El Fuego” BishopRoby posted some wisdom that should not be missed by anyone who wants to be a game designer.
Cheers,
J.
Hey, all,
Ok, I’m getting just a little bit sick of flagging viagra and cialis sales site URL posts as spam.
Also, I want people to be able to post here and to see their comments online immediately, without having to wait for me to say that, yeah, they’re ok. Mostly, I don’t want people to think I might not want to hear what they have to say.
Of course, the operative word there is people. I really don’t want to sell phentermine here, mostly because I just don’t know what phentermine is… (and before you post a comment to this effect, I’d like to keep it that way, please, thank you vey much!)
In that spirit, I’m going to be trying out a number of Word Press plugins in the next few days. If you detect any problems, please bear with me whilst I endeavour to fix them.
Cheers,
J.
Hello, all,
After a looooong delay, I’ve finally managed to post an Actual Play report on our TSoY sessions during the most awesomest June Retreat.
The actual AP report lives here and is rather long.
Because it might be useful, I also posted the initial situation here.
Lastly, I posted all the keys we came up with here.
Also, this marks the end of my reporting regarding the retreat. I posted about My Life with Master here, about Torchbearer here, and about The 101 here and here.
Up next, I’ll be trying to collect some thoughts I’ve had about Dogs in the Vineyard, which have been gathering dust in the back of my mind.
Cheers,
J.
Hi,
“Hey, dude, playing games isn’t nerdy or childish. Games are awesome! I don’t care if you want to play 2nd edition D&D with your homebrew rules and I’m more interested in a big game of Cops and Robbers in the park. Stop what you’re doing and GO PLAY.” - Martin O’Leary, in Rob Donoghue’s thread.
Cheers,
J.
Hello, all,
Last weekend, we playtested Galactic, the new game by Matt Wilson, of PtA fame. As is rapidly becoming a tradition of mine, I’m going to post the in-game stuff we generated here, while the actual playtest comments will be emailed to the game author.
The players were me as GM, my wife Ana, Ricardo, and Rogério, at whose house we were playing.
Because that’s where the book begins, I’m going to start with the Ship Captains: