Category: RPG

Our Upcoming Fiasco Caper(s)

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This entry is part 1 of 5 in the series With a Side of Kimchi: My First Brush with Fiasco

So, I got a copy of Bully Pulpit Games’ popular tabletop RPG game Fiasco, which was created by Jason Morningstar, for the university library. After all, I’ve long been interested in how RPG games can be used in language-teaching, and in fact I’ve long had a similar exercise that I use in English conversation courses (which I’ve recently posted here, after Fiasco inspired me to expand the exercise a little). In that exercise, students plan out a heist, con, scam, or other crime of some kind–usually with a set goal and set rules they cannot break in their plan–as an …

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Lesson Plan: The Caper!

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Back when I first came to Korea, there was a lesson I created on the spur of the moment, after observing how little security there seemed to be on the little minivans that drove around in Iksan putting money into bank machines. (I had such fun talking over strategies for robbing one of these vans with a group of expats that I thought I’d see how my students fared.) Over the years, the exercise has shifted and changed slightly. Finally, this past year, after a brush with Jason Morningstar’s wonderful Fiasco RPG, I expanded it a little to include an …

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A Dicey Situation (Buying Gaming Dice in South Korea)

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UPDATE (13 Nov. 2014): I’m guessing this is your cheapest option for polyhedral dice in South Korea now. There are also polyhedral sets that aren’t too expensive, if you poke around on Gmarket. UPDATE (27 Nov. 2012): Got the polyhedral dice. The place I ordered the six-sided dice from took a few extra days to get those dice shipped, but I’m still hoping to receive them in the next couple of weeks. I’d better, since we have some Fiasco games planned for the third week of December. ORIGINAL POST: I have a bunch of dice on order, at the moment. You might …

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Cards Against Humanity

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I’ve been talking about gaming as if I haven’t done any whatsoever in years, but the fact is, in fact I have done some…. just not RPG gaming. One of the games I recently got and tried out is the infamous Cards Against Humanity cardgame, which is available under a Creative Commons License here. (Though if you’re looking to print them up in Korea, see my warning below.) In any case, with a set of cards in hand, we tried out our first game with our neighbor Mark, and then his wife Jin when she got home from work. If …

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Talent Night, Part 4: The Dread Scenario

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This entry is part 4 of 4 in the series Talent Night: My First Time Running a Game of Dread

UPDATE (20 Feb 2022): I’ve very slightly revised this scenario and made it available on my itch.io page.  ORIGINAL POST (8 November 2012): I figured I’d share the scenario documents I prepared for Talent Night–the game scenario I’ve been discussing throughout this series of posts–just in case anyone else out there might want to try run the game and liked the idea of our setup. I’m also very interested in comments from anyone who knows the game, as far as feedback regarding scenario design is concerned. I’m happy to learn more or have missteps or goofs pointed out to me. …

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Talent Night, Part 2: How the Game Played Out (NSFW)

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This entry is part 2 of 4 in the series Talent Night: My First Time Running a Game of Dread

Note: this is the second post in a series. In the previous post, I discussed my long, long hiatus from RPG gaming, why I chose the game Dread for my first game in a decade and a half, and a bit about the game mechanics. You might want to start there. So… we played our first session of Dread on Sunday night. I hosted a Dread game session with Miss Jiwaku, and our friends Nick, Katrina, and Ian. (Information about who played which character withheld to protect the preciously twisted minds among us, ha…) The scenario was one of mine, …

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Talent Night, Part 1: In Which I Pick Up RPG Gaming After Years Away

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This entry is part 1 of 4 in the series Talent Night: My First Time Running a Game of Dread

Well, it seems like a month of returns: I picked up my saxophones for the first time in a long time, just out of curiosity regarding their condition. (I’ve not played them since 2005, and, well, it shows in the condition of the horns.) I also decided to try get and run an RPG game for an evening, and see if I enjoyed it. I’d long resisted the idea of trying out a role-playing game because they’re kind of a time-sink, or they used to be back when I last was an avid player. That was back in 1998–fifteen years …

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If I Were a Wraith…

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In the course of overhauling this site, I ran across an old character sheet I’d done up for what I’d be like if I were a character in the game Wraith: The Oblivion, which was my favorite RPG game back in the old days. Which sounds both dorky and gloomy, since most characters in Wraith are ghosts, and, er, deceased. But, hey, I think it’s kinda funny, so I did up a new one, up-to-date with my life now. For your geeky pleasure: For those who would like to try this for themselves, Mr. Gone has a whole slew of …

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Some Stuff to Check Out

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Stories: That New Yorker story about the AD&D gaming group… what? Yes, really, and it’s pretty good, too. (Thanks for the link, was it Ben?) Some MP3s narrated by Miette: Alfred Jarry’s “The Passion Considered as an Uphill Bicycle Race” and the story it inspired, JG Ballard’s “The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race.” Okay, this is just a book review, but I loved this book, and have had it in my mind often lately, for reasons obvious to those who are in the know, but which those who don’t know might guess wrongly about. …

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On Gaming, ca. 2005

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Gaming: My Thoughts Today (Updated 9 Feb 2007) I haven’t done any gaming in a few years now, partly because of lack of opportunity, but also partly because I simply don’t have time for it anymore. I rather amusedly imagine the world I’ll be retiring into, and can see tons of senior citizens gathering — both online, and in person around tables — to spend some portion of their Golden Years RPG gaming. After all, my generation is one that grew up in the heyday of the RPG, and I’ve found that, outside of high school, more than just geeks …

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