@ludopolitics@dice.camp
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ludopolitics

@ludopolitics@dice.camp

Asst Teaching Prof, CMU. Indie game designer, teacher, scholar, parent. ENG/中文.

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ludopolitics, to random
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Last few years, I've been feeling that @megueyb + @lumpley's Apocalypse World and Avery's most recent half-dozen games (since Quiet Year) -- plus everything released since -- have left me thinking a lot about "responding to a prompt" as the micro-foundation of TRPG play.

I don't know if I can fully articulate it, or put it into a clouds-and-arrows diagram. And, in the end, it's not particularly complicated or insightful. But I think it helps reframe TRPGs (and all play?) in useful ways.

ludopolitics,
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Part of it is what this approach leaves out: it doesn't assume a GM, or dice, or more than 1 player, or any other of the "standard" TRPG trappings that often come with some RPG theories and perspectives.

It also doesn't specify much about what can be a prompt (anything can be a prompt) or how people respond to any given prompt (they can respond in countless different ways). But it allows for snowballing in the sense that one player's response is often a prompt that invokes additional responses.

ludopolitics,
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It's also, I think, broadly inclusive of everything that TRPGs have become and will continue to expand to be, at least for a while. And it works as a framework to bridge TRPGs and other types of games, since it's possible to view all play as responding to prompts.

It also doesn't necessarily require that accurate or deep communication is happening between different players, or between players and game materials. That can happen, but it's not required or assumed.

ludopolitics,
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It also potentially reframes the work of game designers and players in ways that I find useful.

There is nothing about "responding to a prompt" that requires a game designer. Players can just do it by themselves. But both game designers and players are engaged in the work of figuring out how to generate interesting & appropriate prompts + interesting & appropriate responses (for whatever "interesting" and "appropriate" mean for their play goals).

And that often leads to structures & processes.

ludopolitics, to random
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I feel like the hardest part about making a game about minor nature gods is figuring out the setting. If you set it in the real world, then you bring all that baggage along. If you set it in a fantasy world, then you have to convey both the fictional setting and the spirit world of that fictional setting to the players. Maybe I can just have the players invent the world themselves?

ludopolitics,
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@rivetgeek @nickwedig @linnaeus That makes sense. Basically the WoD / CoC approach.

ludopolitics, to random
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Hi TRPG braintrust!

What are some interesting CC-BY or otherwise open TRPG games that my students could potentially adapt into video games?

nickwedig, to random
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My wife bought some cheap stuffed animals for a fundraiser for my child's marching band. All the animals in it are pretty normal, except this green tusked aquatic animal that no one can identify.

Another photo of the same creature from another angle
Another photo of the same creature from another angle

ludopolitics,
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@rivetgeek @nickwedig Ah yes, the wild tusked froggater.

lumpley, to random
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Anybody else listen to the hearing?

ludopolitics,
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@lumpley @JoshuaACNewman I wanted to listen to it but was teaching. Your $5 bet is not an argument I've heard before, but makes sense as a punt. Still, this Congress wouldn't restore his eligibility, right? Fingers crossed that happens.

ludopolitics, to random
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My next personal game-design project looks like it'll be re-theming, redesigning, and repairing a 1962 Gottlieb pinball machine. It's gonna be a lot of work to produce 1 single copy, likely the only version of the game that will ever exist. But it'll be magical.

ludopolitics,
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@nickwedig @ifixcoinops Nice. Hi, Dan!

I bought this machine from Pinball PA and have chatted a bunch with the folks at Pinball Perfection, so I have just enough sense of what I'm doing to be dangerous. I'm also teaming up with my colleague who runs the Physical Computing Lab at CMU, which makes it slightly less dangerous but also slightly more likely that we might cheat and put an Arduino in it if we can't figure some things out. Hopefully not!

ludopolitics, to random
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I tried out a new assignment this semester, for my "Intro to Game Design" course:

I assigned my students to design 3 levels inspired by the mechanics of Hitman GO / Lara Croft GO, but with the theme switched to Netflix's new Carmen Sandiego TV series.

The levels are really good, y'all.

ludopolitics, to random
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I got to participate in an early playtest of a student's TRPG this week, which they're trying to finish as part of an independent study.

It feels like an early-mid 2000s indie game in many respects: you play members of a relatively new cult and follow your characters' journey as the cult grows and comes into tension with both the local community and itself.

It has hints of @PaulCzege's MLwM, Steve Hickey's Soth, and @jmstar's The Roach (good company!), but is also clearly its own thing. Neat.

ludopolitics, to random
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Are there White Wolf retroclones yet? There have to be, right?

I made one several years back about playing mythological giants in a Wolfie style, but I haven't kept up to see if there are others now.

ludopolitics, to random
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Something must be wrong with me. I find myself surprisingly excited that White Wolf's inheritors (Onyx Path) are publishing a weird fantasy dungeon dive game based on an updated Storyteller system.

Is this just decades of Exalted baggage rearing its head, or am I right in suspecting that The World Below sounds a lot more fun than any version of D&D?

ludopolitics,
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@codingconduct I think it's more likely that they come from the same set of inspirations? Weird fantasy + anime?

ludopolitics, to random
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Seriously thinking about a Palladium retroclone, because I am the person in the "sicko" gif.

It could be called the Aluminum System, but you'd have to pronounce it in the British way, with the invisible extra i.

ludopolitics, to random
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Oh no. I might actually be able to make Metatopia this year.

Oh no.

genesisoflegend, to random
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deleted_by_author

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    ludopolitics,
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    @genesisoflegend @AlasdairStuart Yup. Quality and sales are not the same thing, for sure.

    ludopolitics, to random
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    Wondering if I've reached the point in adulthood / the indiepocalypse where I have increasingly less motivation to design stand-alone games, because I can just hack something together to support whatever I want to play?

    There's just so much stuff out there. And one of my favorite styles of design & play (freeform larp or tabletop scenarios) doesn't demand commercialization or formal publication for stuff to get played.

    ludopolitics, to random
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    Okay, so this might be happening.

    ludopolitics, to random
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    I just learned that Pittsburgh is the headquarters of extreme pogo sticking.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS6kL6G4GZ4

    thebrand, to RPG
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    Coming in late on this. Gonna speed run this fucker.

    ludopolitics,
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    @thebrand Diplomacy (1959).

    ludopolitics, to random
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    I continue to be surprised by how good ChatGPT is at generating drafts of an almost-playable PBTA game, just from a description of the basic premise.

    Like, if you tell it to "Write a description of a PBTA tabletop roleplaying game about XXX," it does an okay job. And then you can ask it to "Write a set of core moves for that game" or "Write a playbook for that game."

    What it generates is far from perfect (just a sketch), but as a tool for brainstorming different approaches, it's fascinating.

    ludopolitics,
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    In my mind, this is the best use for machine learning tools built on large data sets -- using them for creative brainstorming when you have projects that are difficult to wrap your head around. Definitely NOT as a replacement for actual creative work done by human beings, much less for generating information that is supposed to be true.

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