Quarterling’s Corner

VI. So the hidden context behind the last post is that I just had a weird and overwhelming creative experience. I've been watching a lot of Joel Haver on YouTube and, for a week or two, I felt really inspired to make a movie. My obsessive thought patterns, which for a few years now have not shut up about RPGs, shifted to movie-making instead. I paid for some video lessons on how to film with an iPhone, I bought a phone tripod, I bought some cheap lavalier mics, I started filming something with my friend and... Something in my stomach turned. I absolutely hated being on camera. I quickly stopped filming, went into a weird depressive funk for a day or two and almost right away I was back to thinking about RPGs. I'm still not really sure what it means. I still have to talk to my therapist about it! But I feel like, for a brief moment, I was ready to open up to something new... And then the rug was pulled out from under me. VII. The game starts and ends with a problem. There is no ...

I. Ruins & Rogues v2024_2   has a bug. Not something I'm just unhappy with, but something that straight up doesn't work as I intended it. I had in my head that monsters would be knocked out when they are reduced to exactly 0 Guard and 1 Health, but rules-as-written that is not what happens. I probably would have realized this was broken had I not been in such a rush to upload something that would fix v2024's broken combat. And I probably would have realized the combat was broken in v2024 had I done more playtesting before release. The problem is that I constantly feel pressure to keep updating the game because I have some twisted idea that, if I don't update it, people will think I'm a worse designer than I actually am. I know better now! The game has to reflect the very best of my design ability at all times! I'm not going to do that anymore. The game is not me. I need to let the damn thing go, at least long enough that when I come back to it I can see it w...

EDIT 12/2/2024: I am currently in the process of migrating some of the original congas.blog posts back to Quarterling's Corner so I can relaunch congas.blog as a more professional thing. Quarterling's Corner will remain online as a sort of scratch pad for less-focused thoughts like I'm used to blogging. My name is Tim and I design conversation games (or "congas"), which are more cumbersomely known as table-top role-playing games (TTRPGs). I am probably best known for Ruins & Rogues and for moderating the NSR Cauldron community on Discord. Why "congas.blog"? It was a dumb joke at first. "TTRPGs is a bad name. We should call them congas." But then I kept thinking about it, and it kept making me laugh, and I started to think, "Is this just stupid enough to stick?" "Congas" is a silly word. Everyone knows a conga is a drum. People will think you're joking if you say a conga is a game you play by having a conversation. I...

I. Introduction GNS theory is dead, but this post on the history of the Forge contains an interesting tidbit: As originally conceived, the rec.games.frp.advocacy threefold was based on the traditional RPG division of responsibilities between players and referees, and was proposed as a means of examining specific decisions on the part of a referee. It recognised three distinct criteria which a referee could use to make a call one way or another: Gamism , whereby the referee makes the call which they consider makes for the best gaming challenge for the players, Dramatism , whereby the referee makes the call which they consider makes for the best dramatic story, and Simulationism , whereby the referee tries to avoid metaplot considerations and come up with the ruling which makes logical sense based on the IC assumptions of the game world. An important point of the original model is that it assumed that people are not, by and large, consistent on this point; sometimes they’d favour syste...

This might be the dumbest idea I’ve ever had. Are you tired of three-to-five-letter acronyms such as “TTRPG,” “FKR,” and “PbtA” that are cumbersome to say out loud and convey little to no information about what they actually mean? Say hello to congas!  Congas is a new and fun way to talk about con versation ga mes, or congas for short! A conga is any game where the core mechanic is developing a fictional scenario through conversation. (And yes, before you ask, solo games count too — you’re having a conversation with the prompts the game is giving you!) Congas, as a system of talking about congas, only has three rules: You may only use a single, evocative, plain-language word to describe a genre of congas. Examples : Adventure congas, freeform congas, tactical congas. (Compound words or phrases like “soap opera conga” are permissible if they are sufficiently evocative.) You cannot  elaborate as to what a genre of congas is or means. Your one evocative word is the only means by ...

So after years of trying to design my perfect game, I finally have it in my hands... And what do you know, it turns out it's very similar to Maze Rats . Hell, its name is even made up of synonyms for "Maze" and "Rats." I didn't consciously set out to write a Maze Rats hack. This is just where I ended up. But why did I end up here, and if what I wanted was so similar to Maze Rats, why did I make a new game instead of just playing Maze Rats? I don't see many people talking about the actual rules of Maze Rats, I mostly see them talking about the tables, so this should be an interesting exercise. Similarities Before we analyze differences, let's take a look at what these games have in common. Both games use "control-panel" layout and fit their core rules on a two-page spread. Both games only use six-sided dice. Both games have quick character creation based on rolling PCs randomly. Both games use side initiative: on your side's turn, you ca...

  I. The world is not right. Where once there stood proud kingdoms, there is now nothing but ice and snow. Where once the nobility protected us, now they slaughter us in droves. And more and more, our children are born with parts not altogether human… Meltingmoor is my work-in-progress adventure game about mutant treasure hunters exploring a once-frozen, now-thawing gothic frontier in the aftermath of a failed revolution. I am currently playtesting the core rules and working on additional content such as magic items and GM advice. II. I think I’ve managed to design a combat system that is lighter, faster, and clearer than that of  Into the Odd without sacrificing the random chaos of dice rolls, the players’ ability to make interesting decisions, or the resource-management element of dungeoncrawling. The lightbulb went off when I realized that I don’t need to track hit points for every individual PC. One HP or “Morale” value for the entire party does the job just fine. If it hi...