Evaluating 20x20

Because bryant had asked about the future of 20x20 and because I'm unhappy with my current internet habits, I've been posting some stuff there:

• Game design as Process


• Evaluating Play formatively


• Recruiting Gamers

I've been trying to be good and outline some of my philosophy about gaming and where I'm at a little more thoroughly than I've been wont to do in the past. I'm not sure if its working and it may be a tad contaminated by my work life.

I’m also curious to see what sort of response I get there that I wouldn’t get here. I posted the first post, Game Design as Process, on my livejournal as well, and I'll be frank in saying I generated more interest here, but that may be because I cross-posted. Or maybe I’m just way off in left field on my current game theory interests from everyone else. Its quite possible. Or maybe I need to give more detail, I'm just not sure how that would be received.

I also owe dancing_kiralee a more detailed post on documents, social contract and play strategy – all of which I’m working on. Each of them is turning into their own posts, which is cool.

Alienation and Passion

A tale of two genders: men choose novels of alienation, while women go for passion.

Interesting, I wonder if I can pull inferences from this about gaming.

The novel that means most to men is about indifference, alienation and lack of emotional responses. That which means most to women is about deeply held feelings, a struggle to overcome circumstances and passion, research by the University of London has found.

What do people think? Does this aply to your own gaming style?

Shakespeare in the Weird

peaseblossom has been reading a lot of Shakespeare, and like everything else she does it bleeds over into my consciousness. Of course my personal filters see it through gaming and eliptony, I just can’t help myself.

So this is what I’m thinking. A LARP where everyone are actors with a role in one of the Bard’s plays. The LARP has as its framework rehearsing 2 scenes, and we will actually do a rehearsal for those 2 scenes. The gender issues would be pretty easy to handle. Women can be men playing women, or women pretending to be men (pretending to be women) and what-have-you.

The twist (here’s the eliptony) is that everyone is a representative from one of the weird-theories that have conglomerated around the bard. Catholic spies and faeries and freemasons and reptoids. Time travelers and witches and Bacon’s men. Everyone wanting their slice out of poor Shakespeare.

peaseblossom told me that jadasc had once played in a LARP where soliloquies were part of the game. I’d totally want to use that to express internal landscape with some “reality” shaping ability.

Unfortunately I feel very out of touch with the LARPing community, been ages since I’ve been all that active and I feel like I should get up to speed with the state of the art before I try to run one again.

(no subject)

As always peaseblossom sums it up best.