storytelling

June 18, 2020

RPG (DOG EAR)

t’s probably a bad idea. I’m going to start role playing again (after 30 years or so). Role playing (if you live in a cave and don’t know) is where one person acts as an impartial (or so they say) referee, setting up everything from the nature of the world to the price of a beer. Players describe what they want to do, and the ref determines (using tables and rules as guides) the outcome. Back in the day, I hosted a very successful StarWars campaign (which ran pretty much weekly for fifteen years). I can figure that a lot […]
January 14, 2021

Character Progression (DOG EAR)

’m happily working on a game, Solar Trader 2, which I’ll post in my links as it gets to a more playable state. But why the heck am I talking about that… in a literature post? The original Solar Trader was an Excel game, a massive attempt to bring near-future space ship maneuvering into a game format. It worked okay but never found any following – it had a very steep learning curve that pretty much killed it for most people. It’s been a couple of years and I really like the idea of its Expanse-like setting. During this time, […]
April 21, 2022

The Ethics of Media (DOG EAR)

he other night I was enjoying a quiet evening the way I like it – writing game code for my new effort, Pathfinder, the window open, the cool breezes flowing around me, the online radio quietly playing French soft rock. And that’s then the guy, the girl, and the motorcycle entered my world. They came down the street, making more noise than I make in a week. It was one of those suburban Harley’s bought from those urban-dad fake-factory stores, all noise, heavy as a tank. And even though they were rolling slow, the guy was revving his engine (because […]
September 14, 2023

Junk Stories (DOG EAR)

‘m a student of media. I love all sorts of storytelling, from writing to joke-telling to chats with the barista at the local coffee house. My robot question is infamous. Stories aren’t only books or movies or shows. You can see stories everywhere. Even model railroading. On my own Tuscarora Branch Lines model railroad, I filled up a small siding area (a tiny triangle in something like a diagonal 5″ x 5″) with a junk yard. Specifically, Levine’s Iron and Metal, which exists in my locale (I drove by it but didn’t see it from the road, but I know […]