Recent content by ArekExcelsior

I use Ethical Archetypes. I grew up with Palladium, but I wanted a system distinct from personality that was also far more specific. Unlike D&D or Palladium, I don't limit the number of Ethical Archetypes. Consider a Neutral character. Classically, people have considered Neutral as any number of...

"Possess", Shamus. I think that you're confusing, as some are wont to do, greed and self-interest. Greed is not only desiring money, wealth, power, or whatever else, but having so much of that sensation that it controls you, or causes you to behave anti-socially or evilly. Self-interest is...

I think he began with more reasonable rules first, to sort of ease you into how a hypothetical critic might be examining the range of possibilities left for what they can do to not make fanboys angry. Eventually, they see that directly contradictory arguments can be leveled at them from the same...

The main problem is the high degree of inequality in the American market. Inequality has many noted impacts on the quality of democracy, this being just one of them. That's why our systems are DESIGNED with the idea that equal sized opponents will be fighting: The Founding Fathers were very...

Wonderful article. Let me throw in my two cents. First off: I really appreciate the way that you describe the role of the GM. The analogy I use is Monopoly, or volleyball, or almost any other game that humans play. In any other game, unless we're playing with children far too young to...

I love this article, but I think there's something missing. Story arcs can be good things. But they have to be done without a loss of agency. How do you balance those? Imagine a world without the players temporarily. (This is, after all, almost the definition of agency: How you change things...

For anyone who doubts that game systems should be at least tailored to the game in question if not altered entirely, look at almost anything Palladium publishes. Many elements of the system are really great for individual settings. Ninjas & Superspies, for example, simulates burst firing, the...

That's roughly what I was thinking. I quit WoW in Burning Crusade. I was sort of enjoying my time up until that point. Changing to Boomkin was endless fun. Except that Outland was terrible. I took too long to level in a barren, boring world. I hear that Northrend is really exciting. Except...

Best writing? Off the top of my head: Ninja Gaiden. While I happen to think FFIV, VI and Chrono Trigger were amazing stories that made you care about the characters (and Dissidia did such an amazing job of making all these characters really accessible, such that characters I previously disliked...