Category: rpg theory
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Moth Hovel pamphlets at Exalted Funeral
I’m delighted to announce that Visit the Weird Decaying City of Moth Hovel and Visit the Wild Decaying Island of Bermoothes are now available in print editions exclusively from Exalted Funeral. (You can still pick the PWYW PDFs up from our itch.io, along with bonus digital hex art.) Visit the Weird Decaying City of Moth…
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RPG Theory: Moth Hovel Manifesto (v1)
Playing a roleplaying game is fundamentally an exercise in design. As players (both DMs and others) make decisions at every level of granularity, they are engaging in collaborative design practices continually throughout the course of play. Effectively, they are designing the experience (i.e., the game, the session) every time they contribute or participate. On the…
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RPG Theory: irrational magics
One way to put it is I’m ambivalent about magic in RPGs. On the one hand, magic can be an excellent vehicle for powerfully generative weirdness. It can demonstrate the degree to which the expected and regular causal order of things is potentially or ultimately a malleable illusion. Hence, magic can temporarily suspend or even…
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RPG Theory: player agency vs. “story”
This isn’t a novel insight, but the issue comes up often enough it’s worth exploring it again. There is an implicit tension between player agency and “storytelling” in RPGs, which requires conceptual clarification. In my experience, players often report their interest in “stories” (or just: “the story”) as one of the prime motivations re: joining…
moth hovel 