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Life is like a grapefruit

Italian photographer Stefano Bonazzi produces these wonderful surreal portraits. I particularly like this one as it reminds me of Magritte.

Posted on 2009/11/12 by dominic in personal | Tagged photography | Leave a comment

November rain

First, the great news: My better half has a permanent job! She’s been working on contract for a while and they finally realised, as I did some time ago, that they couldn’t possibly live without her and have insisted she stay on.

Now, the less good news: As part of her new permanent contract, our mutual friend must fly to Shanghai next week and stay there for ten days. This is very exciting, and a great opportunity for her to reveal herself as the rock star of apparel quality and vendor management that I know her to be, but I’m selfish and am going to miss her tremendously.

Finally the silver lining: NaNoWriMo starts this coming week and unlike last year, I don’t have the excuse of being new to the country, moving apartments or having a new job to fall back on and use to justify my failing to complete a novel in a month. And now I have an apartment to myself (and two dogs) for the first week.

I have also made some changes to my approach this year, which I’m hoping will improve my chances of completing the challenge:

Handwriting instead of typing
By handwriting, I hope not to get sucked in to the temptation of premature editing which should enable me to keep the creative flow going. Assuming I can get the creative flow started.

No planning
Last year, I started with an outline for a novel and a title, however once I stepped out of the bounds of that plan I became blocked. By not having a plan, I expect to be freer to just write.

Expect updates here as the month continues.

Posted on 2009/10/25 by dominic in personal | Tagged NaNoWriMo | Leave a comment

Telling stories

If there’s a single sentence that can act as a simple summary for what role-playing games are, it is surely “telling a story from the characters’ points of view”. Any modern table-top role-playing game has this at its core; that the players, with the game-master, are developing a world and a story together as they play.

However, other aspects of the role-playing genre, notably computer role-playing games, have struggled with this aspect. The first game to truly crack this nut will attract the attention of role-playing fans, but would it also capture the attention of gamers in general? Why haven’t computer role-playing games been able to tell stories in the same way that table-top gamers do every week? What will be lost from the genre if they do? Continue reading →

Posted on 2009/07/15 by dominic in game development | Tagged Computer games, game development, MMO, role-playing | 1 Comment

Posted on 2009/07/01 by dominic in personal | Leave a comment

Alive

Yes, I am still alive. Between work, other bloggery, twitter and other projects (coming soon), this blog has fallen by the wayside I’m afraid.

Still, I’m posting this! Which is a really lame way of keeping it ticking over. Sorry.

Hopefully, the Other Half will post some news soon that she’s been waiting to talk about.

Posted on 2009/05/31 by dominic in personal | Leave a comment

Archetypes

I have previously dealt with the notion of the cliché on this blog, and closely related to that is the notion of the archetype. An archetype is an ideal example of a type, to give the dictionary definition. Carl Jungalso made use of the term to define an inherited unconscious idea. Plato’s ideas can also be seen as the original archetypes and in fact the word itself comes from the greek word αρχετυπον. But how do archetypes play into writing and how can they be used to enhance the experience of a player in a game? Are there any dangers to using archetypes that a writer or GM must be wary of?

Continue reading →

Posted on 2009/05/27 by dominic in the written word | Tagged Character, Writing | Leave a comment

In medias res

A while ago there was an episode of the DnD podcast from Wizards of the Coast that had a tip for DMs to start every session with the players rolling initiative. This usually indicates that combat, or at least some action sequence, is about to play out and initiative determines the order that the characters act in. The idea is that by having your players start the session in medias res, literally “into the midst of affairs”, they will be more engaged in the session as a whole.

Continue reading →

Posted on 2009/05/05 by dominic in game development | Tagged dnd, MMO, MUD, Player | 3 Comments

D&D test drive

Wizards of the Coast recently announced the release of a starter kit that gives a player everything they need to get started with 4th Edition D&D. The kit includes a basic ruleset, the first published adventure (Keep on the Shadowfell) and the free version of Character Builder, the last of which has been available for a while.

Continue reading →

Posted on 2009/04/30 by dominic in personal | Tagged 4th edition, dnd | Leave a comment

From paper to screen

Over the past few weeks, I’ve noticed a trend at my DnD table as more players have moved from the traditional pen(cil) and paper to having a laptop, notebook or, more frequently, a netbook or smartphone in front of them instead. In this article, I’ll explore some of the tools available to facilitate this move and explore my own experiences.

Continue reading →

Posted on 2009/04/13 by dominic in at the table | Tagged dnd, Player | 1 Comment

Character development

Whether you’re writing a novel or playing a role-playing game, there comes a time when you have to develop a character. There are a number of ways you can approach this and this series of articles will explore some of those.

I’ll start with the character development that I’ve dealt with the most: Developing a character for a role-playing game, specifically DnD.

Continue reading →

Posted on 2009/04/02 by dominic in character development | Tagged Character, character development, dnd, role-playing | 1 Comment

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