ARGNet has posted a year end wrap up and offers a sneak peak for the ARG scene in 2011. If Surreal is your favorite kind of Blur experience it's well worth checking out.
A Look Back at the Year in Alternate Reality Games: 2010 Edition
http://www.argn.com/2010/12/a_look_back_at_the_year_in_alternate_reality_games_2010_edition/
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Friday, December 31, 2010
That Time Of Year
It's that time of year when we look back and want to cry or scream for joy. There's been a bit of both here but overall it has been a trying year.
Blur is a simple concept that I think becomes overly complicated due to the breadth of its nature. But it is easy when you remember this-Blur is the line to stand on between reality and fiction, or non-reality if you like.
Blur is films like Inception and Moon, books like Scorch Atlas and Motorman (still a classic), ARGs (Alternate Reality Games), Transhumanism like Eclipse Phase, Jeepform, Norwegian style, Story games and Game poems.
Between the rise of sheer inventiveness and ingenuity of the indie scene and the explosion of the Open Gaming Content / Open Gaming License (OGC / OGL) scene gaming has taken on a whole new life, one that many can't get their heads around yet. We can play anything from an Original Edition fantasy game to something so abstract that many gamers don't recognize it as a game.
And that is the literal definition of AWESOME.
With the advent of the Virtual Table Top and online services that match players up it is possible to play any game any time from nearly anywhere in the world.
Wow.
May your 2011 be filled with excitement and joy of living and gaming and, as us old grognards like to say, may you always roll natural 20's.
Peace
Blur is a simple concept that I think becomes overly complicated due to the breadth of its nature. But it is easy when you remember this-Blur is the line to stand on between reality and fiction, or non-reality if you like.
Blur is films like Inception and Moon, books like Scorch Atlas and Motorman (still a classic), ARGs (Alternate Reality Games), Transhumanism like Eclipse Phase, Jeepform, Norwegian style, Story games and Game poems.
Between the rise of sheer inventiveness and ingenuity of the indie scene and the explosion of the Open Gaming Content / Open Gaming License (OGC / OGL) scene gaming has taken on a whole new life, one that many can't get their heads around yet. We can play anything from an Original Edition fantasy game to something so abstract that many gamers don't recognize it as a game.
And that is the literal definition of AWESOME.
With the advent of the Virtual Table Top and online services that match players up it is possible to play any game any time from nearly anywhere in the world.
Wow.
May your 2011 be filled with excitement and joy of living and gaming and, as us old grognards like to say, may you always roll natural 20's.
Peace
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Apologies
I would like to apologize to the many folks who are supporters of this blog and it's lack of attention.
The hardware / software problems that started off as bad were found to be much worse than expected so I have had to regrow the BLUR concept and coverage from the ground up. It doesn't help that I also decided to finish a system and epic series of adventures for a fantasy rpg a decade in the works.
Don't think I have forgotten about this place or the people who make it special. I set my resolution to be if I can't get my own BLUR material up then I will point readers in the direction of the bleeding edge of role playing in the meantime. There is so much excellent work being done out there that I am stunned sometimes by the level of cleverness and ingenuity that goes into the work.
The work I am seeing is so far ahead of its time it's almost hard to believe how far rpgs have come since those small groups of gamers first sat down at the table in the early '70's.
Here's to the new year and I hope to get much more accomplished here on the blog.
For those who have stuck with me I offer my thanks.
And a big thank you to Hugh Dingwall for getting me back in the game (pun intended :)
The hardware / software problems that started off as bad were found to be much worse than expected so I have had to regrow the BLUR concept and coverage from the ground up. It doesn't help that I also decided to finish a system and epic series of adventures for a fantasy rpg a decade in the works.
Don't think I have forgotten about this place or the people who make it special. I set my resolution to be if I can't get my own BLUR material up then I will point readers in the direction of the bleeding edge of role playing in the meantime. There is so much excellent work being done out there that I am stunned sometimes by the level of cleverness and ingenuity that goes into the work.
The work I am seeing is so far ahead of its time it's almost hard to believe how far rpgs have come since those small groups of gamers first sat down at the table in the early '70's.
Here's to the new year and I hope to get much more accomplished here on the blog.
For those who have stuck with me I offer my thanks.
And a big thank you to Hugh Dingwall for getting me back in the game (pun intended :)
Friday, October 8, 2010
Normality Co-Author Speaks
After a period of life induced silence the dark masters of the ergodic beast known as Normality have resurfaced with news of new projects.
I recently contacted one of the creators of Normality, Hugh Dingwall, to see what was new and got the 411:
“The one thing I've done and finished is to set up Normality on Issuu so if you go to: http://youarenowunderthecareofthegoatplan.synthasite.com/normality.php you can see a wee "virtual book" version with turnable pages and stuff. Cute, but hardly world-shaking. Aside form that I have a couple of projects on the go.”
“Cassandra is a prequel to Normality loosely based on the premise that players are people who can sense the cataclysm that brings about the world of Normality coming, but they can't articulate their foreboding. So it'll be another doom-fest as people try to interpret their vision in a way that other people can understand, and almost certainly fail and go crazy. “
“Harmony is the working title of another game I'm working on with my brother, based around the idea of indulging in and reinterpreting standard high-fantasy tropes. The idea is to have a world where the default state is peace - everything chugging along in, well, harmony, and the players' job being to fix it. That means no evil or unplayable races etc. Instead, every race has a default philosophical outlook which is morally neutral - morality needs to come from players etc.”
He added:
“Harmony is a The Brothers Dingwall project, that being the name we put out The Penguin Harlequinade under. That just marks it out as being a bit lighter in tone than Normality-related stuff. Which, as you can imagine, is not that hard to achieve.”
Hope I’m on the list for the first sneak at Cassandra :)
I recently contacted one of the creators of Normality, Hugh Dingwall, to see what was new and got the 411:
“The one thing I've done and finished is to set up Normality on Issuu so if you go to: http://youarenowunderthecareofthegoatplan.synthasite.com/normality.php you can see a wee "virtual book" version with turnable pages and stuff. Cute, but hardly world-shaking. Aside form that I have a couple of projects on the go.”
“Cassandra is a prequel to Normality loosely based on the premise that players are people who can sense the cataclysm that brings about the world of Normality coming, but they can't articulate their foreboding. So it'll be another doom-fest as people try to interpret their vision in a way that other people can understand, and almost certainly fail and go crazy. “
“Harmony is the working title of another game I'm working on with my brother, based around the idea of indulging in and reinterpreting standard high-fantasy tropes. The idea is to have a world where the default state is peace - everything chugging along in, well, harmony, and the players' job being to fix it. That means no evil or unplayable races etc. Instead, every race has a default philosophical outlook which is morally neutral - morality needs to come from players etc.”
He added:
“Harmony is a The Brothers Dingwall project, that being the name we put out The Penguin Harlequinade under. That just marks it out as being a bit lighter in tone than Normality-related stuff. Which, as you can imagine, is not that hard to achieve.”
Hope I’m on the list for the first sneak at Cassandra :)
Friday, August 27, 2010
Slow but sure
Yes, I know, things have been a little slow here but trust me the work behind the scenes has been ongoing.
As I re-examined my gaming past I felt myself drawn to my roots and have been having a great time exploring that history that brought me to Blur in the first place.
That and the fact that I have over 500 gig of material (JEEEZ!) that I'm sorting for all these various projects (play testing-reviewing-my own systems-other systems-source material-inspirational material) plus health and hardware problems and a lack of help because everyone else seems to be having the same kind of year that I am has slowed things but I have not forgotten about anyone and apologies to all those who deserved at least an email months ago.
I don't think my +1 sword of dragon slaying will work well against that alt world KGB agent...but then again, who knows.
More soon
As I re-examined my gaming past I felt myself drawn to my roots and have been having a great time exploring that history that brought me to Blur in the first place.
That and the fact that I have over 500 gig of material (JEEEZ!) that I'm sorting for all these various projects (play testing-reviewing-my own systems-other systems-source material-inspirational material) plus health and hardware problems and a lack of help because everyone else seems to be having the same kind of year that I am has slowed things but I have not forgotten about anyone and apologies to all those who deserved at least an email months ago.
I don't think my +1 sword of dragon slaying will work well against that alt world KGB agent...but then again, who knows.
More soon
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Hooked Again
I couldn't believe the date on that last post, but a lot has been happening and since I've been bitten by the P&P rpg bug yet again I have to ride this pony all the way to the end of the track.
I realized that with all the commotion going on about the OSR that I felt at home in again in the community.
Granted, there are a lot of naysayers who seem to think that old school gaming can't be fun but I just feel bad for them. All they ever seem to do is sit around and complain about characters they can't seem to get right or how combat is too complicated.
Isn't this about "the game is what you make it"?
So I have brushed off a few projects and broke out a few binders filled with notes from 2 fantasy campaign settings that I feel compelled to work on and release under the OGL just as soon as I figure out what system to lean them toward. Or maybe just make it generic so anyone running an old school rules set (original, clone or otherwise) can benefit from them.
That doesn't mean work has stopped here on Blur-rpg. To the contrary, The first Blurred Vision is nearing final compilation and I am working on a set of custom rules to provide a simple engine to play Blur if you have no other particular favorite.
I wish all this were happening a little faster and trust me, I don't sleep a lot these days, but I'm dancing as fast as I can. I have a few test runs to make with my file storage service and then we can get on with it.
I appreciate everyone's patience during this period. This work has been the bright spot in an otherwise dismal year.
Chin up, the weirdness will soon begin. Strap in and enjoy the ride :)
I realized that with all the commotion going on about the OSR that I felt at home in again in the community.
Granted, there are a lot of naysayers who seem to think that old school gaming can't be fun but I just feel bad for them. All they ever seem to do is sit around and complain about characters they can't seem to get right or how combat is too complicated.
Isn't this about "the game is what you make it"?
So I have brushed off a few projects and broke out a few binders filled with notes from 2 fantasy campaign settings that I feel compelled to work on and release under the OGL just as soon as I figure out what system to lean them toward. Or maybe just make it generic so anyone running an old school rules set (original, clone or otherwise) can benefit from them.
That doesn't mean work has stopped here on Blur-rpg. To the contrary, The first Blurred Vision is nearing final compilation and I am working on a set of custom rules to provide a simple engine to play Blur if you have no other particular favorite.
I wish all this were happening a little faster and trust me, I don't sleep a lot these days, but I'm dancing as fast as I can. I have a few test runs to make with my file storage service and then we can get on with it.
I appreciate everyone's patience during this period. This work has been the bright spot in an otherwise dismal year.
Chin up, the weirdness will soon begin. Strap in and enjoy the ride :)
Friday, April 9, 2010
I DON'T KNOW The Role-Playing Game
This Role-Playing Game (RPG) is designed to be a very simple system ideally suited to a single-evening adventure. It was written to provide an RPG where an adventure can be designed and run with little preparation from the Game Master (GM), and where character creation can be finished within a few minutes by experienced players. New characters can be introduced and removed with ease, so a steady gaming group is not necessary. Indeed, GMs are encouraged to take turns running the game so that no one GM burns out on it.
Why the I DON'T KNOW system? I wrote this game hoping to eliminate some of the evenings where no one could settle on a game to play.
"What do you want to play tonight?" "I don't know."
And so it begins. Read more at:
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