Category: Games
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My Other Hat
I wear two hats, professionally. One of them is a propellor beanie, and is my Science Fiction Hat (if you win a Hugo award, you get to wear double propellors on your beanie). The other hat is my Game Design Hat (which probably looks like this). I wore my Science Fiction Hat when I wrote the…
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It’s PANDEMONIUM!!
The Tor Books Summer 2015 Multi-Author Tour & Custom Car Demolition Derby continues July 16 with an exhibition game of the Pathfinder roleplaying system, at Pandemonium Books and Games in sunny Cambridge, Massachusetts. SEE! Four fantasy and science fiction writers revert to being fourteen-year-old geeks in somebody's basement rec room as they sit down at…
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What I’ve Been Up To
It's been a while since my last posting, due to a combination of being busy and being sick (and not getting well as fast as I'd like because of the busy component). Fortunately, I can make other people do the work for me. This podcast explains some of where I've been for the past month.…
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I Have Joined the Pod People
I have left the silent era and entered the world of podcasting. Rob Wolf interviewed me for his New Books in Science Fiction and Fantasy podcast. You can go here to listen to me talk about A Darkling Sea, Aztecs, why roleplaying games are different from novels, Bone Wars, my obsession with getting stuff right,…
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First Impressions of Fifth Edition
Wizards of the Coast is rolling out their latest edition of the venerable Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game this summer. This isn't just a new version of the game, though; the designers' stated goal was to create a version of D&D which would reunite the game's fan base, and bring back into the fold all…
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Invoco Legem Magicarum!
. . . as Mandrake the Magician used to say. Kinetic fantasy author Max Gladstone wrote an interesting post about "Magic Systems and the Wizardsroman" on his own blog. He's interested in the connections between story and How Magic Works (that is, how the fictional magic operates within a fantasy story), and it started me…
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LunaCon 2014, Featuring ME!
If you're going to be near Westchester County, New York this weekend, please consider stopping by the Hilton Westchester hotel in Rye Brook for Lunacon, New York's venerable science fiction convention. I'll be there, and here's my schedule: Friday, March 14, 5pm: Alternate Technologies in Historical Fiction — I'll be moderating a panel as we discuss…
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Leveraging Our Desires
My kids have recently become enamored of the TV show Leverage, watching it via Hulu and Netflix. If you're not familiar with the series, it's basically an updated Mission: Impossible. Each episode centers on an elaborate caper performed by our slightly shady heroes, typically aimed at righting some wrong. To make the episodes interesting, the…
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Spelling Bee After-Action Report
My talented wife Diane and I were recruited by a friend to join her team in the Northampton Education Foundation's annual spelling bee. We agreed, so last night the three of us turned up in yellow sweaters to battle the other teams. Funds were raised, somehow. When we agreed to participate, both Diane and I…
The Cambias Digression 