Tommi Brander’s Cogito, ergo ludo
I’ve just started reading Tommi Brander’s blog, Cogito, ergo ludo. So far I’ve found Tommi to be a consistently engaging writer and an imaginative roleplayer. His homebrewed persistent fantasy roleplaying system looks intriguing, but I think I’d need a pile of designer’s commentary to successfully digest it. I do like the goals of the system and it does look like it fulfills those.
I was going to write about Tommi’s division of play-preparation into sandbox, scripted, and volatile, but I need to think about it some more. I’ve always tended toward improvisation GMing and something non-obvious in there is speaking to me on that. I would just write a rambling post if I didn’t ferret it out first.
In the meantime, go read some of Cogito, ergo ludo. Tommi’s quality of writing and thinking on roleplaying is quickly becoming a personal benchmark for what I aspire to someday do.
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Tags: blog, improv, preparation, recommendation, system, thinking, writing
Thank you for the compliments.
If you want to discuss anything on my blog in greater detail, post here or there, contact me via Gtalk/Gmail (tommi.brander), or use a public forum of some kind. Just let me know.
About volatile, scripted and sandbox and improvisation: For volatile play where one seeks uncertainty, improvisation is a key method. For scripted play impro is a possibility; have a goal, then try to move the game towards it in whichever way. For sandbox play impro is more challenging, and maybe even impossible without a set of rules designed for it (random content creation, basically, or player-directed content creation; if you are familiar with Burning Wheel, circles).