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Breaking the Ice and Shooting the Moon in pdf
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Cultural shortcomings
Mist-robed Gate

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stefandirklahr in Breaking the Ice and Shooting the Moon in pdf
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2006-08-22 : Finding our games by Meguey
1001 Nights is for sale through my game company, Night Sky Games.

Breaking the Ice and Shooting the Moon are for sale through Emily's game company, Black and Green Games.

2006-02-05 : Initials and Handshake by Emily
Hi there,

Welcome to Fair Game! What's your name and what initials do you use for marginalia comments? Anything else you might like to share?

2006-05-13 : Movie list by Meguey
Here's where I want to jot down movies I want to see. Comments and *short* reviews, no spoliers please, are welcome. Feel free to reccomend movies, too, with your review.

2008-05-05 : JiffyCon
posted by Meguey
Did we mention JiffyCon is on?

Yep. Y'all sign up now, hear?

2008-04-30 : Breaking the Ice and Shooting the Moon in pdf
posted by Emily
Hi everyone,

Just in time for Spring, Breaking the Ice and Shooting the Moon are now available in pdf format. The pdfs include the full text and illustrations from the print versions, formatted in landscape, letter-size pages for ease of printing. I cleaned up the text a bit in each, and Breaking the Ice now features a more pleasing character sheet--that still has all of the usual hints and reminders for playing the game.

You can get the pdfs from me at Black and Green Games as well as from Indie Press Revolution. They've got package deals and bundles, too, at IPR.

Now to get cranking on Under my Skin and Sign in Stranger. Oh! There are pages for each of these games (and other free ones and playtest drafts) at Black & Green, too. You can download the latest playtest versions and see links for play reports. Go check it out.

Happy Spring!

best,
Emily

2008-04-28 : Cool Food Tool
posted by Meguey


My 2nd grader came home a week ago all excited about this game they played in technology class. He told me all about the social and economic impact, as only an 8 year old can.

"You play this vocabulary game and if you get the word right, then they give rice to hungry people -for free!-. That means you learn stuff -and- feed people who need food. I mean, how cool is that?"

2008-04-17 : Cultural shortcomings
posted by Emily
Okay, folks. I'm sadly lacking in my online cultural knowledge. What are the possum awesome web comics out there? I'm a fan of Jenn Manley Lee's Dicebox and the newly re-started Hereville. But I know there is a ton of other great stuff out there.

What am I missing? What do you read?

2008-04-14 : Mist-robed Gate
posted by Meguey
Last night I got to play the most fun game of the year, thus far. Shreyas ran his game in development Mist-Robed Gate for 10(!) of us Western Massive/Story Games Boston types. The theme was a western on Mars, as colonized by Chinese kung-fu masters. Whoo-boy.

Cool things about the game design:
Each character picks a color, weather, and 'kung-fu tell', which turn into points when you bring them into narration.

Because the people not on-screen get to vote as to who's winning the kung-fu fighting, everyone stays engaged even if you're not in the screen.

Yes, the cool rules about the knife include stabbing another player's character sheet as an option.

Cool things about the game play last night:
I don't ever remember being in a game where there was *that* much applause. 11 people who are all quality players makes for a really fun game, even just to watch.

Who's who:
Carrie=Flower Blossom, the oldest daughter of local notables, and a high-ranking water resource manager with a marriage she wants kept secret
Elizabeth=Metal Wind, a bounty hunter, later revealed to be Flower Blossom's little sister
Shreyas=Small Happiness, a Taiwanese/Phobosean spy, works with Flower Blossom at the water station
Jonathan=New World Chen, the cop, with
Kat=Plum Blossom, owner of a saloon called The Grove, she has a painful past
Evan=Misery, the penitent fanatic who drags a ball and chain everywhere, self-styled slave to Flower Blossom
Dev=Old Duck, the simple dirt farmer and moral center of our tale, linked to Plum Blossom's past
Kelly=Sounding Bell, a traveling religious fanatic, head of Misery's sect
Josh=Clouded Glen, tyrannical water system controller, Flower Blossom's boss, now dead at Old Duck's hands
Meg=Fragrant Plum, the hooker with the heart of gold at The Grove, a Party Loyalist
Joshua=Nine Hands Mi, a wandering 'man with a past' who has found in Plum Blossom a reason to stay here

Can you see it? It's all about water control and water access, crossed with secrecy and religious fervor. I spent a lot of time listening at doors and ferrying info to my cop 'friend'. Carrie's prim water manager is *dangerous*! Do Not mess with her!

Best bits, not in chronological order:
Flower Blossom trying to bribe New World Chen to leave the humble farm before recognizing her as something beyond a farm-wife. How do you trust a cop who won't take a bribe??
Sounding Bell's blind-folded monkey.
Nine Hands Mi catching the falling soup bowls - so kung-fu!
Plum Blossom's pimp-coat and arch looks. There's a lady who knows how to run a business!
Clouded Glen's spitting-mad freakishness in smashing the control panels when his authority was questioned, and his threatening dying words. Impending nuclear explosion, you say?
Metal Wind's mono-filament razor ear-rings inscribing twin circles in the stone wall during the sister's fight.
Old Duck's insistence on his town's right to water, and Small Happiness' revelation about all the extra water in Dark Militant Lake. And then death to Clouded Glen!
Misery looking for 3/4 inch pipe, and Fragrant Plum lending him a, um, hand in measuring.

2008-04-01 : Sign up now!
posted by Emily
Looks like Google has gotten the drop on Sign in Stranger and begun the process of colonization of Mars. Always the forward thinkers, they.

Project Virgle

2008-03-28 : One of 1001
posted by Meguey
Here is a story from a game of 1001 Nights played by Dave, Karin, and Tim. I'm pretty pleased.

Here is Karin's initial report.

2008-03-20 : 1001 Nights update
posted by Meguey
I was successfully wooed by Brennan and Fred (who won me over by dancing with my toddler at Dreamation)and I'm now up on IPR. Whohoo!

The lovely folks at Narrattiva (www.narrattiva.it)will be doing the Italian translation and publishing of 1001 Nights. I really like the way they've handled PTA and Dogs, so I feel as though I'm in good hands.

2008-03-19 : Five Years in Iraq
posted by Emily
Tomorrow is the anniversary of the Iraq war.

Connect. Find a peace vigil, in the US, near you.

2008-03-17 : Still working on this one
posted by Emily
Emperor Marcus Aurelius Atoninus had this to say somewhere around the year of 170 CE and I can't help but think of the internet:

Begin the morning by saying to yourself, I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil. But I who have seen the nature of the good that it is beautiful, and of the bad that it is ugly, and the nature of they who do wrong, that is is akin to me, not only of the same blood or seed, but that it participates in the same intelligence and the same portion of the divinity, I can neither be injured by any of them, for no one can fix on me what is ugly, nor can I be angry with my kinsman, nor hate him. For we are made for co-operation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To act against one another, then, is contrary to nature; and it is acting against one another to be vexed and to turn away.