BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA —My schedule kicked off with a packed panel entitled Philosophy Of Game Design, with Steve Darlington and Peter Adkison (who slid into place at about ten minutes in, having all but literally come straight from the airport.) A replacement moderator had been appointed just a few moments before start time, which had me sweating a bit. As a general rule, the more abstract the seminar topic, the more desperately the panelists require a moderator to direct the initial discussion. Philosophy of game design could take us just about anywhere, but it’s a rare enough topic that I don’t have a standard five minute starting spiel in pocket to get the ball rolling. Anyhow, we quickly threw to audience questions and dealt with such issues as convergences between tabletop and computer gaming, the role of marketing in game design, and the virtues of designing resolution systems that express a game’s central idea.

It was midway through this panel that I used up my entire quota on the word “paradigm.” The Friday morning is very early in the show to burn through it completely. In my defense, I will say that I am on a lot of panels here.

This was followed by another hour of signing/chatting in the guest area. I was worried that the signing schedule was over-ambitious but in fact I had folks to talk with for pretty close to the whole time. The con area doesn’t really have a pub or other social locus so the signing ritual (whether or not any signing is actually involved) gives attendees their only real chance to stop by for one-on-one chit-chat with the guests.

Later in the afternoon came the Q&A with Robin event. This had a smaller turnout than previous seminars, but that was good, in that everyone got the chance to ask a question, and could sit close enough that it felt more like a conversation than a one-way communication. I fielded some general gamemastering-type questions as well as specific queries on GUMSHOE and HeroQuest. We did a compare-and-contrast of Feng Shui mooks versus 4E minions, and traced the influence of the indie movement on the new D&D.

Peter blew into town intent on playing Gray Ranks, which he’d been turned onto at Origins. So after a very nice Turkish dinner (mmm. baby octopus) we rounded up a couple of additional volunteers and explored this GMless game of teenage Polish partisans during the doomed uprising against the Nazis in the waning years of WWII. A show like this, without the networking responsibilities Gen Con Indy entails, provides a rare opportunity to actually play a game with industry cronies. There is no more devoted fan of the indie scene than Peter. His enthusiasm for Gray Ranks helped propel us through any jet-lag related confusion over the intricate interlocking rules structures designer Jason Morningstar employs to drive its collaborative narrative.

Tags: 4e, gaming hut, gen con oz, gumshoe, heroquest

(Leave a comment)