Reflections

One of the things I've learned in grad school is just how powerful reflection and revision can be. I used to fire essays off into the dropbox and forget all about them. I used to write long-winded emails and just click send. But things are legitimately better when you have time to look back with a critical eye. Sometimes you can go back and redo it, sometimes you can just hope to learn from your mistakes and by talking it through with friends. That said, Zack did some reflecting on where he went a little wrong with Toulouse, and I hope to use all this to improve Alexandria. Thank you.

Thoughts Going Forward: From Toulouse to Alexandria

This is an email I sent to the Toulouse ST and a few of the players who were interested in the rules:

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Gentlemen,

Here's a summary of the rules changes I'm thinking of making from Toulouse to Alexandria. It was going to be quick, but turned out to be comprehensive. I still tried to keep this quick though:

1) Personal Actions. You get three of them, rather than one. Most people will use the Manage Influence and Correspondence actions, so it should be fairly similar. This might require a few redefinitions of other actions (ritual research, etc.) but I like the idea that you can personally do a couple small things, even if you'll largely be doing Manage Influence and Correspondence. Possible additional action to let you really focus on one particular influence action by throwing multiple abilities/disciplines into the effort.

Feedback on the Rules: From Toulouse to Alexandria

This is a copy of the summarized feedback we got on our Toulouse By Night online influence game, along with my brief responses to some of it.

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Feedback and Update
FYI, we’re thinking of running a second game, but it’ll probably take 4-6 weeks before we could start.  We’re exploring a more powerful website to handle the computation behind the game, and allow for more players. We’re thinking of Alexandria in Late Antiquity as the setting, around 360. Constantine has recently legalized Christianity, but Pagans are still quite a powerful force in the Empire. Alexandria is a Greek city in Egypt, so it is a confluence of ancient philosophy, mysticism, and secrets from the past. It may not be the most familiar setting for everyone, but we’re not expecting much background info. We’ll try to recommend a couple vital Wikipedia pages, or some films for inspiration.

Introduction: First Things First

Back around the beginning of this year, a good friend mentioned the idea of doing an online RPG. Now, we've done this before with some success, but not for a decade or so. In high school, I ran a game of Mage: The Sorcerer's Crusade (with plenty of non-mages) which was fun, but ultimately a little unsatisfying. From what I remember, most characters were in a monastery of some sort, trying to solve some kind of mystery or obtain some power presumably. There were definitely mages, perhaps a mummy, a vampire, a cockatrice (thank you Bygone Bestiary), and probably some kind of werewolf or changing breed, I forget. At any rate, it ended (I think) because I got tired of writing lots of really awesome high-school quality prose each turn for people who weren't always responding at times. I'm pretty sure I ended it just by killing everyone as a diabolic ritual happened which the players were unable to stop (either through their own incompetence or my own fiat, I can't recall per se).