Lotus Arts, MRG News

Mist-Robed Gate is currently between print runs. That doesn’t mean it’s out of print! But it does mean that you can’t get a hard copy right now. You can still get PDFs no problem.

Check out Lotus Arts de Vivre too. They make beautiful expensive things with a sort of modern take on Art Nouveau aesthetics, all rich organic curvilinear forms and the saturated colours of jewels and tropical birds, but interpreted in a more naturalistic fashion, taking from the shapes of natural things instead of the formalisms of ukiyo-e.

Pillars of My Community

Think of this as, like, my Game Community Top Ten—the people in the sphere who I think are most important to our performing at top form.

Artisans: The palpitating heart of any art community are its artisans, the people who’re very good at what they do, and who care most about doing good work, and fuck what the rest of you think about it. That’s how I see Vincent and Nathan—their passion for craftsmanship moves me to do better work.

Innovators: The innovators’ job is to try new things, do experiments, give us new ideas. They don’t always do things best—that’s what artisans are for—but they do things first, and the work they do in breaking new ground keeps us from being mired in stale ideas. It’s why I keep an eye on Jonathan and Kevin—I know they’ll always be up to something I didn’t expect.

Liaisons: Of course, we would still stifle each other just with the weight of our company, if it weren’t for the liaisons like Emily, Eero, and Jenn, who keep us connected to related communities. Their bringing in fresh faces and concepts from other fields helps us avoid chasing our own tails.

Experts: Being a community with really strong interdisciplinary needs, we also benefit a lot from experts like Harper and Elizabeth, who are good at things that aren’t core to our community values—as I see it, we’re game artists, and that means, we are good at playing games, and sometimes we write about them—but support that core value by knowing things that we don’t all know.

Enthusiasts: Let’s not forget the most important part of the community, its social feedback engine. If it weren’t for wonderful people like Meg, John, and Eppy, we wouldn’t be doing what we do.

Fledgelings: Playtesting the Epistle and the Gate

Hi, friends! Since we last talked I’ve been very busy. I’ve been fortunate enough to playtest Risalat al-Ghufran and the Mist-Robed Gate twice, and we’ve learned a lot. I’m also really seeing and benefiting from having access to a large pool of strong players. It’s pretty great.

We played Risalat with myself, Elizabeth, and Alexis, and in that playtest we realised that its rules are much heavier than they need to be; after we threw some out the window, it was streamlined and compelling. The rotating cast of characters is thrilling to me; they add a lot of richness and texture, but at the same time, they hold the action down to a human scale. It’s lovely.

We played a second time, Elizabeth, Joshua A.C. Newman, Emily and I, and that went pretty well too. The text needs some serious updating, but we’ve got the flow of play down, and it’s what I want.

I already wrote about the first playtest of the Mist-Robed Gate; we put our heads together and set up an action sequence system that resolves some of those issues, and also includes an adjustable pacing dial. We tested that out with a staggeringly large group, and it worked splendidly. Meguey Baker at Fair Game and Jonathan Walton at one thousand one beat me to the blogging punch (Thanks, guys! <3 ), so go see them for a rundown of the action. Thanks to everyone who played!

I’m really happy with the way the game handles larger groups; now we’ve just got to run it a few times with a smaller group, and we’re all set. I’m also thinking about explicitly supporting non-character players in a couple of different ways.

As a parting gift, go see Pingmag’s update on graphic design in China, and this beautiful honey package at the DieLine. It’s pretty sweet.

Another Bird; Eggs in the Nest

I’d like to share Sugarcrane with you. They are a jewelry-design group that makes really striking, masculine accessories with an interesting tinge of the multicultural and the antique, but with a modern edge. I kind of see them as the jewelry makers for Final Fantasy games; there is something of that fusion vibe in their work.

Plus, it’s stuff that I’d really like to wear.

It’s February 29, and a chance to make a 2-29 post only comes every four years, so I thought I’d take it today. I don’t have a lot to talk about, except for my Jiffycon Boston plans; I’m going to play Annalise with Nathan, and if things work out right, I’ll run the Mist-Robed Gate in the afternoon, although there is some whispering in the wind about doing a shot of Snow from Korea instead.

I’m really excited about Annalise. Nathan and I played it recently, as a two-player game, and it really rocks out. Having more people to play with will be super-interesting, too, as I didn’t get to see its secrets mechanics in action.

Whichever game I end up running, I’m a little apprehensive. Snow has shown its chops a couple of times, but it’s in dire need of an update to the text. It’s also got some complicated bits around the edges, that could do with some trimming. On the other side, Gate is really lean and tight, but it might be lean to the point of emaciation; I’m not sure that the rules provide all the content that we need to play it, without myself in attendance. It also hasn’t shown its function in actual play.

I’m leaning toward trying out Gate if I can get some willing persons, but I’ll be bringing Snow to fall back on.