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Dear Apathy,

When writing a setting or world book, is it better to explicitly state the type of world it is (have a sentence or two literally reading “This is a high-magic fantasy world, no steam or gunpowder or other industrialized tech. Humans are the vast majority over the other, dying-out races, and magic cards take the place of scrolls and potions.”), or is it better to use character class description, abilities, magic spell lists and equipment list, and simply having the setting’s information strongly suggested?

Sincerely,

­-Dan Suptic

Okay, it may not be true that every product needs an index. If it’s a one-sheet adventure or a three page monster supplement, you don’t need one. But most gaming books do. They’re meant to be referenced, and you reference a work through its index.

Once per week we go behind the bar at Apathy Games and discuss gaming in more personal terms and ask you to respond. The best response will be featured the following week. By the time you’ve started reading a blog about Savage Worlds, you’ve probably been around the roleplaying block and played your share of [...]

Once a week we go behind the bar at Apathy Games and discuss gaming in more personal terms and ask you to respond. The best response will be featured the following week. Bold and daring adventures every week are the heart of Roleplaying. They’re also the heart of Television. As such, it would seem a [...]

Now I shall tell you who I think deserves to win each category. Obviously, I can’t have a fully informed opinion on every product. I haven’t read them all, or even heard of everything on the list. Chances are, you haven’t either. For that reason, I’ll try to be fairly thorough in my reasoning, but if you disagree with something, yell at me in the comments. Flame wars are good for business.

Gnome Stew asked an interesting question recently, in Fair or Foul: Unexpected GM Fait. Should a GM tell the player they can’t win?

A modern setting can greatly restrict a character’s authority to act. Laws usually prohibit even the most innocuous of violence. Surveillance and forensics mean that character’s rarely get away with anything. It’s difficult to be a hero. You can’t go take out that banker gang, or that evil mafioso. It doesn’t matter how terrible they are; the law protects them too.

Back in High School, I met this game. She was called Dungeons & Dragons: Third Edition. You’ve probably know her; she got around.

Life has been frantic lately here at our palatial offices in Seattle, WA. Tyson’s upcoming wedding has involved laborious preparations that cross state lines. Simultaneously, our first major game is currently in various stages of editing and layout, there’s an experimental podcast about beer going on right under our noses, and Hillary has run out of wall space at her home and has been forced to relocate in search of blank canvas.

Sometimes authors make up words. Shakespeare personally added 3000 words to the English language, and since we still use many of them, he’ll never be surpassed. But I still get the impression that Stephenson wrote his doctoral thesis on the subject. And it’s gotten me thinkin’.