Food for thought ... (Link)

[fmitchell]

If the old "Links" section still existed I'd post this there.

I've been browsing http://www.metamythos.net/ and it has a lot of articles for the GM who likes to tinker, or just needs some advice.

A couple that interested me:

"Gods and Their Relationship to Magic" (http://www.metamythos.net/node/13): Yes, that topic again, but the author's focus is less on philosophy and more on game effects, with a few options I hadn't considered.

"Human Factors in Game Design" (http://www.metamythos.net/node/24) ... or why your ultra-realistic system with multiple charts and die rolls will flop. Some of it is common sense, but avid gamers often miss their Common Sense saving throw.

Worth a look, at least.

[Skunkape]

Cool, I'll look them over! Thanks for posting the links Frank!

[mathogre]

I just read the Human Factors paper. Thanks! Very cool and insightful.

Recently I'd been over to Myth-Weavers (http://www.myth-weavers.com), playing a Play-by-Post game. M-W is a neat site, and PbP is an interesting alternative to table play.

That said, I found PbP to be a tediously slow way to game and subsequently wrote a program to see how long it would take to play a game. In essence anything that takes time is your enemy. For instance, NEVER queue posting in initiative order if you want your game to go beyond a single combat round; post as soon as you can for a round, and let the DM sort the results.

Even with everyone posting asynchronously for a combat round, a round will still only go as quickly as the most lagging player. Establishing and enforcing time limits (2 days per round, for instance - play or lose a turn) can potentially help, but an encounter that covers 10 combat rounds will take 3 weeks to play. A simple adventure/module with a half dozen encounters can approach a half year to complete. While the orientation of PbP games is less about combat and more about role play, keeping a game fresh and players interested and engaged is in part a human factors challenge.

Point is that human factors for game design extends to games played away from the table.