Color me honored to appear as a guest on the landmark 50th episode of the G*M*S Podcast. Join ace interviewer Paco Jaen as he grills me on Stone Skin Press, Hillfolk, and how we coerced Simon into greenlighting Dreamhounds of Paris. Regarding the post-interview discussion, I hate to ruin a thrilling mental picture but have […]
Category Archives: Hillfolk
In this Gamerati interview, I talk Hillfolk, Stone Skin Press, Dreamhounds of Paris, The Gaean Reach, and our plan to apprehend Flattop, with David Melmo, the Secret DM. Check out his lovely intro, subscribe to Ed Healy’s Gamerati YouTube channel, or dive in directly below.
In response to playtest comments, I’ve simplified one of the core systems of the DramaSystem engine, which powers the Hillfolk game. To test this, I’ve started up a non-Hillfolk game with the Thursday night group, because we already laid that epic series to its fitting conclusion. This time I threw the choice of setting open […]
Do you have a webcam, a free evening this Thursday, and a hankering to try out Hillfolk, my upcoming game using the new DramaSystem rules set? The playtest will take place on Google Hangout from 7-10 PM Eastern this Thursday, May 3rd. To indicate your interest in taking part, leave me (Robin Laws) a private […]
Welcome again to Scene Study, where we break down dramatic scenes in recent popular entertainment as they might play out in DramaSystem. In the Game of Thrones episode “The Night Lands” (Season Two, Episode 2) [stop here if you don’t want to know] Tyrion Lannister tries to assert his new authority as the king’s right […]
Welcome to another installment of Scene Study, where we break down dramatic scenes in recent popular entertainment as they might play out in DramaSystem. In the Mad Men season opener [stop reading here if you don’t want to know], Don Draper and his new wife Megan find themselves at odds after she embarrasses him with […]
On my return from London, the players in the ongoing Hillfolk game wanted a full report on what went down in the one-shot I ran for the Pelgrane crew, pre-Dragonmeet. Who were their alternate universe counterparts, and what did they get up to? As the game moves into outside playtesting, it’s an issue I’ll be […]
Commenter Carl, over at my See P. XX intro to DramaSystem, asks about the role deceit plays in the game. Is there a mechanism to ensure that characters who are deceived act accordingly? It depends on whether the interaction is procedural or dramatic. In the first instance, it occurs in pursuit of a pragmatic goal, […]
At first glance, the survival horror cable series “The Walking Dead” would seem clearly procedural, devoted as it is to the efforts of a small band of people to tough out a zombie apocalypse. Certainly, many of its most memorable scenes pit characters against practical problems: finding a missing party member, snagging needed medical supplies, […]
Last week I presented a series of synopses from the in-house Hillfolk playtest, to show the sort of narrative you might develop over the course of a DramaSystem series. This time I thought I’d zoom in a bit with a detailed account of the action that unfolds during a single episode. This is from our […]