3 great articles I was reading today...
Lines and Veils
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.p ... #msg138054
These are the terms and conditions you all agree to before starting a game.
A line is a "line you don't cross." Examples: no cursing, no sexual assault, no guns, no torture, no timetravel and so on.
A veil is "stuff that happens off screen that we don't describe but does exist in our shared fiction." Examples: sex happens but we only allude to it and don't go into any details.
I think this is a great example of a possible aspect of a social contract.
Flag Framing
http://bankuei.blogspot.com/2006/02/fla ... ng_03.html
Guidelines for minimum GM preparation that focus less on pre-planning events and scenes and more on seeds to help with improv GMing keyed to the player's wants. This works well with our discussion of BANGS here: http://www.nerdnyc.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 0&start=40
The Conflict Web
http://bankuei.blogspot.com/2006/02/conflict-web.html
A prep tool for making conflict heavy scenarios. Works very well with Flag Framing.
Cool stuff! When you read a lot of this it seems so "duuhhh!" in a great way but then I'm like, "why don't I actually do this!"
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I had a similar reaction: on the one hand, it is all stuff that I "already knew" - but, on the other, it is stuff that I don't always remember to do or don't do as effectively as I could. Laying everything out in a step-by-step fashion seems like it could be very useful: I can't wait to try it out.