Blog Posts

Subraces Should be Cultures

Referring to elves as a ‘race’ makes perfect sense. They’re clearly different from the other humanoids, have their own features, and biological properties and oddities.1

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Parallel Rules and BIND

I want contradictory things for BIND, so I’ve been trying to do both. And I have finally made it work…I think.

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Happily Ahistorical

RPG worlds need histories, so I had to write some history for BIND’s world, Fenestra. This was a big mistake.

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How I Made BIND's Monsters

BIND began as a D&D-reaction. “Mathematically, these rules stand some serious improvement”. After that, I only wanted some generic fantasy monsters to make an example game.

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Writing for the GM

I don’t have the reading time for RPGs I once did (or for anything). I’d like to chalk if up to being an adult with a job now, but perhaps the truth is just ‘internet’.

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Why BIND Rules Don't Allow Players to Go for the Eyes

(a story about spreadsheet failure) I’ve considered changing BIND’s ’to-hit’ system to let players ‘go for the eyes’ (or a headshot, or otherwise decide to attempt a vitals shot), and decided against it. My reasons sit below, but expect lots of boring numbers. You have been warned. (or just skip to the conclusions)

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New Handouts

BIND’s maps have their numbers and comments applied by its writing tool, LaTeX. This makes handouts really easy, because the same map can present different layers to different people.

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Dungeons Need More Space

The dungeon ecosystem doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but I think Tolkien has a fix.

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No Introduction Necessary

It’s been commented that BIND has no introduction, saying ‘what is a roleplaying game?’, and I don’t think it needs one.

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Minified vs Minimalist Rules

Tiny rulebooks are all the rage, and it’s great. The game of go has (arguably) 3 rules. Chess has a dozen rules. Monopoly has that little booklet-thing which nobody reads. RPGs often have 400 pages of rules without counting an adventure module, and often lack proper indexing. This hobby is mad, and the backlash against that madness feels refreshing.

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