Dave does RPG Stuff 🔜 Games For Crabs

@uncannydice

Goblin, game designer, performer of various things. Currently working on a process for adapting esoterica, folklore, and similar sources into games. Will probably forget I am on here for long periods of time. [they/them]

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Dave does RPG Stuff 🔜 Games For Crabs@uncannydice· 23d

A few of the Saturday photos from #GamesForCrabs, showing the early planning phases of the three, three-person groups. The Hive, The Fungi, and The Bats. The photos were taken just after a joint tea-break where we had a natter and a catch up with the others, an unexpected development we kept doing!

An A3 notepad splayed open, with post-it notes and scribbled text. One side is a brainstorm about The Hive, the other a quadrant diagram of colony locations based on danger and resources.
The wonderful thing is how little of this we actually used!

Three of our Games For Crabs attendees sat at a table. They're in a small brick room, the lighting was far better in-person!
They have a variety of pieces of paper including multicoloured post-it notes as they discuss the variety of fungi extant in the world.

Another three Games For Crabs attendees in another small brick room. They are having an energetic discussion about bat facts, each keeping notes.

Dave does RPG Stuff 🔜 Games For Crabs@uncannydice· 25d

The workshop materials were pretty lightweight, intended to spur creativity - I think they worked!

Six A4 booklets, along with an A4 sheet with some cards on top of it.

Dave does RPG Stuff 🔜 Games For Crabs@uncannydice· Jun 25

I am low on numbers for Games For Crabs. If you want a weekend of experimental game design, making games for fictional non-humans people, then you haven't got long to sign up! Got to: gamesforcrabs.co.uk If I don't get more sign ups before Sunday evening, I will have to cancel. #gamesforcrabs

Another view of Dou-Rhana, our experimental translation of an Elven game. The tree cards are loaded with dice, surrounded by our research drawings.
A piece of string represents the river.
There are a lot of dice!

Dave does RPG Stuff 🔜 Games For Crabs@uncannydice· Jun 8

I haven't put my blurb/image up yet, the link is: freefringe.org.uk/shows/ludoma... The short blurb is: "Join the eccentric Ludarch for a journey into the realm of games, and bring back a new game of our very own!"

Players engaged in the prototype board game War Dux, created by the audience with some guidance from the Ludarch.

The board is drawn on paper and held down by saucers, a cup, and a bottle. Hand-drawn duck cards and hexagonal terrain tiles are being positioned... I think one player's wizard just triggered a trap, maybe they should have sent their duck to scout!

Dave does RPG Stuff 🔜 Games For Crabs@uncannydice· Jun 7

Hope you are having a lovely Sunday. Do you design games? One cool thing you could do is check your schedule, see if you can make it to Sheffield on July 17th/18th, and sign up for Games For Crabs! GamesForCrabs.co.uk Come do some experimental game design with us! #gamedesign #gamesforcrabs

A selection of drawings of trees in marker pen on blank postcards. Part of the test session for the Inhuman-Centered Design concept.

Dave does RPG Stuff 🔜 Games For Crabs@uncannydice· May 28

Games For Crabs! It's an experimental weekend for game designers. It's in July, in Sheffield. It's gonna be weird and amazing! Check it out at gamesforcrabs.co.uk Then sign up if it sounds up your street. #gamedesign #gamesforcrabs Reposts appreciated. Tell your friends! Ask me questions!

A picture of various dice on tokens on square cards labeled with tree names and some other letters. There are a few pictures of trees on the table with them.

Dave does RPG Stuff 🔜 Games For Crabs@uncannydice· Apr 18

I put the description in the alt text. I disagree... because the paper I am writing is actually about designing games for non-humans. I jest. That's not a paper it's a weekend retreat. The actual paper is about adapting occult manuscripts into games... I am not beating these allegations am I?

Text "I am a 00's Indie Kid" with an image of four of those indie kids falling asleep on each other?

00's Indie Kid
You are succeeding at a cost. Are you okay? Anyway, you're writing a paper on what's the least amount of mechanic a game can have and still be game. You've got six different safety tools up your sleeve and you know the best game is one where everyone's having fun. Or crying. Maybe both?

Dave does RPG Stuff 🔜 Games For Crabs@uncannydice· Mar 3

A reminder you could go to gamesforcrabs.co.uk and let me know that you're interested in a weekend of experimental game design.

A lino cut stamp impression of a crab on the back of a postcard. It's a bit rough.

Dave does RPG Stuff 🔜 Games For Crabs@uncannydice· Nov 10

I have a terrible idea stuck in my head. I hope it doesn't stick and become one of those games I need to get out of my system.

Dave does RPG Stuff 🔜 Games For Crabs@uncannydice· Oct 13

This weekend I organised a D&D campaign as part of Banzaicon (which is a lovely event). Nine games in eight time slots, ~3 hours per game. The players built attractions for an "Adventuring Theme Park" named Dungeonfryd, the events of the game sessions filling out the various project clocks. 1/2?

A notice board with a large map in the centre and pieces of paper surrounding it.
Some of the larger pieces of paper have titles and circles drawn on them.

Dave does RPG Stuff 🔜 Games For Crabs@uncannydice· Jan 24

They've made me want to scream trying to get the typesetting right, and I'm bleeding from the paper cutter, but the cards look pretty good. #LaTeX

Cards for events and astrologer characters, to go with my board games.
I think they look rather nice.

Dave does RPG Stuff 🔜 Games For Crabs@uncannydice· Dec 22

Impro, Keith Johnstone's influential book on improvisation for theatre, has four parts. Most of the improv I've done ignores the fourth part: Mask & Trance. I've done a few of the exercises and found them really fruitful, so I'm doing some more reading and preparing a session for my birthday party.

The cover of Behind the Mask by Bari Rolfe. Black text on a yellow background to the right, and a black-and-white image of an actor wearing a mask on the left. Something about the mask, be it the exaggeration of its features or its strange lumpiness, lends it an uncanny, unsettling air.

Dave does RPG Stuff 🔜 Games For Crabs@uncannydice· Nov 18

Found the notebook at the bottom of a book stack on one of my dining room chairs. Kinda near where I thought it was. The workshop was named Mining For Joy, and divided the qualities of a great player into Engaged, Active, Expressive, and Collaborative. This is one of the pages of exercises.

Notebook pages for RPG player skills exercises, broken down into Focus, Area, Exercise, Coaching, and Ordering.
The handwriting is barely legible.

Dave does RPG Stuff 🔜 Games For Crabs@uncannydice· Nov 18

However, I do need to do some preliminary testing to make sure the ideas work outside of my head, so I will be bringing a prototype to Dragonmeet. It's a game about 13/14th century astrological amulets, and the methodology has drawn out some ideas I might not have come up with otherwise!