A retelling of a short story written by myself for an old Horror fanzine. That story focuses on a particularly eventful evening in the life of freelance photographer Pamela Grey in the world of the Dark Conspiracy RPG. In this story game you take the place of Pamela. 

The world you live in is much like today's, only a little worse.  The rich are richer, the poor are poorer, and the gap between is so much wider. So much is controlled by the mega-corporations and rich interests that large swatches of the ever expanding urban sprawl are marked as "Outlaw Territory, Enter At Own Risk" - where even the police don't go, either for fear or lack of resources.  The middle class has mostly disappeared except for the lowest echelon of corporate execs, and legislative changes have allowed many that would have previously been on the public dole to instead sell their vote to corporate interests in exchange for support. Crime is up, as are disappearances, theft, and violence. Even as bad as the world has become, there are persistent rumors that even worse things lurk in the shadows.  Many neighborhoods have abandoned houses that everyone knows better than to enter, and even in the outlaw where the police fear to tread there are rumors of entire blocks that no one but the mad or the most desperate are willing to risk going into after dark.

You and Susan, your significant other, are doing ok.  Her job with Aprico has afforded the two of you a small place in a small gated community owned by the company. A prized place in the vanishing middle class. Your home is close enough to the gates that you can still easily indulge in your favorite hobby, walking through Chicago with your trusty camera in hand, particularly at night.  The sale of these photos as art pieces to the ultrawealthy, facilitated by Susan's contacts, has helped with sporadic lump sums of money.  Susan pays the bills, but your money pays for luxuries and splurges.

In the twilight one often finds isolated moments of beauty and mystery that would never been seen in the daylight, and you work to capture these moments in the perfect clarity of your lens. You know the risks of being out alone at night outside the gates, but even Susan has had to admit that the last couple of pictures you sold would not have been possible if you hadn't been out there.  To help comfort her (and yourself to be completely honest), you recently bought a large knife to carry with you, just in case.

So, come explore the night and see what waits for you in the dark.

An entry for MHD's Fairytale contest, this is a retelling of the old Appalachian Fairy Tale "The Little Princess of the Forest".

Come listen to the telling of one of the wildest fairy tales I've ever heard.    This story was originally told by Marshall Ward for a fairy tale collection, and has stuck with me ever since I first heard it.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.  Grab a seat and listen up, as it starts like this...

This is a storygame conversion of the Minion Hunter Board Game by GDW.

This is certainly more game than story, as some aspects may be somewhat repetitive, especially while on the training track. I have tried to make it more story based than the actual board game.

This is set in the same world as my "A Night in Chicago" storygame.

This game is broken into two segments "Training" and "Investigation", equivalent to the Training track and Dark America map of the original board game.  Initially you start the game with 1 point in each of four stats (Strength, Agility, Contacts, & Empathy) and no money and select an initial training which will give you bonuses to certain stats.  You can move through additional training, seeking encounters that will build up your stats and provide you with equipment.and money.  While this training is going on, however, the various plots of the Dark Minions are advancing in the world of Dark America. You must occasionally leave training to Investigate these plots and attempt to disrupt them.  Can you stop the plots of the major Dark Minion factions before they take over Dark America?

It was just supposed to be a quick run down to the bodega. Ten minutes, tops. Then you saw something in the alley, and now everything has been turned upside down.

This is incomplete. Sorry, I just ran out time.

Entry for Sherbet's Summer's End Synergy Contest

Thanks.  I don't know why I couldn't find that on the article list.  I knew I had seen something like it somewhere.

For a game I am working on I have a "deck" of cards that will be randomly drawn from.  As things progress I need to know which cards have been pulled so as to prevent duplicates and know when the whole deck has been used.  Playing around with it, the only way I can think to do it is basically create a variable for each card in the deck to indicate 1/0 if the card has been drawn.  The cards are not items that can be interacted with by the player directly, but they do define what happens on given pages, so I wasn't looking at it as a bunch of items.  Is there a more efficient way of managing the card draw tracking?

Not at all.  I appreciate the constructive criticism.

Thank you for the review.  I get what you are saying about the lack of an opportunity for characterization.  Your points on adding some bits of physicality to break up the info dump is also a great thought.  I can even have Harlowe do some stuff for each one as the other three quarters of this page is the break down of the types.

I also need to give more thought on how to explain how the Lunar Power is expended through use or encapsulation.  I was intending to just drop it as a hint of a much bigger issue that more advanced wizards are working on, although for high mental characters this should be better clarified even at this early stage.  The daydreaming thing definitely needs to be something i handle for lower mental characters.  The reason why the local resources reference at the very end is important is because in areas with several mages doing big things the amount of free lunar power gets expended quickly, thus limiting what spontaneous magical effects can be created.  There are also areas that aggregate or dissipate dynami naturally that have to be taken into account.

Regardless,  thank you for the rework.  I will be incorporating many of your suggestions in my final copy.

Excerpt from a story game in process:

Welcome, students to Fundamentals of Magic, one of the required courses for Novices or Neonates, whatever they are calling you this year. Hopefully you have all gotten settled since your arrival. I am Professor Harlow. Today's lesson will be fairly short since it's our first class, and I'm sure having a little more time before your next class will be helpful.

Now, how much history do you littles know? Five Hundred and Twenty-Five years ago, the Magemoon began to orbit the planet. While it was not known at the time, the Magemoon emits a radiation known by many colloquial names, but formally as Dynami tis Silanis, or Lunar Power. This invisible and nearly-inescapable radiation has and continues to build up in the atmosphere, soil, water and people on the planet. When the Magemoon first appeared, arcane workings could only be done with great effort, time, and usually only in direct view of the Magemoon. Nowadays, as I'm sure you are familiar, many common arcane feats are now able to be performed by particularly gifted children at almost any time. I would not be surprised at all to hear that each of you have been able to consciously manifest effects prior to your invitation here to Gwimmermort. This variability in effectiveness of arcane workings, also known as Urges, from the Greek suffix -urgy, which means 'to work', lead to the ongoing development of technology and scientific principles. For some, this has led to the outlook of magic as merely another branch of science. I do not agree with this view, as science is built upon reliable and repeatable principles, while magic or working, again due to the variability of Dynami tis Silanis concentration, relies much more on intuition and the ability to sense what one might be able to do with the local variable resources.

Looking for input on characterization and quality of summary in worldbuilding.  This scene takes place fairly early on in the magical school story.  The protagonist, along witth the rest of the class are all 12-13 year olds.

My mom used to work at a reading library. It's where I learned the ASL alphabet.  It is a skill I regret letting fade.

I can dig it. I'm in.

Welcome to the site.

I can only speak one, but at one point I knew and used over a dozen programming languages.