• Saturday at 9am I’ll be running “The Dragon Slayer”, a playtest session of Becoming.
• Saturday at 8pm I’ll be running “Cynners and Saints”, a scenario for Jeremy Keller’s Technoir.
• Sunday at 10am I’ll be running “The Long Road Home”, a second playtest session of Becoming.

I hope to see you all there!

The reason for this is that I don’t believe the people with decision-making power care that this is happening, if they even notice at all. I understand that people want to do something about SOPA, but I’m not sure that blacking out your site is actually going to affect change, no matter how big your site is. And I’m certainly sure that changing your Facebook or Twitter avatar will not affect change.

So what am I doing? I’m going to voice my opinion. I won’t black out this site, but this will be the only post going up today. The point of this post is simple: SOPA is wrong. It’s an enormous overreaction to something that it doesn’t even have a prayer of stopping, and it’s likely that it’ll cause more problems than it fixes. If you’re so inclined, I’d encourage you to contact a representative of government and share your opinion with them.

Rather than simply explaining what Becoming is, I’ll let my pitch do the talking.

Becoming is a game about what you must sacrifice to be a hero. Taking on the mantle of the hero makes you an outcast. In order to save the things you love, you must lose them. When you complete your quest will you still be a hero? Or have you become something else?

Simply put, Becoming is a game about going on a heroic journey, but there’s a twist: the outcome of the journey is not in doubt. You will succeed in your quest. You will slay the dragon or find a new homeworld for Earth. What is in doubt is the price of your heroism: what will you have to give up? Will you still be the same person at the end of the quest? Will you be able to go home again?

The core of the game is all about making choices, about choosing what to give up and what to hold on to. There is dice rolling. There are conflict resolution mechaincs. But tied intrinsicly to these things is a system of bargaining and of sacrifice.

The game is still in its early stages. I don’t have a fully playtestable prototype yet, but I will. I’ve made it my goal to get this thing written and published this year. My intent is to document the design process to some extent. Because I’m very excited about it, you’ll likely hear more about it in the future.

To that end, I’m in the process of making arrangements with Rob, the proprietor of Family Fun Hobbies in Hamilton, NJ, to start up a monthly indie game day. The idea is that, once per month, I come into the store and run a different indie game with the intent of getting people excited about them and showing them what’s out there.

I already have a roster of games I want to run. I’ll probably start with Fiasco, and follow that up with Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple and Zombie Cinema. It should be fun; I can’t wait.