And finished Dragonmeet day with an enjoyable meetup for listeners to the Ludonarrative Dissidents podcast (www.ludonarrativedissidents.com) and the UK member of the hosting team @jameswallis.bsky.social at a nearby pub.

Afternoon at Dragonmeet was the fun "Chronospindle Caper" with our multi-universe team (from cartoon rabbit to cyborg soldier) and my first encounter with the Cypher System, making the most of its cross-genre rules. (Maybe that's *another* cinematic rules-light system I'll take a look at!)

Dragonmeet haul (4): Questworlds (@icooper.bsky.social, with whom I had interesting chat at Chaosium stall). Rules-light system for "cinematic, larger-than-life settings" - a style I like (and if it overlaps with Fate - well, I like Fate too!) www.chaosium.com/questworlds-...

Dragonmeet haul (3): The Magus and The Oracle (@momatoes.com) - solo RPG about "the quest for arcane mastery and the loneliness of power". The bits I've looked at while at the stall spark with ideas. nessundove.it/en/shopping/...

Dragonmeet haul (2): Incarnis (from @fanterland.itch.io), RPG of "a pantheon of gods who are all about interfering with each other's lives and with the world they created". Sounds a bit like a crossover between Nobilis and Fiasco. peregrinecoast.press/products/inc...

Dragonmeet haul (1): Page Turners (@robindlaws.bsky.social), new game of personal drama for GM plus solo player (inspired by Dramasystem/Hillfolk) & 11 scenarios. Not sure when I might *play* it, but loved the Dramasystem settings so looking forward to these. pelgranepress.com/product/page...

Yes, given the article's detailed survey of other games, I'm sure he's aware of The Price of Freedom. (I didn't necessarily expect to see TPOF mentioned in this piece focused on post-nuclear-war settings, but thought it might still be of broader interest to other readers.)

As well as games mentioned in article, Greg Costikyan's "The Price Of Freedom" (1986) had related Cold War theme: not nuclear apocalypse, but resistance fighters in Soviet-occupied America.

(A review at rollingboxcars.com/2022/08/17/t..., another view at grognardia.blogspot.com/2010/11/retr...)

Interesting article. I remember the "Twilight: 2000" White Dwarf review and letters page discussions. I found myself nearly playing it once as a one-shot, but the whole session was spent generating characters...

I saw Page Turners at the booth earlier, looks intriguing, will be back to pick up a copy later!

That sounds good - I do have SotS on my "to read" stack so will see that when I get there!

I liked @kevinkulp.bsky.social's "Timewatch" for its nice discussion of why rules were as they were and considerations if you adjusted them. (Amber Diceless was more radical but less specifically helpful: a page on progressively dumping character creation process, points, magic system, rules, & GM.)

On sources of ideas - it mentions Bullfinch's Mythology & the Motif Index of Follklore Literature "amounting to six large volumes, literally lists every basic plot and oddity of every known folk story of dozens of cultures". Now we also have the "all devouring pop-culture wiki" tvtropes.org :-)

Indeed - the "Best of White Dwarf Articles III" did re-print this guide from Lew Pulsipher along with Paul Vernon's "Designing a Quasi-Medieval Society for D&D". (And the Monstermark system had already apparently appeared in the first "Best of..." - but that was before my time...)

This is what our group found with Arcs as well. Over a few sessions we played one or two games of the "standard" version, then on to the epic Blighted Reach campaign. Lots of interesting new elements, but I still need to play more to internalise how they fit together to get anything like a strategy.