I was going to write about something else this week, but I came across another topic that caught my interest. This essay on Facebook compared sports as "played for fun" and "played for money" and then went on to discuss the idea of paying Game Masters for their time. I'll start by saying that I …
Category: Geek Thoughts
Phase Two: The Rise of DM Determinism
In my last post (sorry for the delay), I wrote about how D&D – played as intended – is a very specific kind of game. I touched on the idea that D&D expects the DM to be the ultimate, but neutral, arbiter of the game. The DM breathes life into the spaces the PCs explore …
Approaching the Gaming Table
I’ve been away from the gaming table for three months now. Even though I’ve been following the development of Shadowrun Sixth Edition and working on a few design projects, this is the first time since I was eight years old that I’ve really been an outsider to tabletop gaming. Those three months – and my …
The Agency of Resources
I hope this doesn't come off as, "get off my lawn, you whippersnappers." I'm a middle-aged gamer who cut my teeth on the D&D box sets of the 80s. I also love a lot of modern games. But I've noticed something of a trend that - while not necessarily a bad thing - tends to …
What’s in a Campaign?
As I have been working on my game, it has occurred to me that I have forgotten how to run a campaign. Somewhere along the line, I seem to have lost the skills to plan and execute an interesting campaign. I know that any GM’s reading this are asking… “But what do you mean by …
Molly Grue
So, I wanted to write more about mechanical failure and storytelling today. Then I heard a song I had to share. No Happy Endings https://fawm.org/songs/90857/ by Mikey Mason The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle is one of the best fantasy novels ever. It's also an amazing movie (though be careful not to watch the …
Punk
Yesterday, I read a piece on Slate asking the question, "Why can't we move past Cyberpunk?" It was an interesting read, primarily for the rabbit hole the author goes down in exploring (or, at least mentioning) the dozens of sub-, sub-, genres adopting names with the -punk appellation. Some of them were known to me, …
Finite Worlds & the Escalation Mentality
I recently made the mistake of reading the Batman: Metal storyline. My review is straightforward; it was awful. But it got me further thinking about a problem that I have with storytelling in general. Mainly, I suppose, it would be fair to say – Serial Storytelling. Look at D&D. From the time of BECMI, the …
Shadowrun vs. Pathfinder: Complexity and Cognitive Load
I recently wrote about my disaffection with gaming – something that’s been creeping over me for a while. There has been a more tangible example recently of my struggles to enjoy my at-the-table experience and how it manifests in game systems. We’ve been playing the Pathfinder 2e playtest. Now, I played a lot of Pathfinder …
Continue reading Shadowrun vs. Pathfinder: Complexity and Cognitive Load
Gaming is a Young Person’s… Game
I was in a little secondhand bookstore, in a basement of an old building, looking buying a couple books of poetry by obscure authors when the guy behind the counter said to me, "Poetry is a young man's game." We talked about it a little - I being only in my mid-twenties at the time …
