Games Influencing Real Life

Recently I’ve noticed a number of game-related items demonstrating how powerfully games can affect real life when they move beyond the comfortable confines where we safely enjoy them: the kitchen table, family game night, the game club shed, teen gaming day at the library, the Friendly Local Game Store, game conventions. Certainly games occur in reality – read Johan Huizinga’s Homo Ludens and one learns games and game-like activities occupy particular spaces in which specific rules of play operate – but when games move beyond their usual boundaries they can exert a positive influence in the real world, sometimes just for fun, sometimes for serious issues.

A Wealth of Printables

The recent release of S. John Ross’ HexPaper Pro reminded me how much the technological advances of the Internet Age have enhanced our collective gaming experiences. It wasn’t too long ago – in what I like to call the “Golden Age of Roleplaying” (the early 1980s) – that some of us purchased pre-printed character record sheets and hoarded graph paper given our limited resources and lack of home publishing technology. Today computers, printers, and the internet give us seemingly unlimited access to printable game accessories (paper minis, graph/hex paper, maps, adventures), PDF and print products available through online e-storefronts, and to a worldwide community of fellow gamers.