“Prep Is Play”

 “It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.”

— Mark Twain

I haven’t engaged with roleplaying games in a while, owing to a lack of interested players and time. Gathering multiple friends for any regular game session these days has become a common meme trope for the adult gamer generations. So I’m exploring a solitaire roleplaying game to engage my urge to return to that form...and immerse myself in some much-needed gaming escapism to deal with an onslaught of personal stress and <waves hand> all this nonsense going on in the world. My game of choice? Ironsworn: Starforged by Shawn Tomkin. I backed it in Kickstarter and, though I’ve read it and explored its numerous oracle tables, I’ve not yet sat down to play it. I’ve been developing a character in the back of my mind, along with an initial contact and a sector with some locations, but otherwise I’ve relied on the random table “oracles” to guide my sector set-up and other bits for which I’ve no immediate inspiration. I’m having fun determining the elements for my future adventures, even though I’m not actually playing the game. Or am I? Starforged includes a heading I think all roleplaying gamers can take to heart: “Prep Is Play.”

RPG City Settings

 “A great city is that which has the greatest men and women.”

— Walt Whitman

My interest in fantasy roleplaying game city settings came soon after I discovered Dungeons & Dragons. After receiving the basic set for Easter in 1982, I saved my allowance and, when summer break started that year, went to Branchville Hobby down the road and bought the Expert D&D boxed set. The clerk slipped a copy of Adventure Gaming magazine in the bag, a nice treat for a neophyte like me who hadn’t yet discovered Dragon magazine or other periodicals fueling my enthusiasm for a new hobby. Among the wonders inside (including an adventure by Gary Gygax!) was a review of Chaosium’s new boxed set based on the popular Thieves’ World short story anthologies...focusing on the shared setting City of Sanctuary and its inhabitants. This one article opened my eyes to a new environment for fantasy roleplaying which occasionally reached out to tempt me throughout the years.

Traveling the Thousand Thousand Islands

Learning about different places, people, and cultures different – whether through physical travel or wandering the internet (or, gasp, even a book!) – can provide new experiences from which we might learn and grow. These different perspectives don’t simply expose us to new elements; they challenge us to examine ourselves. We use the phrase “It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there,” reflecting both our appreciation for foreign places and our own gratitude for the comforts of home. We might claim the same thing in our gaming. Many of us play in fantasy roleplaying games heavily influenced by western European history and culture. It’s worthwhile to venture out in an imaginary sense to explore new lands in our gaming...especially with tour guides native to a foreign culture. I recently embarked on such a journey, immersing myself in A Thousand Thousand Islands fanzines inspired by southeast Asian culture. It’s given me some wonderful game inspiration as well as a taste of a world quite different from my own privileged, white American male perspective.

System -Neutral or OSR Stats?

“Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.”

– Carl von Clausewitz

I have on occasion been moved to write about the Old School Renaissance (OSR, or whatever you want to call it using those initials). A few years ago I explored OSR rules and supplements. The vast array of adaptations offered some interesting innovations among the retreads of classic D&D mechanics. Settings and supplements tied to rules interpretations provided inspiration easily ported to other games. But now I’m developing two fantasy roleplaying game supplements – an as-yet unannounced setting and the Infinite Cathedral setting currently languishing in limbo – I’m faced with a conundrum. Do I provide stats for the inhabitants in OSR format or in my established but not terribly well-known system-neutral format?

Monsters & Motivation

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.”

– Friedrich Nietzsche

As I mentioned back at the end of my New Year’s missive (“Rejuvenating after the Lost Years”) I’m developing a medieval fantasy setting (possibly using B/X Dungeons & Dragons, maybe system-neutral; that’s a debate for another day). It’s a vast moorland of heath, mires, and hills created ages ago when kingdoms banded together to destroy the power of a great mage. Rather than rely on the usual explore-slay-pillage tropes on which some games and gameplay rely, I’m trying to focus more on the relationship of the region’s inhabitants with both the environment and each other. So in designing this setting I’m looking beyond basic, superficial stereotypes and trying to craft for each faction, individual, and even monsters a relevant motivation when interacting with each other and with player characters. This inevitably leads me to examine the role we give “monsters” in fantasy roleplaying games. like my favorite B/X D&D.

A Gaming Artifact from Trilemma

Artwork and production values in roleplaying game books vary greatly. They’re often constrained by the publisher’s limited budget, sometimes consuming even more financial resources than the actual content itself. Even then high production value and amazing artwork can’t make up for poor design and writing. Certainly Internet Age phenomena like Kickstarter and Patreon have enabled more creative people to release their gaming materials without the infrastructure of traditional print publishers...though quality on numerous fronts isn’t always consistent. But every once in a while a real gem emerges, something that satisfies on so many levels – substantive, graphic, qualitative – a treasure that stands out among the shelves of roleplaying game books. Michael Prescott’s Trilemma Adventures Companion Volume I is one of these amazing gaming artifacts.