RPGaDAY 2021: Day 9--Percentage

 Day 9 #RPGaDAY2021...yet another '4' and today's topic shall be Percentage. I can't resist doing this one so:

TRIGGER WARNING!!!

It is well-documented in the culture wars that a certain vocal demographic has demanded and unfortunately, brought about changes to various hobbies and pop-culture IPs including TTRPGs--and old timers like me aren't happy about it. From my perspective these WOKE, pandering companies are bending over backwards to please what is estimated at roughly 5.6% of the U.S. population. Keep in mind that far, far less than that have even a passing interest in TTRPGs, so why all the virtue signaling for such a small group of people often at the expense of the existing fanbase? I can't answer that, but I want to give some more facts and percentages that Wizards of the Woke and Panderizo may want to think about.

<from this article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20130604134550-284615-15-statistics-that-should-change-the-business-world-but-haven-t

* The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60 – 70%. The probability of selling to a new prospect is 5-20% – Marketing Metrics.

*For every customer complaint there are 26 other unhappy customers who have remained silent –Lee Resource.

*A 2% increase in customer retention has the same effect as decreasing costs by 10% – Leading on the Edge of Chaos, Emmet Murphy & Mark Murphy.

* A dissatisfied customer will tell between 9-15 people about their experience. Around 13% of dissatisfied customers tell more than 20 people. – White House Office of Consumer Affairs.

*A 5% reduction in the customer defection rate can increase profits by 5 – 95% – Bain & Company.

*It costs 6–7 times more to acquire a new customer than retain an existing one – Bain & Company.

*eCommerce spending for new customers is on average $24.50, compared to $52.50 for repeat customers – McKinsey.

*96% of unhappy customers don’t complain, however 91% of those will simply leave and never come back – 1Financial Training services.

So, what's the take away if that was TLTR? Companies should want to expand their audience, but not at the expense of the audience that actually..you know...buys their products. D&D in specific and TTRPGs in general are probably more popular than they've ever been, but are all the new SJW types lifers or are they as flighty as I perceive them to be? As for me...

#RPGaDAY2021: Day 6 Path

 #RPGaDAY2021 I rolled the dice and got a 4 again...I should be doing dagger damage with all the 4s this week. 

Path lends itself to me continuing to rally vs. the 'WOKE' and my writing something about how I think the TTRPG community is on the wrong path or the path to Hell being paved with good intentions or some similar sentiment, but you know what, not today. 

Today, I'm just going to post a picture of a book that I'm interested in buying for Pathfinder 2nd edition. Now, I don't really play 2nd edition and Paizo suffers from many of the same "problems" that I personally find so troublesome from WoTC, but the artwork here is just so good that I can't say no. I plan to use it as a source book for whatever fantasy system I decide to use. There are several YouTube reviews available from those who actually have it in front of them, but it looks great to me. 

RPG A Day: Day 30--Portal

 

RPG A Day 2020: Day 30—Portal

With ‘Portal’ it’s a good chance do the song playlist style of response. I love the two songs from Portal 1 and Portal 2 even though I’m not good at the games. When Roll 20 was able to stream music it was so much more fun as I think there’s a song for every mood. Trying to stream music I own or linking to YouTube clips is  just too clunky. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFDx5qTlGjU

RPG A Day: Day 29--Ride

 

RPG A Day 2020: Day 29—Ride


My initial thought were to write about my RPG playing journey which has been a long ride unto itself. I’m not sure what the next phase of that ride will look like or if I have indeed taken my last ride, but I wrote enough about that yesterday.

Next, I started thinking about the amount of time I have spent riding just to get to a game session—time that could probably have been spent doing something better. I wrote a little bit about that, but ultimately deleted it. Probably the most interesting thing I had to say about that was how I had driven around five hours one-way to play random games at a mini-cons in Dubai during my UAE years—those games were few and far between as you can imagine with a ride time like that. I deleted most of that and started over—too boring.

Finally, I have decided to write this final paragraph about all the things—to the best of my recollection—that I have ridden:

1. A Saint Bernard— no memory of this, but I have been told several times that when I was a toddler that would ride on back of a St.Bernard named Big Boy.

2. Planes, Trains, Automobiles, Boats, Ships, Tuk-Tuks, motorcycles, scooters, four  wheelers—no helicopter, no submarine, no spacecraft and no hot-air balloon otherwise man-made conveyances are pretty well covered.

3. Camels—UAE

4. Elephant, Goat-drawn carriage—Sri Lanka

5. Horse—Philippines

I guess I need to ride an ostrich eventually. 

RPG A Day: Day 28--Close

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V41a_5INzVY

RPG A Day 2020: Day 28—Close

There are two ways to pronounce today’s prompt and I’m sure it was done by design. RPG A Day will soon come to a close vs. we are very close to wrapping up RPG a Day.

I have to say that most of my responses have had a negative vibe this year. Hard to avoid it what with everything going on in the world. This one is no different for better or worse.

I feel that I am closer to walking away from hobby than I’ve been in years. That’s not to say that I won’t come back at some point or that I will stop following the updates and taking an interest in upcoming projects—even participating in next year’s RPG A Day. I think my daughter is about a year or two away from being ready for a full on introduction to the hobby and hopefully she’ll bring some friends with her and I’ll be the gaming dad, but that’s really all I see on the horizon.

Some say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but it has been my experience as an overseas teacher, that for many things the more proper saying is out of sight, out of mind. I used to be a big NFL fan, but now some 11 years into the overseas career, I find that I rarely watch aside from the Super Bowl and I have no plans of even watching that this year. The separation from the latest RPG group due to the Wuhan Flu has finally steered me in a similar direction with table-top gaming. The time that I didn’t invest—I still refuse to call it time wasted—in playing and preparing to play has been spent on other endeavors. I’ve come to the realization that we need to redeem the time, and I’m not sure that playing RPGs is the best way to do that.

I’m going to link here the story of another DM who felt similar. Very interesting story. I don’t want to put out the wrong message. I love RPGs—I find nothing satanic or wrong in a Christian sense about them—and will likely come back or never fully leave, but listening to him—and I did come across this some years ago—gave me a lot to think about. There is nothing wrong with RPGs in and of themselves, but they are a time sink, and I don’t think anyone can deny it. 

RPG A Day 2020--Day 27: Favor

RPG A Day 2020: Day 27—Favor

I can’t think of a song about favors, so that means I need to write an actual entry today. Unfortunately, it’s another difficult prompt to write for, and to further that misfortune, I believe the ideas that I do have have a negative vibe to them.

I think about how over a period of time many things that were once in favor have now fallen out of favor. The way the game is played, the way people play them, the attitudes of the enthusiasts and even the creators of the games have changed and for the most part it hasn’t been for the better from my perspective. Here’s the most recent triggering: An old quote by Gary Gygax and a more recent one from Johnathan Tweet—now labeled misogynistic by the snowflakes that be. Here’s the link to an article by one of the offended who may well be a “friend” to RPG A Day for all I know.

https://stargazersworld.com/2020/08/26/the-misogyny-at-the-core-of-our-hobby/ 

I’ve tried to post the Gygax one, but you can read both comments from the original blogger’s post and  make your own judgement about how offensive they are.  Neither seem overtly misogynistic to me. Both comments seems like an observation and a report of facts. Stating facts have fallen out of favor over the years.

What is in favor is being overly critical at every statement that doesn’t tow the woke line. What is in favor is "cancelling" a person or finding them "problematic" long after they're dead. Here’s the response from the original blogger to the "offending" quotes:

“Over the last few years I have realized that looking up to “industry luminaries” is often a terrible idea. More often than not our “heroes” turn out to be terrible people. Even worse their often harmful ideologies make it into the games they created which make it hard to separate the art from the artist”.

Brother,—or sister, wouldn’t want to assume gender now would I?—did you ever hear the Tragedy of Chris Benoit the Crippler? If you think these benign comments from a couple of "industry luminaries" make it “hard to separate the art from the artist”,  then you better go find a safe space and hold on to your soy latte should you ever decide to investigate the matter.

I always end these "tough love" posts with the caveat that the hobby is big enough for everyone. Play how you like. Even if you have to clutch your pearls when looking at older material. I'd hope my SJW targets would use my ranting to grow a spine, but in this case, I can’t say that I fully understand why the hobby wants to change so radically to please a demographic made up of  non-players who’ll screw around a little with it then move on to the next thing they want to ruin while alienating the core  audience—niche as it may be at times—that made the thing a thing in the first place. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. 

RPG A Day 2020: Day 24--Humor

RPG A Day 2020: Day 24—Humor

I couldn’t play these things without humor. It seems even in a serious game I often cast myself in the comic-relief role. I try not to be too annoying although I tend to play most of my characters like Kenders which is admittedly a bit strange when playing a Call of Cthulhu or Deadlands game, but nevertheless.

Puns are often called the bottom of the barrel when it comes to humor, but if you lift the barrel you may find punny names to be even lower on the list, but it’s what I do. I think I posted some of those punny names during another RPG-A-Day, so I won’t regale you with the list again, but even in Pokemon I stooped as low as to name my sandshrew ‘Sandy Claws’.

As I’ve gotten older the level of humor in my games has only increased while the seriousness has become less and less. I don’t want a lot of “Teen Titans Go!” style “bathroom humor” because it just makes me cringe. Unfortunately, humor is so subjective sometimes you have to even let something like that go for the good of the table. Even if you play the grimmest of the grim-dark I think you have to have some humor in there somewhere just for a release—even if it’s out of character.

This is also a good time to mention the ‘X’ card. I already said that I hate all those “woke” mechanics like bringing “pronouns” into a game. I’d be quick to turn someone who identifies as he/him as ‘soy boy’, one who identifies as she/her as ‘soy girl’ and a they/them as ‘soy non-binary’ and tell each and everyone of those snowflakes to find a safe space away from my table. However, I really don’t want to legitimately hurt anyone’s feelings. In one game we were stealing dragon eggs and one of the characters dropped an egg. My knee-jerk reaction was—looks like the short bus for him.—not knowing that my GM had a special needs child. I meant absolutely nothing by it and my friend the GM knew this and didn’t make a big deal out of it, but had I known it was a touchy subject, I’d have never made that joke at all. Having that ‘X’ card to show should be a signal to the GM and the fellow players that the humor is going too far. No need to elaborate, just flash it and if the group of friends are at the table they should respect that and back off. Most of the time people are being offensive they don’t even realize it.

RPG A Day 2020: Day 23--Edge

 RPG A Day 2020: Day 23—EDGE

I’ve talked a lot about my collection this year and the ever growing stack of games that never get played—and in many cases have never been played. Why is it that for the most part Dungeons and Dragons is what groups start out with and go back to? Why does it have the edge over everything else in the stack? I’m preaching mostly to the choir, but I want an entry for every day this month and this is one of them.

1. Name recognition: Right or wrong D&D and RPG are practically synonyms. Every soft drink is a Coke in the south. Every facial tissue is a Kleenex world wide—at least in ‘merica and UAE anyway. Even if you explain to a non-player what an RPG is they’ll say, oh like Dungeons and Dragons.

2. Ease of access: As of this writing there are D&D products in Wal-Mart now. My Mandela affected, Swiss cheese memory taken into account, I remember this from back in the 80’s in other dept. stores. People can get it or are friends with people who have it. Every new edition—even if it’s just Malibu Stacey with a new hat—will get higher sales than anything on the market. This isn’t even mentioning the online saturation.

3. Ease of system: Especially in 5E’s case, it doesn’t take long to create characters and learn to play. I’m coming from older editions and other complex systems, so of course it was easy for me and at the end of the day nobody plays the rules 100%, but all that said the new players in the group last year were total greenhorns and they picked right up on it.

4. Third Party Support: I’m using the video game term, maybe I should call it open-license? Either way a lot of the Kickstarter projects either add settings or supplemental material for D&D. It’s easier to get people to try something new when it’s more or less D&D. I mentioned Runehammer games in an earlier entry and their ‘D&D Hardcore Mode’ which is such a good tweak—ICRPG is it’s own thing, but it too can plug right into 5E and it’s cheap, streamlined and easily acquired. I also backed a Kickstarter called ‘Journey to Ragnarok’ by Mana Project Studios which was a Norse Mythology based setting and adventure. There are many more out there if you look. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/257334/Journey-To-Ragnarok--Adventure-and-Setting-for-5e

Back in my day….I like to think that it’s still my day, but nevertheless…we all seemed to have more time to create characters and learn new systems. I still like reading new rules and making characters and maps for games that I’ll likely never play. I sometimes think that's the equivalent of becoming a cat lady if I were a woman, but I take enjoyment in it. For others, however, it’s a time-sink that they may be unable or unwilling to make. If they learn a system, it’s usually the latest and “greatest” new version of D&D.   

RPG A Day 2020: Day 22--Rare

 RPG A Day 2020: Day 22—Rare

I’m old enough at age 46 that I prefer print media to digital any day of the week. I’ve purchased, collected, gave away, lost, downsized and reacquired many RPGs and related materials over the years. I still have regrets about not finding a way to hold on to a large collection of Champions books that was gifted to me by a friend who also had to downsize—as well as a ton of old PSM magazine issues, what a good video game magazine that was. That said, as much as I wish I’d kept certain things being a hoarder really never did me any good. The stack just keeps growing and you know you can’t take it with you…not even in this world. As I’ve mentioned before I have bits and pieces scattered all over the place USA, Philippines and here in China and as much as I want to keep it all, I can’t. When I’m trying to drag my library with me through the airports and paying all those fees, I can see the appeal of sticking with PDFs. On the other hand, I don’t see any digital downloads ever being rare or desirable and once it’s released online the pirate industry kicks in.

In spite of all the trouble I’ve had holding on to my hard-copies, I’ve not lost everything to the ravages of time nor has all my collection fallen into complete disrepair. Just by virtue of my being old some things in my RPG collection are uncommon if not rare. Here are a few.

1. WWF Basic Adventure Game (1993): The World Wrestling Federation—now known as WWE—was a very different beast back in the 90’s when this game came into being. It is post-Hogan/pre-attitude era with the likes of early HBK, Yokozuna, and Doink the Clown stinking up the ring. The game itself looks good if not overly complex. I’ve read through it several times, but never played it aside from creating wrestlers. It’s current location is in the Philippines in my treasure chest.
https://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=40

2. Tinker’s Damn (1997): An anime inspired game with loosely defined rules that left coming up with most play mechanics to the imagination of its players. Again, one I’ve never played, but one that I did read through several times. Nowadays, with Kickstarter and whatnot it is fairly easy to pick up a book with a limited print run if you want it. Back in the 90’s and earlier if the neighborhood shop didn’t order it, you would probably have never even heard of it. In my case, this one fell off the truck at work because I liked the cover art.
https://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=13712

3. Dreadmire (2005): This one supposedly has an interesting and controversial backstory which I didn’t know about at the time when I picked it up. It’s a supplemental about swamp setting. I’d like to read it someday as the person who wrote it seemed to know a lot about living in a swamp. Unfortunately, the print setting is so small that I find that I never get very far in any attempt.
https://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=6891

Also, of note is that I have a first printing of Vampire: The Masquerade from the old White Wolf books along with the Gangrel clan book. I don’t say those are all that rare either, but they survived several culling and I hope to keep them.

RPG A Day 2020--Day 20--Investigate

 RPG A Day 2020: Day 20—Investigate

Keeping the daily blog streak alive with this one. Immediately, the first idea that comes to my mind with this prompt is that it is the time of year when I am highly vested in investigating the ideas of fellow players and GMs and their feelings on the hobby. Throughout the rest of the year I may visit a blog or two or catch a video, but for the most part, the month of RPG a Day is when I branch out from the so-called “big names” and see what all is out there. It’s a big community. 

The second thing I think about is how lousy most campaigns are that focus on investigation and solving mysteries because number 1,  the characters are smarter than the players and number 2, sessions are disjointed and even for those who take copious notes it’s usually difficult to come up with the answers…always a let down when the big reveal of the mastermind finally happens and nobody knows who that  person is without checking their notes. The same goes for riddles and puzzles. It might be fun to give it a try, but when I’m struggling, let me roll for my girl. She’s got an 18 INT, she shouldn’t be counting on me. It’s not as if you make me pick up a sword and fight a guy when I’m playing as a character with 18 STR.

Until tomorrow. 

RPG A Day 2020--Day 19--Tower

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klGRVTTntoI

RPG A Day 2020: Day 19—Tower

I don’t have much to say about ‘tower’, but when I think about the word, I can’t help but to remember the Macho Man—among the best pro-wrestlers of all time and one of his promos—“The Tower of Power too sweet to be sour…etc. etc”. I want to think that I’ve heard the same from Superstar Billy Graham and possibly Dusty Rhodes as well. Surely, “funky like a monkey” was used by a lot of wrestlers in the 70’s and 80’s, so they don’t exactly trademark their promos. I think Dolemite, Rudy Ray Moore may have said it a time or two too.

There’s a lot of overlap between wrestling and RPGs. If you have trouble getting into character watch some wrestling promos.

Honorable mentions to a new guy, Brandon Cutler who wrestles for AEW. He’s big into RPGs and even uses it for his gimmick. 

RPG A Day 2020: Day 16--Dramatic

 RPG A Day 2020: Day 16—Dramatic

It will be a really short one today with dramatic. Most of my games have never been dramatic—or at least not overly so. My latest DM had a lot of flair, but there still seemed to be humor throughout.

One bit of drama that I do remember came from one somewhat recent Roll 20 group wherein I played as a Dwarven Ale Bootlegger/Merchant named Darville Frostbeard—fighter class, but I played up his background more than anything. We were playing through that 5E Tiamat campaign. I had gotten into a semi-regular habit of doing brief set “cut-scenes” with one of my fellow players—an actual real-life girl BTW. I made them funny as I could and I think the other players and the DM really got into our “dramatic” performances.

But, then real-life online drama started to set in as the DM was really favoring the girl. I didn’t care because I’m older and kind of go along to get along anyway in my disposition, but it was clear/blatant. The girl for her part was a newbie, and fell into sort of a rules lawyer type. I say the rules are there for a reason and we should try to play at least in the spirit of them, but I remember her getting too into it. Meanwhile, the other players started losing the plot. Say what you will, but those intrigue games never seem to go anywhere. No matter how intelligent the characters might be, the player behind the mask is the one controlling their actions and I’ve found we’re not all that deductive in our reasoning. Often when the “big reveal” happens we have to check our notes—if we bothered taking them—to even figure out who the bad guy is.

Anyway, the campaign was totally meandering along  with tension at the virtual table. If I remember it lasted about three sessions more before everyone dropped save for me, the DM, and the girl. The DM still wanted to run the Tiamat campaign as we had not even gotten through the first module. The girl was down for it, but for me a total reboot after having played from the beginning just wasn’t in the cards. I took my bows and headed on to running Roll 20 games of my own. 

RPG A Day 2020: Day 15--Frame

 RPG A Day 2020: Day 15—Frame

We’re suddenly just about at the half-way point for this year’s RPG A Day experiment. ‘Frame’ is another tough prompt for me to come up with anything of alleged import to say. When I give prompts to students—prompts will usually be more than one word BTW a topic that’s too open and you never know what you’re gonna get, but in most cases it’ll be a lot of blank stares—I usually tell a struggler to use the dictionary or thesaurus to look up other words and meanings that might inspire them to come up with something more than a blank page. I did this for ‘frame’ and found one of the definitions for the word when used as a verb: “to shape or adapt to a particular purpose: to frame a reading list for ninth graders…” I’m going to run with that and frame a short list of RPGs that I think are appropriate for beginners:

1. Pathfinder Beginners Box—I haven’t messed around with 2E if there is a BB for it yet, I don’t know. I really like the 1E one because it essentially offers up all one needs to know in one easy to use box with a map and paper-minis. It is rule light in a sense, but you could play this BB and shift over to just about any other D20 system. It also has those props and visually stimulating character sheets and artwork that really helps you to “sell” the hobby.

2. Index Card Roleplaying Game—mentioned it already this go, but I think it’s good because it’s self-contained and it strips down RPGs—primarily D&D 5E— to it’s most essential and intuitive form. I actually like ICRPG best of all in some ways but the PF:BB gives you props whereas ICRPG has you create your own…which can also be fun, but we don’t want to overwhelm anyone just starting out.

Any of the Runehammer Games are good to go for beginners. If you want some cyberpunk style action try ‘Altered State’ which I haven’t been able to play yet, but which I have read through. It is so much easier than Cyberpunk:2020, but I envision putting the CP:2020 lore—along with upcoming RED and CP:2077—in the background but using these AS mechanics.

3. Faery's Tale Deluxe—another good one, particularly for kids just starting out. The suggested age range begins at 6. The subject matter is more kid friendly fantasy, but I think there are quite a few adults that like it too.

4. Ryuutama—I’m an early Western convert to this Japanese TTRPG and never miss a chance for proselytizing. This game is about traveling and is often described as Myazaki meets The Oregon Trail. The subject matter is definitely kid and beginner friendly and even comes with built-in mechanics for a GM controlled character that sticks with and helps the PCs and some simple town and world building elements that PCs can join in with. The combat system is very much simplified like an old NES JRPG, but the magic system can be deceptively complex for a kid or beginner as magic tends to be in all systems.

5. Dungeons and Dragons 5E Starter/Essential Set—The starter set for 5th isn’t bad at all for beginners, comes with a dice set, and one of the best starting adventures. It’s bare bones when it comes to other swag though. The PF:BB gave more bells and whistles. I understand the essential set is a little better, but also costs a little more. I don’t think you could go wrong with either. I would say one of the better ones for beginner adults. It’s not necessarily little kid friendly and yes, the magic system is out there at times, but kind of fun altering and figuring out. It probably won’t be too long before 6th edition starts being heard of in the distance, but worth leaning the 5E way and lore behind it because it’s most likely what you’ll end up playing.

Honorable mention:

MÖRK BORG a new and highly-stylized—if you can get the print copy—rules light dystopian fantasy setting that purposefully tries to be all the bad things RPGs were accused—framed if you will—of being back in the 80’s. Doesn’t make the cut because it might scare away the ones that don’t realize how tongue-in-cheek it is especially kids and their parents.

My Little Pony: Tails Equestria—I can’t include it because I haven’t been able to play or read through the system. I’d love to do it though. Essentially light D&D set in the MLP:FiM universe. Appealing to kids of all ages.

Meddling Kids—Been around for a while now and is good for kids 7 and up. I have read through this one, but haven’t been able to play. It is simplified and has a mechanic similar to Ryuutama wherein a GM controlled ‘wild card’—think Scooby or Captain Caveman—helps the PCs. For me it seemed a little too easy and not close enough to the kind of play that I’ve encountered at least. I’m also not sure how many kids are into the Hannah-Barbara Saturday morning type shows nowadays.

Alright, that does it for today and the half-way point. We’ll try to do it again tomorrow.

RPG A Day 2020: Banner

 RPG A Day 2020: Day 14—Banner

I like to hit these every day when this time of year comes around. I don’t have much to say about banner though.

I decided to make a banner instead and talk briefly about a good source I’ve found for visuals online.  https://www.canva.com

There is a free option and a paid option with an easy interface. I’ve always stuck with the free. I created this banner using that site. That’s all for today.
 

RPG A Day 2020--Day 9--Light

RPG A Day 2020: Day 9—Light

I’ll do the easy thing today and make this the sister to yesterday’s entry.

After the Satanic Panic of the 80’s—which surprisingly still maintains a small residual effect here and there even today or at least as late as 2016 in my case—the hobby slowly came into the main stream.

As I mentioned yesterday, the D&D cartoon had already made it to Saturday mornings right in the thick of 80’s panic, but more and more benchmarks appeared to normalize the hobby here are a few that I remember in the 90’s to the 00’s not necessarily in order:

1. Mass Produced Boardgames—these included: Heroquest, Dragonstrike, Battlemaster, Nightmare—complete with a video “Gate keeper” who acted a lot like a Dungeon Master, and any number of those I’m forgetting.

2. Video Game RPGs—Far too many series to list and still extremely popular. MMORPGs based off of the table-top RPGs helped to refuel interest in the table top and vice versa. D&D licensed products, Final Fantasy and other single-player RPG series were heavily influenced by the table top as well.

3. Card Games—Particularly, but not exclusively, Magic: The Gathering, became extremely popular for a time, and although I won’t take the time to research and confirm, I’m fairly sure that Magic remains WOTC’s top product.

4. Open License—In the late 90’s early 00’s when the open license came out, it seemed every company or IP was coming out with a D20 based RPG. I remember anime games, wrestling games, revivals of games like Deadlands getting the D20 make over. It kind of flooded the market, but it was a definite precursor to what happens today.

5. Movies—Those D&D movies—such as they were—and the much better Lord of   the Rings trilogy—brought an interest in fantasy back to the mainstream. If there’s one thing D&D the table top game does well, it’s fantasy.

All of those things and more laid the foundation of what we have today. We’re all living today, so I’ll be brief, but I’ll still recount what we have: the advent of virtual table tops, the prolific rise of self-publishing and project funding projects like Kickstarter, the so-called ‘let’s play’ videos that eventually led to streaming RPGs like Critical Role and quite possibly the most important, a well-received 5th edition of D&D being released in 2014. These are the things that brought RPGs into the light of the mainstream. We went from devil worshiping allegations to having a My Little Pony version of the game. I sometimes wish the hobby had it’s teeth—check out Mork Borg if you haven’t—but the trade off of having more players in the pool is one I’m glad to make.  

RPG A Day 2020--Day 8: Shade

 RPG a Day 2020: Day 8—Shade

This is a tough one. I’m going to look at shade as a place outside of the sunlight or else in relative darkness. RPGs—and other “geeky” hobbies were in the shade for a long time…most of my life in fact. 

If you weren’t around in the 80’s, then you missed whole “Satanic Panic” one of the few times that RPGs—particularly Dungeons and Dragons—had the spotlight shining directly on them. Most, if not all, of that publicity was negative. It’s all well document and I leave it to the reader and the search engine of their choice should they wish to read more about it. I was a kid during that time, so it remains interesting to me.

Apart from one horrid year in Alabama, my childhood was spent in slightly less horrid conditions in Georgia. I remember as a very young kid when the D&D cartoon came out that a parent from up the street thought that it was devil worship. They were okay with He-Man, but not D&D. This is around the same time that I have the possible ‘Mandella Effect’ memory of buying a D&D thieves supplemental when my brother and I made a first—failed—attempt at playing. Apart from that, there really weren’t many opportunities to play.

When I made it to the teen years, most of the time I was running for my brother and one of his friends—I’m four years older than he is, and if I remember correctly, the friend was even younger than that. We mostly did superhero or wrestling based games. The ‘satanic’ shade had pretty much been lifted but the nerd/geeky uncool shade was still around. Eventually, my brother would have lost interest and we moved from his little friend. My RPG aspirations would go to video games exclusively until I finally got out of high school. 

Way back in my RPGaDay ramblings I talked about my gaming during those years.   You could look in my archives if my writing is appealing to you, but I won’t re-recount things here. It just feels so strange today for persons of my age or older to see the hobby that was once so obscure and something we did in the shadows that you wanted to keep secret become something that is completely main stream. 

RPG a Day 2020: Day 7--Couple

Day 7 of RPG a Day and today’s topic is ‘Couple’.

My wife and I have been a married couple for seventeen years now. I’ve played some RPGs and board games with RPG elements over those years, but she is the type of gamer that wants to win. There’s really no traditional “winning” in RPGs, so she doesn’t get the point of playing. She also gets mad when she’s exploring and a trap gets her. I have higher hopes for playing with my daughter. No worries, we share other interests and she knew I was a player when she married me.

This past year I played with a couple for the first time in a regular game. Their names were Josh and Becky and they were from Canada. They played a brother and sister in game—male human and female tiefling  (adopted)—and although they were obviously a couple outside of play it didn’t stop male characters and NPCs from hitting on the girl. Both were brand new to table-top play. We had a DM who was patient—and quite good—with the new players and they picked up on how to play easily. For the most part we played weekly for one semester. Then, the Chinese New Year break came around and in our last session—who would have guessed—we had a TPK. Becky had already made plans to drop to “special guest star” because she wanted to take some difficult math courses. As for the group, we were full of plans to continue with new campaigns on our return from the break. Then the Wuhan Flu came around…

We never played again but I did manage to run into the pair before they returned to Canada. They had decided to return home after having taught here in China for years previously. I hope they find another group to play with. 

RPG a Day 2020: Day 6: Forest

RPG a Day 2020 and Day 6 is ‘Forest’. 

There’s an old joke that we educators tell stating that the only good things about being a teacher are July and August. Over my decade of being employed in the “noble profession” the humor, if any, found in that joke has diminished over the years as the number of days we work in July has seemed to stretch out more and more and the time we’re expected back from “summer” break is earlier and earlier. More depressing is the fact that the joke used to tell about three good things when teachers could also include June on the list. As my vacation for 2020 rapidly comes to an end having been hamstrung by the Wuhan Flu outbreak and another big move, I’m reminded of some of my better vacations from a few years back. I’m not going to turn this entry into a big slide show, but I’m including two pics from one of our trips out to Canada.

Capilano Suspension Bridge Park has a forest that you can walk over. It was an amazing place and put me in mind of any number of fantasy villages that I’ve visited during my gaming. Planet Endor for sure. I also had a brush with fame as my cousin and I definitely saw Helena Bonham Carter out there. We didn’t bother her though—had my wife been facing that way, I’m sure we would’ve gotten photographic proof of the meeting, but I rarely approach celebs unless they are pro wrestlers in which times I can’t help myself. 

The next one should be from Whistler Mountain if it’s from the proper folder. Bears and wolves in this area although it’s a big and popular resort. 

Finally, a shot from the Underground river in the Philippines. Not exactly a forest, but it really evokes a lot of adventuring I’ve done at the table. Tons of bats in here and the guano to go with it. 

Good stuff if you can do it. I haven’t run into too many fantasy creatures, but going into the environments in real-life can help one to get a feel for the game locations. I suggest visiting forests, mountains, and anything else you can. 

RPG a Day 2020--Day 4--Vision

For RPG a Day 2020 episode four and the prompt is vision. Sadly, as seems to be the general theme of 2020 itself everything has a negative feel to it. However, if one can get one’s head around a lot of the mess that’s going on both in the world and in one’s personal life, one can still have a positive vision for the future.

For my part and in regard to the hobby—that is why we’re here this month after all—I can envision a time when my daughter will be old enough to play RPGs with me. At age five—all too soon to be six—she already makes up interactive stories with me such as exploring an island for pirate treasure or a fun game we have where different people call us up on the phone.  As one who reads different rule books and the like even for games I have no intention of playing, it’s funny that I have more of her interest doing a ‘theater of the mind’ style with basically no rules. She does like looking at maps and drawing already, but it’s just as off the rails as you may expect with a free wheeling five year old’s mind paired with a scatterbrained 46 year old one.

With our recent move to Beijing she will also have a more populous group of English speaking youngsters than we’ve had before. The more young friends she makes and the more fun she has with me running small adventures, the more likely that I’ll have an all new play group if she wants to share the experience with them. When and if this vision becomes a reality, Ii will be different from any other role playing I’ve done. I can also envision further into the future and wherein she eventually becomes my equal but ultimately surpasses me and leaves the RPG hobby in the dust heap. Even if she doesn’t become a lifer like me, I like to think she’ll at least look back on the games we play as the time she bonded with her dad. You never know, maybe she’ll be a lifer too. 

RPG A Day 2020--Day 3--Thread

Day 3: Thread

Only a short post today, but it still counts. I’d rather be positive, but much like yesterday’s post, negativity has to creep in sometimes because I’m a realist. I sometimes feel my ability to participate in the hobby is hanging by a thread. Let’s list some more obstacles:

1. China and bad internet connections—keeping me from running or participating in a virtual table top group…or even one shots.

2. Pandemic—this is blocking the live table action.

3. Time sink—the danger of RPGs has never been Satan and his demons, but rather the time involved if you choose to be a regular player. My daughter will soon be six. A bit too young to play yet, but well old enough to want my attention. The job is also taking their 40 hrs from me each week. Maybe even more since they want me to learn Chinese and IB teaching style.

4. Product—I want hard copy. In China I’ve found it hard to get packages sent out to me even before the pandemic. I’m going to try and put that to the test soon, but since I’m a nomad I’m always having a hard time carrying my stuff. I have a literal treasure chest full of material that I want to keep sitting out in the Philippines right now. Who knows when I’ll get the stuff back?

5. Money sink—not as big a deal as it used to be, but I sometimes feel my money would be better spent elsewhere.

So, my hobby is hanging by a thread, but no worries that thread is still strong.