Ostensible Cat

As happens from time to time in the gamer community, the topic of discussion swings around to the health of the gaming industry and the pack leaders within the industry. I think many folks have made many insightful comments on Mr. Ryan Dancey’s post on ENWorld about his views on the subject. Especially where it concerns Dungeons and Dragon, Pathfinder RPG, etc. I’m not really going to delve into that here. What I think is going to be interesting to see over time is how the gaming industry is shaped by the children of current gamers. I’m in my late 30’s and have been gaming since I was about ten. I have a six year old son and three year old daughter. They are highly aware of my love of RPGs and comic books (which is another area that experiences very similar death throw speculations). I have friends of similar age and background, with children roughly the same age and from what I can tell from many in the OSR demographic any way, I’m not too far from being a typical OSR gamer.

Damn, missed my blog post yesterday. But that’s OK, I spent my day in Venice, City of Canals. I never get tired of going there. It’s funny that even though it is only 45 minutes away, we haven’t been there in almost a year. Venice really screams out to have a fantasy setting based there. Rich history, very mysterious (what the heck is down this crazy twisting alley?), kind of reminds me a bit of Sigil in Planescape. It won’t be long before the Venetians are celebrating Carnivale. This year, my wife and I have resolved to go. They have some very incredible costumes that I’m sure will inspire some gaming ideas for me. This time next year I’m hoping to visit Istanbul, Marrakesh, or Tunis (maybe all three). I have a feeling those will inspire some gaming impulses… I’ve been think a lot about where the OSR is going and all of us hobbyists tinkering away like mad in our basements, garages, or kitchen tables to create our own rule sets, settings, etc. I know there have been some na

Ok, I'm not feeling any better, but I was bouncing around on the Interwebs and looking through the message boards. It seems that there are a few OSR related hot topics (no, I'm not going to include the term OSR as one of the hot topics in this post) going on out there. The one I want to address tonight is Knockspell abandoning the OGL format and eschewing OD&D material and going more AD&D. As I've said before, I'm a big time AD&D guy. 1e is where I got my start in the hobby and the edition that feels most like home to me. I really didn't get too much into the basic rules (because as kids, it seemed like we'd come across more sophisticated playing the adult "Advanced" version of the game) other than to convert some basic modules to 1e. I DID get the basic sets Moldivay and Metzner) but other than a few brief sessions, we stuck to AD&D. Matt Finch has stated that they'd continue to publish Swords and Wizardry content, but focus

Kind of a cop out today since I'm sick with a cold and can't really formulate a coherent thought. So, I'm going to borrow one: What game have you never played but always wanted to? There are several for me that would fit that bill. However, I think I'd have to say Stormbringer. I really enjoy the works of Michael Moorcock (Elric in particular). At one point, I actually had a copy of the Second edition (I think it is at my parent's house still). When I think about it, I've not played any of the Chaosium games (RuneQuest, Call of Cthulhu, etc) which is strange since I own all of the books and they appeal to me. It makes my gaming experiences seem somehow... deficient I suppose. I'm not much of one for New Year Resolutions, but I definitely would like to get at least one of those games going (and Stormbringer in particular) next year. Anyone else? What games do you really want to try?

So, world building… yeah. Not really a thought of the day but more of an open question today. Yesterday I did a review of Holly Lisle’s Create a Language Clinic. Very good stuff that. Unless you are bipolar in your creative nature like me and then it just adds fuel to the creative nightmare that I habitually impose upon myself. Anyway, one of the biggest problems I have is to recognize when enough is enough and just let things go. On one level, the egoist in me aspires to be the next Tolkien – flesh out a world to the nth degree complete with languages, religions, and culture. On the other hand, my natural laziness overcomes my ambition in most cases and I end up wallowing in a morass of indecisiveness. The OSR has an entrenched mentality of “STFU and game already!” and is eschews lengthy character development, plot development, or any of the other fluff in favor of quick game play. I have no problem with that. In fact, unless there is a good hook, my eyes tend to glaze over

In the development of my latest campaign project, I find myself tackling all sorts of theoretical issues. One that came to me the other day was the idea of creatures/monsters/entities as resources in a campaign world and what happens when those resources are depleted? Now I know the idea of monster ecologies is anathema to some in the OSR and that is fine. However, I want this world I’m crafting to have a specific feel and the idea of the creatures within that world being a finite resource and the depletion/extinction of that resource could possibly have a dramatic effect on the game world. For instance, I’ve been posting some monsters here on my blog over the past few weeks. There is a method to this madness, I’m not just creating or stating up random critters. Each of these creatures will be a denizen of the campaign world I’m working on. For instance, the Amarok is limited to a group of nine. These fierce creatures prey on those foolish enough to let themselves be caught out

One of the things that really has been bugging me lately about the fantasy games I’ve campaigned in is the proliferation of demihumans. I’ve been just as guilty as anyone of forgoing creating a human character for creating an elf, or dwarf, or some other crazy ass humanoid like a litoran. Why? When I sit back and think about it, the thing that really bugs me is that folks tend to play nonhumans as simply humans in costume with some bonuses and extras. Kinda falling into the whole Star Trek paradigm where all nonhuman species are typically a monolithic culture and highly stereotyped. Now don’t get me wrong, I feel that there is a place for that. However, I also feel like that kinda thing has been done to death (as I’m sure bitching about it has been – but here I go anyway…). At any rate, I’ve just plain had it with demihumans as playable characters in my campaign. They tend to be overdone as a stereotype, or are used as a min/max tool, etc. Now I know this could all just be cha

Since I don’t have a gaming group and my son isn’t old enough yet to grasp the full nuances of RPGs (although we are progressing by using Dungeon!); most of my time must be spent in collection, reflection, speculation, and creating my own material (which I hope to at least use with my son when he is old enough to play). So having said all that, it is speculation time. Anyway, I was thinking about the rule sets for the various incarnations of D&D and how they relate to the various stories listed as inspiration in Appendix N of the 1e DMG. In particular, I’m reading the Elric Saga and thinking about how these guys would be worked out in the OD&D or Basic D&D frameworks (yes, I’m well aware of the 1e Deities and Demigods). Now over the years, I’ve heard people toss out nuggets like: “well, folks like Elric don’t fit into the rules framework.” I find myself asking, “Well, why the hell not?” I mean, if the inspiration for the game is heroes in the vein of Elric, Conan, Ar