I really like Tom Van Winkle’s Blog.
The importance of commodification, whether I like it or not:
Now imagine these two different attempts to recruit young players to fantasy role-playing games. In one attempt, you pass around colorful, glossy D&D books and tell them you are going to play *Dungeons & Dragons*, a game played by millions of players over the last fifty years. … In the other attempt, you hold up a notebook and tell the new players that they are going to play a fantasy role-playing game, something you designed in line with a gamer subculture. … This is a game you imagined, with rules you wrote yourself, and you will have to teach them what they need to know. … I can tell you from experience that kids new to fantasy role-playing games will choose, every single time, to play D&D, with its shiny books, over my scribbled house rules, with my lone testimony that my rules are better. – The Commodification of Fantasy Adventure Games
The Commodification of Fantasy Adventure Games
On the importance of the Internet:
People talk about the creativity supposedly unleashed by the OSR. I cannot see it the same way. … No. It’s nothing new to write your own games and adventures, especially those based on already-published games. … The difference now is that everybody has a computer and everybody has the internet and everybody who wants to learn to do so can create and edit documents for sharing and can learn at least amateur graphic design. – The Unwritten History of Role-Playing Games
The Unwritten History of Role-Playing Games
I feel that’s very similar to what Rob Conley has been saying all along about desktop publishing and liberal licenses allow the publication of material.
On the importance of ink and paper:
… I’ve returned to the quiet pleasure of developing hand-crafted adventures and setting materials on my own. I have no intention of sharing my materials with anybody but the players of my games. … I write my notes and sketch my maps by hand. When I have a moment of inspiration I jot ideas down, not with a computer keyboard to be saved in a computer file, but with a pencil or pen … – Hand-Crafted Adventures
Anyway, three blog posts I’ve read today and I liked them all. 😄
#RPG #Blogs
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Thank you! I have enjoyed your blog, too.
– Tom Van Winkle 2022-08-03 15:49 UTC