Some Hearty Food For Thought

I came across this by way of the RetroRoleplaying Blog. This is one of the best rants I have ever read, and you should read it too.

Just one more formulaic CRPG-ification bullet into the imagination at the heart of RPGs

Some hearty food for thought. What do you think?


Comments

  1. AnonymousAugust 26, 2010

    That rant made me laugh, very hard. :) It was a good read, thanks so much for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  2. John WAugust 26, 2010

    senioritawaitress - It made me laugh too, an altogether insightful and fun read.

    ReplyDelete
  3. KevinAugust 27, 2010

    I'm glad my rant has been well received in the rpg-verse. Some will agree, and some won't. That's ok with me. We should talk about our annoyances and disagreements more.

    As I've admitted elsewhere, I almost didn't publish it and figured it would be ignored. If it leads a few of us to think about where the focus of our rules should be (and that's not my decision, its the designer's) then it did the job.

    Most surprising was my discovery that apparently my opinion isn't as outside the mainstream as I have been led to believe by what's popular in rpgs these days.

    Thanks for directing your readers my way to hear me vent.

    ReplyDelete
  4. KevinJanuary 19, 2011

    I'm glad my rant has been well received in the rpg-verse. Some will agree, and some won't. That's ok with me. We should talk about our annoyances and disagreements more.

    As I've admitted elsewhere, I almost didn't publish it and figured it would be ignored. If it leads a few of us to think about where the focus of our rules should be (and that's not my decision, its the designer's) then it did the job.

    Most surprising was my discovery that apparently my opinion isn't as outside the mainstream as I have been led to believe by what's popular in rpgs these days.

    Thanks for directing your readers my way to hear me vent.

    ReplyDelete
  5. John WilliamsJanuary 19, 2011

    senioritawaitress - It made me laugh too, an altogether insightful and fun read.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks for commenting at Rule of the Dice.

Greatest Hits

Top 4 Bands That Write Songs Based on Their D&D Campaign

Image
There are many bands out there who like to play loud, ass-kicking, speaker-bursting music with thrashing guitars and pounding drums. Surprisingly, or perhaps not, most of them are total geeks. They may look like hard-ass biker leather fetishists, but in reality they're just D&D and Lord of the Rings nerds who hope that if they sing about dwarves and elves loud enough, people will think they're tough and not pick on them anymore.

He was almost cool. Then he opened his mouth.
Although I'm sure we could list thousands of bands that could fall into the genre, I'm just going to list The Top 4 Bands That Write Songs Based on Their D&D Campaigns. Actually, they're just my 4 favourites, but whatever.

4. Iron Maiden

Seriously, how many kids back in the 80s ran home after school to play D&D and listen to Iron Maiden? Well, probably not THAT many, but if you're reading a blog about role-playing games and you're over 30 years old, you know what I'm talkin…
Read more

10 Zombie Survival Intro Scenarios

Image
Can you smell Halloween on the air? Smells like non-toxic face paint and burnt pumpkins.

In case you weren't aware, I've been playing around with a zombie/horror game based on the Dungeon Crawl Classics Funnel system - basically you send in a gang of 0-level schlubs, hoping that at least one survies to become a level 1 character in an on-going post-apocalyptic survival game. It uses basic d20 rules that everyone is pretty familiar with.

To keep the game as chaotic as possible, in our first playthrough I just rolled the scenario out randomly as we went along - determining encounters, locales, etc purely by a toss of the dice - and I plan to continue doing the same thing. Partly this is to keep my prep work down, partly it's to keep the tension and suspense high as the party never knows what to expect. Sometimes the group meets 1d4 stray dogs, sometimes they meet 1d4+1x100 roaming zombies. I've been using the many tables in Palladium'sDEAD REIGN™®© books (about the …
Read more

Steal this New Map

Image
After watching these videos , I started playing around and drawing up some topographical maps in photoshop. They aren't my typical style, but I think my first effort turned out pretty decent.

So, here you go. Key up this map and use it for your game. The only thing I ask is that if you post it on your blog/Twitter/Google+/Facebook that you link back to here, or my Twitter, my Google+, or my Facebook page. Have fun.


The picture is quite large, so don't forget to zoom in to see the details.
.........................................
Several people have inquired whether they could my maps in their commercial (for profit) projects. The answer is: No, you cannot use these maps for any commercial project. Read the creative commons copyright below.

But, if you are a DIY RPG person, with little to no money, and really want to use one of the maps for something that you're working on, that might earn you a bit of money, let me know. We can talk, and if I like your thing, I will mos…
Read more

10 More Zombie Survival Intro Scenarios

Image
Last year I shared a list of 10 Random Zombie Survival Intro Scenarios based on my ad-hoc zombie survival/horror game (which is kinda like a DCC Funnel but set in the modern world, and with zombies). It was actually one of the most popular posts I ever wrote on this site (people still really seem to like zombies, go figure) so I thought it was time for a sequel.

Last time the set-ups were pretty standard fare. Scenarios you've seen in many zombie movies, games and books. A rag-tag bunch of strangers, thrown together in an every day situation (a crashed bus, locked in a mall, hiding in a cabin in the woods) and they must survive the overwhelming onslaught of the undead. Death is rampant and expected (each player begins with four 0-level characters), and only the best (or more likely luckiest) will survive.

This time a few of the scenarios are quite a bit weirder and may take some more prep work. If you don't want them, don't pick them, or if you roll them randomly, then ju…
Read more