Mainstreaming's Trade-Off World...

There's never been a better time to be a gamer. It's our golden age. The mainstreaming of the hobby means we're no longer dismissed as nerds (not a pejorative in these better enlightened, media-saturated times), while the Satanic Panic, safely relegated to the dustbin of cringe history, is an amusing footnote to better days. If we want a new game, we can probably find what we're looking for, sometimes free. No niche is overlooked; and should we seek to publish original stuff, there's no keeping a good creative down...

But it's a trade-off world, and we pay for this abundance with other concessions, although it's entirely subjective. It probably depends on when someone was born, their influences, and whatever cryptic reasoning drew them to the pastime. Regular readers probably know where this is going, but stick around. The earliest hobby was an obscure subculture with an air of exclusivity, very much like a secret club; and with fewer games, its variety was largely down to individual campaigns, fostering an amateur, more player-focused atmosphere.

The scene today is vastly more crowded. Anything new is a needle tossed into an Olympic sized swimming pool filled to the top with still more needles. This is great for consumers, presumably, who can only benefit from the maximum possible choices, and perhaps even for a certain (amateur) breed of creative who delights in their process and is content to share, never asking for more than that. But the sheer volume of new stuff tends to obscure that not immediately rising to the top, becoming commercial and product-driven...

Is this Good? Bad? Neutral? Options are always good, and those who only want to flex their creative muscles and get their stuff out there benefit from doing so, which is their absolute prerogative. But mainstreaming also means too many choices to easily absorb by those with lives beyond roleplaying. And there's a tendency to approach these things as some higher authority, although this is far from a universal. Even the so-called GM is subject to a product's formal dictates because today's rules are complete, leaving less to interpretation.         

Alternately, while exclusive clubs promising endless potential offer fun, exclusive clubs can also be self-isolating. And ultimately self-limiting. And it's not like there aren't still endless horizons to seek and explore. New releases, once an exciting rarity, are regular occurrences in these abundant times, allowing us to pick and choose. We can play the way we prefer, ignoring any unwanted current trends. The old days were imposed by circumstance, but now we can choose our experience, be it mechanics, approach, or anything else...

Exclusive communities, including the OSR and assorted forums, still exist within the hobby; and with so many looking for new games, it's likely everything gets its share of attention, especially from appreciative players boosting a signal. There's literally nothing that can't be had, meaning we're wrong about the trade-off conundrum. This dichotomy only happens when we allow it. The earliest gaming scene was accidentally intimate, imposed by its early environmental conditions. Now it's a conscious choice, which is the ultimate outcome. 

Toys on the (Gaming) Table...

As Christmas approaches, toys spring immediately to mind. Yours truly has talked (ad nauseum) about getting Holmes Basic for Christmas, but never that much about the other toys that informed his imagination, and that of the earliest hobby. Many toys are fantasy adjacent and undeniably cool; but we're talking about non-gaming products easily insertable into gameplay. These aren't mere inspiration (not to denigrate this most vital element), but goodies easily repurposed as bona fide playing aids on par with anything:

(1) First off, we've got the so-called Chinasaurs. At the dawn of D&D, before commercial fantasy miniatures were available, these not-so-authentic plastic (quasi-) dinosaurs of Asian manufacture not only became various monsters but directly modelled the now-legendary bulette and rust monster, among others. These things are iconic.

(2) But we also have plastic cowboys (and Indians), which were used for more than the occasional session of Boot Hill. The horses were handy, and some of these playsets came with always-useful plastic terrain where an adventure called for such additions...

(3) Of course, actual dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals were good not only to represent themselves, but alternately, similar mythological monsters. Brontosaurs might be dragons, minus the wings, but nonetheless serviceable. Really, any four-legged reptile makes a great reptilian horror, whether basilisk or wyvern, without straining credulity.

Oh, and these sometimes came with cavemen and even better terrain than those wild west playsets, especially when an encounter called for steaming jungles or mountains...

(4) And (not so) finally, we've got farm (and wild) animals of various kinds. Lions, tigers, and bears are frequent adversaries, and might sometimes pass for things magical, including African lions for chimeras or sphinxes, among other combinations. But these things in their conventional (read: natural) guises remain respectably deadly enemies.

It's a start. Some groups have been known to incorporate model terrain. Yours truly once participated in a game where an Aurora snap-together allosaurus became a demonic enemy all the more terrifying for the scale involved. There's no end to the great accessories now available, and who doesn't like them? But the amateur origins of our pastime shine through when we improvise and make the experience our own, something repurposing toys can accomplish. Anyway, it's something to consider this Christmas and all year, really...

Five Fixed Encounters for Epoch...

Our latest, Epoch, is a prehistoric game emphasizing wilderness hexcrawls. Even so, fixed encounters are essential to an overarching game narrative. Stories matter, and prepared events provide this. Of course, these work best when embedded within a random wilderness, and in that spirit, we offer the following suggested encounters:

1.) An old cave houses a settlement of CANNIBALS (either tribe) twisted by their strange appetites. These see intruders as a potential feast.

2.) A mysterious DARK MONOLITH has appeared in a forest clearing, instantly teleporting anyone touching it to another location within the campaign setting...

3.) Some ROGUE TIME TRAVELER, enjoying free movement across time (and access to futuristic technologies), dominates a tribe of violent fanatics. 

4.) Narcotic flowers fill a valley, releasing SPORES in a 120' radius acting as a stealer's serum against those who disturb them. Local animals are naturally immune...

5.) A solitary WICKED SHAMAN (10th level) inhabits a forgotten cave haunted by a taboo spirit who defends their disciple through possessed animals.  

This list isn't comprehensive, of course. Or the best. But it shows the variety of options available in Epoch's prehistoric (and magical) backdrop. And the roleplaying opportunities are abundantly clear. These encounters are winnable through clever strategy and wise interractions, all of which should guide creative referees in making even more...

Image courtesy of the incomparable Frazetta by way of Creepy.     

Tombs: Fantasy Made Mortal...

So Gregorius 21778 has released The Tomb of Ferkhat the Dreaded for Blood of Pangea, complete with an excursion into an Egyptian-inspired burial. We love tombs, the pastime adores them (even while heroes perish therein), and with Halloween, a celebration of ghosts and dancing skeletons, it's a great time to list the reasons why:

1. DEATH. It's the bitterest fact of life. We mourn our loved ones and recognize, in a largely supressed way, our own inevitable demise. It's scary to contemplate.

2. THE UNDEAD. Death is bad enough without the insult of rotting corpses (or worse) to ensnare the living with gruesome aplomb. Not content to wait for time, these fearsome  abominations, reminders of mortality made terrible flesh, hasten to speed death, and in the worst way possible. Death, and the dead, are the ultimate foes...

3. TRAPS (AND CURSES). Setting necromancy aside, fantasy crypts come equipped with dangerous traps and sometimes (working) curses to defend against plunderers.   

4. TREASURE. You can't take it with you; but boy, people try. Crypts are filled with worldly goods, glittering treasures enough to entice avaricious adventurers. Fantasy interments represent our mortal conundrum. Undead are the fear of death, clerical miracles the denial thereof, and vast riches our need to live on despite a certain demise...

Which is to say: the best gaming, even the gonzo variety, speaks to something essentially and irrevocably human. And heroic. A psychologist's plaything, since facing death made terrifyingly real and snatching a temporary respite from the inevitable so nicely encapsulates our situation. It's why we love Halloween. And tombs. They're fantasy made mortal.