The New York Times, in last Sunday’s edition, published a nice article from Adam Rogers of Wired about D&D, E. Gary Gygax, and how D&D informs so much of modern geek culture (which is steadily taking over mainstream culture). They have a big fun flowchart to follow your own journey of geekiness, too!
I ran across this online survey while surfing. It’s a comprehensive questionnaire that determines your D&D class, race, and alignment! Here’s me. Appaently I’m a goon because who would go bard/wizard?!? I assume the bard part is for my strength in leadership, but bah! Other than that, it’s about right. And since clerics are “leaders” in 4e, and I scored pretty high on cleric, maybe I’m really a Wizard/Cleric. Mystic Theurge, here I come!!!
I Am A: Neutral Good Human Bard/Wizard (3rd/2nd Level)
There’s a hilarious writeup of the three major US presidential candidates as they’d appear in the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual (first edition!) courtesy of British scifi author Charles Stross. McCain is “Demon Prince of Republicans”, Clinton is “Demon Queen of Pork Belly Futures,” and Obama is “Demon Prince of Upsetting Applecarts.” The pictures, from FreakingNews.com and GuysFromArea51.com, are mind-numbingly beautiful. My fave:
LARPing (Live Action Roleplaying) has always been on the far, far geek end of the spectrum, even in the normally geeky realms of fandom, exceeded only by cosplayers or, God forbid, furries.
However, I’ve been hearing more and more about what’s being billed as “Alternate Reality Games” or, more daringly, “Alternate Reality Design”. I heard about it first at last year’s Web 2.0 Expo in California, and now I just saw another keynote presentation on it at South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) in Austin by Jane McGonigal. Here’s an artist’s rendition of her keynote address. Examples of ARGs include the “I Love Bees,” the game/viral marketing campaign for Halo 2, and “World Without Oil,” which won an award at SXSW. It’s involved with positive psychology and “happiness science.” The slides from her keynote are up on Slideshare.
In honor of “GM’s Day”, DriveThruRPG.com (aka RPGNow.com) is having a pretty decent sale. If you haven’t used them, they sell a huge variety of RPGs in PDF – you can get old out of print D&D, Traveller, etc. as well as the newest releases from a wide variety of game companies. Goes through tomorrow, March 7th. What did I get, you ask?
You’ve gotta love those crazy Nordic types! I was reading through some links on roleplayng theory and came across the “Turku School of Roleplaying!” It uses quotes from the Communist Manfesto! It has a Vow of Chastity! I expected it to mention Swedenborg Space but it didn’t.
I generally sympathize with its aims, which is the promotion of immersive roleplay and simulationism over the dramatist and gamist approaches. (I personally am simulationist with a side of dramatist, but find gamism gauche). If you don’t know what I’m talking about, these are terms from the Threefold Model of roleplaying developed by John Kim and others.
My favorite quote: “In the United States the gamists are trying to de-evolve role-playing back into moving little pieces of plastic on a board, but even in that world of darkness the Turku School sheds light to the eläytyjist movement.”
True, so true….
Unfortunately, D&D co-creator and gaming luminary Gary Gygax has passed away. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family; my family and gaming group are saddened by his passing.
This may seem strange to some folks because I have certainly not been a fan of his later era work; I’m firmly of the belief that RPGs have evolved and though AD&D 1e was seminal, it isn’t something I want to play today. I didn’t think much of his endless retreads of it as “Danjerous Journeys/Lejendary Adventures/Pjining for the Fjords” or even the other non-Gygax 1e nostalgia stuff (Kalamar, etc.) and have been outspoken about it. For his part, he called me “fatuous and jejeuene” on his mailing list for my views. (Yes, I had to look it up.) But regardless of all that, he started D&D and carried the torch for RPGs, and the hobby wouldn’t be around, most likely, without him. So props, Gary Gygax!
One of the game designers I respect the most reviews D&D 4e. His short summary – “It’s an interesting system that didn’t so much feel like D&D in play; nonetheless, the brand power of D&D all but ensures this will be a success and it may even redefine what D&D means for the next generation.” Yeah, I think that’s about what I figured. He compares the game play to more akin to a CCG than the “sounds like an MMO” critiques.
And, of course, WotC is still screwing around and hasn’t made the GSL or new rules available to third party publishers yet, even those waving $5k in the air, despite their announcing it on January 9th…
Whoa, what a blast from the past. My five-year-old daughter was rummaging through an old cabinet and came out with the game that started me on the path to roleplaying when I was a kid. It was a minigame called “Attack Force” that TSR put out in 1982. I even found a pic!
Massawyrm, one of the reviewers on Ain’t It Cool News, the premier geek media review site, was a playtester for 4e. Now that “D&D Experience” has happened, there’s huge amounts of 4e rules info available out there and also the playtesters are released to speak.
The review is maniacally positive. I hate to be negative, but I worry about the subtext in a lot of the bits he talks about. From flavor (is it appropriate to call one of the monster roles “artillery” in a medieval fantasy game?) to too-obvious WoWisms (“elite” monsters?) to game mechanics (at epic levels you rez all the time and have powers like “once per day when you die, you…”)? Well, I hope he’s right I reckon.
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