Hi all. My name is Alexander, and I'm going to be putting my thoughts on gaming and roleplaying games here from now on. Hopefully this blog gives someone else a little inspiration. That's the goal at the end of the day, and I'm going to do my damndest.
I've been gaming for about twelve or thirteen years. During that time, I've played 3rd edition, Pathfinder, and 5e, and I've recently entered the wild world of OSR gaming. Boy did that sit me on my ass. Though I've yet to play any retroclones or OSR-style games, my players have commented to me in recent months that they can see a change in my GMing style, and I'd like to think OSR did that. It's such a simplistic view of the game that just makes sense to me. There's nothing more complicated than it has to be, unless I or my players decide we want it that way. It feels very do it yourself, and scratches an itch I developed back when I was powergaming my way through Pathfinder campaigns with a bunch of grognards from back in the day.
OSR is at a high-low point right now. The biggest playground, G+, is going kaput next month. There was a whole lotta shit what went down in the world of some artpunk creators in the last couple of weeks, stuff I straight up didn't understand until I spent a solid ten days in a fugue wondering why my favorite content creators were signing off their blogs (to me, it seemed, permanente). Turns out shitty people gets what's coming to them and I don't have to worry about my idols and heroes leaving the scene. Dead growth gets pruned and the plant gets healthier.
What I do have to worry about, however, is the continued vibrancy and health of that scene. It's a big world, but my passion and my hobby is something that can be damaged and manipulated by the work of one person (or ideology, or movement, etc.). That I can't tolerate. The voices have to all sing for the harmony to be there, otherwise it's just a solo performance (and when the solo is bad, we all suffer).
This all to say that I'm putting my voice into the 'sphere. I want to be heard, that's my vanity, but I want it for a reason I think is agreeably decent: I don't want the OSR to sink anytime soon. I want the best content to keep getting invented. I want the world of gaming to be something I can look back on when I'm older and consider fondly. I'd love to contribute some content that other people think is dope shit. So I'm going to write here, and it's going to be one hundred percent me, and whatever comes out of that is going to be my signature. I'm putting my name on this blog, so it's gonna be what people see of me. That's the idea. That's the desire.
I game with my partner, my family, my friends. I run play-by-posts and in-person, and I tend to collect homebrew material like my sofa collects cat hair. The stuff I've found that I like the most so far are GiffyGlyph's Darker Dungeons mods for 5e, the stuff over at the Setting to End All Settings, Goblin Punch, False Machine, Papers and Pencils, and especially Inside the Giant's Eye. Dear gods do I love the content comin' outta that blog.
I also lurk in the r/DnDBehindtheScreen community and occasionally comment on stuff I think is really cool. You may see me there, and you may see me in the OSR and DnD MeWe groups.
As for what I do when I'm not canoodling fantasy RPGs, I'm into video games and books like most other nerdy folk. I work with a quirky crew of people at a coffee bar in a world-class American art museum, where I get to do insanely cool stuff like get up close with issues #1 of Sensation and Action Comics. My house in on a mountain, so sometimes I pretend I live in a true world of make believe and picture myself as a dwarven merchant or something equally silly. Together, my wife and I are into gaming, cooking, family, and our daughter, a two year old cat named Beatrice.
The next post on this blog will be about the world of Ordain, its origins both conceptually and in-universe, and whatever I find that I want to talk about most between now and then. Post will probably be sometime Friday or Tuesday.
I've yet to think of anything sexy to close out the blog with, so I'll just say: stay classy, gamers.
No comments:
Post a Comment