Just a quick note: I attended the American Library Association annual conference in Chicago last weekend. The theme of the event (believe it or not) was gaming and how libraries can foster game clubs. As such, Wizards of the Coast had a large booth where they pimped their Magic: The Gathering and D&D novel tie-ins. I dropped by and struck up a conversation with one of the WOTC staffers, who apparently worked on 4e a little bit.
This staffer asked me if I had tried 4e yet, and I responded that no, I hadn't, but that I played D&D regularly via some of the free retro-clone games available on the net. I made sure to slowly and carefully pronounce their titles: "OSRIC" and "Swords & Wizardry."
It's not often you get to speak truth to power, but when you do, it's simply sublime.
Showing posts with label legacy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label legacy. Show all posts
Friday, July 17, 2009
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Reading Gygax for the First Time
I entered the roleplaying game hobby in the early 1990s, when story-driven games like Vampire and Shadowrun were all the rage and TSR staggered through financial hardship. Consequently, I never played classic D&D; indeed I’ve only ever played in two short-lived D&D 3.0 campaigns and a single session of 2nd Edition AD&D — amounting to, at most, 20 hours of play.
It shouldn’t come as a revelation, then, when I say that I’ve never read anything by Gary Gygax. I’ve never thumbed an issue of Dungeon or Dragon magazine, never sent in my own campaign notes to TSR’s Lake Geneva mailing address, never enjoyed Gygax’s elegiac prose on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
That’s going to change. Over the weekend I bought both the AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide and Keep on the Borderlands, a module that’s informed many of the current products and writers I follow closely today. In coming weeks, I hope to chronicle my reaction to these and other works by Gygax, as I acquire and read them. Frankly, I’m interested to see how these volumes have weathered the decades since their publication. I also wonder much my own age might affect the outcome — after all, I’m 26 and have become accustomed to well-organized RPG books replete with tables of contents, indices and helpful reference guides.
Time will tell, so check back for more!
It shouldn’t come as a revelation, then, when I say that I’ve never read anything by Gary Gygax. I’ve never thumbed an issue of Dungeon or Dragon magazine, never sent in my own campaign notes to TSR’s Lake Geneva mailing address, never enjoyed Gygax’s elegiac prose on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
That’s going to change. Over the weekend I bought both the AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide and Keep on the Borderlands, a module that’s informed many of the current products and writers I follow closely today. In coming weeks, I hope to chronicle my reaction to these and other works by Gygax, as I acquire and read them. Frankly, I’m interested to see how these volumes have weathered the decades since their publication. I also wonder much my own age might affect the outcome — after all, I’m 26 and have become accustomed to well-organized RPG books replete with tables of contents, indices and helpful reference guides.
Time will tell, so check back for more!
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