Given my preoccupation with bemoaning blog content that flits away into the ether, here's a blogging “movement” worth supporting: Old Stuff Day. Basically it's a chance for bloggers to show off the old blog posts that they feel have become neglected with time or are particularly fond to the blogger.
Here's my own run down starting backwards chronologically in the misty past of 2009:
This was my first post to break the blog out of its role as merely a campaign hub for players. It was the first time I combined broader tones and personal story into a post and it just felt right at the time. Rereading it today makes me want to keep fleshing out that melancholy, besieged city lurking just off the southern map of the Hill Cantons.
This post kicked off the HC's long love-affair exploration of M.A.R. Barker's world. It also served as a manifesto of a casual sort, guiding my own approach to gaming in Tekumel. Best of all it put me into accidental contact with Jeff Berry, the old Petal Throne salt that I only half-jokingly refer to as the HC's resident Tekumel expert. The four-part interview with him (very much worth checking out in its own right kicked off my interview series and really deepened my insights into that world.
This post kicked off a multi-post exploration of the truly marvelous “worldgame” that miniature wargaming titan Tony Bath ran in the UK in the 1950s-70s. The series rooted around in the kind of big-stage roleplaying gaming that predated D&D and what people now refer narrowly as RPGs. It also opened up a number of domain-play themes that I started to explore later.
Follow the “Tony Bath” label if you want to read the whole thing.
The stirrings of the Domain Game and more importantly the attempt to not just recycle and extend “beancounter” domain-play but take it back to old-new areas in D&D that were dropped as the game developed.
First time I really remembered to use a few tricks I learned from my old day job journalism work to write a good, compelling story.
More exploration of how some of the interesting holdovers from wargame play got dropped out too early in the development of RPGs in the 1980s. Should be read with this one, if you are interested in that theme.
Far and away my most solid writing on the blog has been the personal entries. This one details my relationship through my combat vet father to the Vietnam War and how it colored D&D play back in the day. Read this one if you read anything today.
Hey, hey, hey. You have an F-bomb in your post as well. Did my first one yesterday.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, this is a neat idea to bring back old posts. And as you already know, I like the blogs that have personal stuff included.
Now back to bills ... more F-bombs to follow.
Ha I noticed and told myself if the Whisk can do it, then I can stop wussing around a word I use on a frequent basis myself. Liberating.
ReplyDeleteWhisk, have you been hitting the cooking sherry again?
ReplyDeleteTIM! TIM, GET OVER HERE!
I'm glad you linked the piece on "co-operative" play. You mentioned two of my favorite rpgs, Boot Hill and Top Secret.
ReplyDeleteLast summer I ran a BH one-shot at a local con in which I pitted two teams - lawmen and outlaws - against one another. Each player had a different objective for his characters - one was going to rob the bank, another free a prisoner from the county jail, and so on. It was a hoot, and I'm planning on running another one again this summer, with outlaws being pursued by a posse - I want to get the El Dorado County map into the game this time.
It would be tough to run a campaign like that--perhaps it'd work with two double-blind play groups--but I would like to try some time.
DeleteThe one recent taste of it came when a member of my home group tried to assassinate members of my G+ play group. I ran him as an NPC in the latter group's session. Almost worked too.
A fine collection of posts for the revisiting.
ReplyDeleteNice stuff to see. I've never managed to work my way through your whole blog, so having cherry picked entries offered up on a plate is good news.
ReplyDeleteHell nearing post 500 I can barely even remember a third of my past posts. Running through them was a good exercise for me.
DeleteMy advice to you, don’t take my word for granted, talk to prophetharry and you will know he is sincere, kind, caring, honest, and skilled. my lover is back with the spell of prophetharry@ymail.com
ReplyDelete