Graph Paper Games

I suppose, one could say, that I'm a Grognardia apologist, by that I mean that I tend to not excuse what has happened with Grognardia's author James Maliszewski (hence called James from here on out) and his failure to produce Dwimmermount, his Old School Megadungeon for which he raised around $48,000 on Kickstarter.  But instead, I try to understand what happened, as best I can from what scant detail is running around, and perhaps try to share what I think. Part of this, I'll freely admit, is that there is a part of my personality that seems to resonate with what is known about James and the last six months or so.  It's easy, all too easy, to get swept up in the emotional gratification of being appreciated for something you do or say online.  I love the support I get from my AAR's over at Hard Boiled Zombies .  I like being told I'm a clever storyteller and that my solo campaign is inspiring to others. It's also easy to get a huge rush from what you thi...

I picked this game up yesterday, having read a lot about it at various blogs that I follow.  I'll be putting up a decent review of it after I fully digest it, but in the meantime I thought I'd as you, gentle readers, a couple of questions. First, how important is PC balance to you?  Some games have a pretty strong mechanic towards PC balance, usually enforced by a crunch-heavy system.  Others, like Rifts  for example, have uber-powerful characters fighting side-by-side with guys who are barely more than everyday humans.   Marvel Heroic Roleplaying (which I'll call MHP for short) eschews PC balance to reflect the disparate power levels of its source material.  Hawkeye and Iron Man on the Avengers, or Colossus and Shadowcat on the X-Men. Frankly, and I may be in the minority about this, but I think it matters a lot.  There's a scene in the inital run of Justice League Europe where Captain Atom flies up to this big evil cloud and just incine...

A while back I said, in the midst of a tirade regarding people who obsess about gaming theory, that I should try to write something that would help people incorporate new people into their gaming hobby.  For a variety of reasons I’ve decided to go ahead on that idea, and maybe provide some serious content for this blog (for a change). Let me start by telling you a little bit about myself, just so you know that I know what I’m talking about.  I started gaming in middle school right when D&D first came out and haven’t stopped.  I’ve been out of college for the last twenty years and since leaving school have moved four times.  Each time, I rebuilt a gaming group.  In that process I made a lot of mistakes, but I also figured out what worked best.  Right now I’ve got a great group of people (seven total, including the GM) and I game every other Friday night at my home. In my professional life I deal almost exclusively with people.  I use a computer ...

There's a lot of OSR-related fan blogs out there, and I subscribe to several of them, but perhaps one of the most prolific in terms of pure "if it ain't OSR it ain't anything" screed is Hack and Slash .  I sometimes think the whole OSR thing reminds me a bit of the question of a vegetarian diet.  There are those who occasionally go meat-free or at least appreciate what vegetarians are trying to do, those that are "I'll eat fish but that's it," those that are strict vegetarians, and then there's vegans. Me?  I'm in the first category. I can respect the whole "player agency is good, rules light can be fun and encourage creativitiy," etc.  But I'll still play another game if I feel like it because just like I think meat is a good thing, I think skill rolls are a good thing sometimes too.  The "fish only" people are like individuals who like Castles and Crusades --I'm basically on board, but I'll still indulg...