A man named Augusts visits San Sibelia

I just finished my first journaling game after being curious about the genre for quite a few years. It was a fun exercise and really gets the creativity flowing. The game i played was A Visit To San Sibilia by Peter Eijk. The game had realy simple instructions, a card mechanic to throw some curveballs into the narrative and an (optional) dice mechanic to regulate the flow of time. I played through it in just about two hours i think, i did it in two different session (last session started with Day 17).

Game cover image

Below is what i wrote for the game. I've resisted editing the text, execpt to fiz few typos, to preserve the flow-of-consciousness feeling of the writing-as-playing exercise. I apologize if that makes it hard to read in places. 

A Visit To San Sibilia

Character name: Augustus Guinn

The city changes boxes: [x][x][x][x]

Day1

I have finally arrived in San Sibilia. My steamer arrived upriver early this morning and i took a tram, not too crowded fortunately, into the city center of Saint Riocha. I have walked around for a bit. The temple structures here are amazing. Like nothing I've ever seen. Their architecture appears ancient, yet still very new and completely unknown to me. My hotel is on the outskirts of the Saint Riocha district. A smal hotel, like i prefer, run by an elderly woman and her two sons. My room faces the river and i can see across to the workmen's districts across the flowing waters.

I have unpacked the diary of von Emmingen, but not had the inclination of opening it yet. The old man man's words are what brought me here, but reading his writing is still cumbersome although his genius is uncontested. Hopefully i'll get to reading it in the next day or so. Perhaps i'll be able to find someone in this city who knew him and can she light on his destiny. I arrived here alone, of course, and i'm not very good with people, but my curiosity is peaked by this place of ancient wisdom, art and industry.

Day 6

This morning the broadsheets here in San Sibilia was filled with queer news. It appears that a handful of people have gone missing in the city of the last few weeks, but today they all returned. Together in fact, on a small boat, single mast, with it's prow shaped like a swan. It came down river and landed near one of the old churches in Saint Riocha. A young man working in the church, an acolyte i suppose, discovered them. The people were all alive, two men, three women and one child, and in good health, but curiously they could not explain where they had been nor what had happened to them. At least this is what the paper describes.

Of course, knowing the writings of von Emmingen i immediately contacted the editor of the largest paper by express mail. Informing her that i might know what had happened to these people and informing her that i would happily lend my expertise to help her paper uncover more of the truth. It is not very like me to act in this manner, but easier when accomplished in writing. I just received her reply as i am writing this. Seems that i'll be helping out in the search for the truth about this occurrence. My feelings about it are mixed. One the one hand this could prove the value of my discovery of von Emmingen's writings but one the other i now feel anxious about my stay here in the city. It will not be as tranquil as i first had imagined.

Day 7

How strange this day has been. I met with editor Tuleena Cain and one of her journalists Mr. Diogo at a bookstore near the La Bohamin quarter. I explained both the decriptions and the theory found in von Emmingens work. To which they listened attentively. After i was done Tuleena  showed me the bookshop, it was owned by her family in some fashion but the details escape me, and pointed out a well-stocked section on both occult and other mystical matters. She quickly pointed out a few tomes that i'd only read about in von Emmingen. This was a goldmine and especially useful in deciphering more of von Eppingen's thinking. Tuleena laughed, charmingly, at my ethusiasm. I must admit my heart skipped a beat. Her auburn curls about her face and that knowing smile... However i don't have time to fall in love. I really don't. Anyway Tuleena offered me Mr.Diogo's asstistance to doing more research surrounding these phenomena and we worked for most of the day. It was fruitful, a had copious notes on von Emmingens own sources at this point and i began to form a form a theory in my own mind as well about the missing people. There are links here to mystical geography, geomancy if you will ... the occult science of space and bodies within that mystical space.

My hair was on end as i said goodbye to Mr.Diogo and made my way back to my hotel that night. But as i walked i had terrible feeling that something was wrong. The streets i walked seemed new somehow, or at least laid out in a new pattern. I felt my head spin. The city had changed or perhaps it was changing all the time. No matter what i was lost, unable to find my hotel and likewise unable to find my way back to the bookshop.

Day 13

In the end i had to settle into new accommodations. This hostel was neither as cozy or well-kept as my prior hotel, but i felt that trying to chart a shifting city would not be worth my time. I preferred to study the writings of Emmingen in light of my new notes. I was however adamant on contacting Mr.Diogo or Ms Cain, but it seemed nearly impossibly to send an express letter from the hostel. There were no runners around and the hostel keeper was uninterested in rendering any assistance.

In the end however i was successful in send Ms Cain newspaper a message about my new location. Tuleena replied almost at once and told me to wait a day or two, but that she would send Mr.Diogo to see me. This was no problem. I was working hard on the geomantic references in von Emmingen's work. His genius was slowly unravelling before my eyes. It was an exploration unlike any i had undertaken. Inside a great man's mind - the true terra incognita - the minds of another mapped out as geometry. It was brilliant. I had began charting this space on the walls of my room since i was unable to get a blackboard.

Then just before midnight i received word that Mr.Diogo was on his way to see me. He wanted to meet in a nearby alley next to a temple of Saturn. It wasn't far so i left only minutes for before midnight. Outside was cold and the evening was quiet. Except for footfalls echoing among the on the paved narrow streets and adobe buildings. Eerie, but it didn't prepare me for what i saw when i met Mr.Diogo. He looked dishevelled. His clothes disorganized, his face pale and sweaty. He turned to greet me but his eyes were just black holes staring blankly at me. I spoke first and Mr.Diogo didn't have time to utter a word before a gunshot rang out behind me. I saw the bullet enter at his eye and take half his head with it on the way out of his skull. I fainted as i heard the echo of footfalls running. Running away.

Day 17

For four days i've been hiding. My hands are still shaking from that incident in the alley. Mr.Diogo's last seconds burned into my brain like a fever that won't let me go. I no longer eat and i hardly sleep. The footsteps are coming me too, I know it. Someone knows the secret of von Emmingen's work, someone is willing to kill for it. I'm certain.

***

As i write this there is a knock on my door...

***

I have ran away. Into the city. They came for me as i predicted. There were two of them, masked in black cloth masks. I screamed at them as they entered the room. We fought and my right hand is bleeding now. My escape from my executioners are blurry. I feel like i can't breathe.

***

My last effort. I have walked into a temple. I have told the priest everything. He was a old man, nearly bold, thinning hair on the sides. Kind eyes. I told him about von Emmingen's secret. I told him about the connections of the occult mindscape and the city architecture. I begged for him understand me. I know that i'm half mad, but also know that i know the truth of San Sibilia know.

Day 20

I've slept for two days. The priests put me up in the temple. They have been kind to me. Father Litor especially. He has taken care of my notes and been very helpful in organizing my thoughts. Just a litte more work and i'l able to publish something on the theories of von Emmingen. It will shatter the world, but i feel responsible to the people of San Sibilia.

I met with Tuleena aswell. The kind father arranged it. We strolled along the river for over an hour. I explained my thoughs to her, but her demeanor had changed. She was pale and quiet. No enthusiasm. Not like before. She just placed her hand on my arm at the bridge of the sibyl. I wanted to tell her that i had falled in love, but when i met her eyes i could only see darkness. The same darkness as the river water. Like she was a part of this city just like the waters. We passed underneath the bridge. A car, a black car, awaited her on the other side. Two men met her and escorted her to the car. They were smiling. She looked unhappy, but still managed to smile goodbye. I got the feeling i would never see her again. That no one would see her again.

Final entry

I am no longer in San Sibilia. The city is no longer, i think. All that remains is the anxious feeling in the back of my mind. The restlessness of knowing the lies that fuels reality. What von Emmingen found out. His great theory.

I left his diary behind. Father Litor convinced me to. I just kept a cross that he gave me, but i can no longer find it. I must have lost it after coming here. I live in a house in a deep forest now. I'm not alone, but i don't have friends here. It is quiet though. The wind rustling in the trees at night.

I'll never return to the city. I'll never return to a place built on lies and fantasy. I'll prefer to die in the horror of reality. Still i miss it.

On how i enjoy role-playing games

I apologize in advance. This post is going to be fairly self-centered, but it is primarily an attempt to describe my personal preferences when it comes to role-playing, and secondly to link them to certain discussions, or discourses perhaps, about how role-playing games can be played.

(His)story in tabletop role-playing

The first edition of Neotech ca.1993

I started playing role-playing games in the early 90s. A norwegian translation of the 1983 Red Box version of Basic D&D was the first game i played, but equally important in my early gaming was the first edition of Swedish games Neotech and Viking. A diceless Norwegian game Imperium 3000 and the 1991 edition of Drakar och Demoner (which is THE swedish rpg) also served as an early introduction to the hobby.

I can't list all the games i read and played in my teens but seminal ones were 4th edtion Pendragon, AD&D 2nd edition, Kult, Warhammer FRP, Star Wars D6, EarthDawn and Ars Magica. The 90s closed out with the arrival of 3rd edition D&D.

For much of the early 00's 3rd ed. D&D and later Pathfinder, alongside Pendragon, Ars Magica, Vampire the Masquerade and homebrewed games using the Fudge system was what i played and ran. I remember being aware of the outwardly stated different purposes of the "storytelling" games like Ars Magica and Vampire, and the more crunchy dispositions of D&D's 3.ed, but i don't remember it actually affecting the play style of my games (or that of my firends) that much. I think there was a rebellious ethos, connected to the fact of how marginal a hobby role-playing games were in Norway, that said "screw what the book says, we know how to do it cooler." It was a punk attitude, rules were, in some way, bad or at least uncool. In short - "system didn't matter" ¹, or maybe rather "we don't want system to matter".

Norwegian diceless roleplaying-game
Imperium 3000

Insular highway; or a local culture of play    

Most people who played role-playing games in the 90s in Norway did so, mainly, with a circle of friends. Organized play existed but access to it was geographically, temporally and socially restricted. You had be somewhere, at a certain time and with certain people. I wasn't, neither were the friends that i played with.

Through formative years of simultaneously growing up and playing ttrpg's we developed a local play culture. It was insular, self-affirming and self-reinforcing. Our way was the highway. There were no other cars.

I'll have to caveat that piece of hyperbole slightly. While our local culture remained intact the circle of people we played with expanded. Introducing girlfriends, friends of friends, classmates and co-workers our culture was exposed to new people. Sometimes those people came from their own, similarly insular, local play cultures, or they simply had opinions about how they wanted to have fun. This led to negotiations "about how to this role-playing-thing", transmissions between cultures and maybe a few collisions.

In the latter half of the 00s i felt disillusioned by role-playing. I'd been burned out as a gamemaster in several rounds. I felt like a veteran, a tired one, of nearly-the-same fantasy campaign over and over again. The repetitions of the same tropes, my unkilled darlings (to riff of the famous writers maxim), was gnawing on me. Prepping sessions of Pathfinder (those f***ing statsblocks) led to frustrated rage. Other personal problems coincided and the ttrpg's side of life all felt a bit useless.

Cue one night of Fiasco (by Jason Morningstar) and the discovery of Google+.

Cultures of play

Internet has changed talking about role-playing. It has probably changed other leisure activities as well, but i feel the effect on tabletop role-playing has been profound. And it started long before i discovered it.

I discovered the Google+ Rpg community somewhere around 2010. Around the same time i played Fiasco, a different kind of storytelling game from Ars Magica and Vampire the Masquerade. I also discovered the OSR.

Here is where i realized that on the internet different cultures of play beyond insular groups had emerged. These cultures didn't get along, but there was so much raw creativity on display. So much awesome stuff. And there were discourses happening on how one could and, maybe, should play. Which things were important to focus on, principles and priorities. Different sets of "how to" role-play that could be critically analyzed and critiqued. A flowering of theory on this hobby that i'd been love with since age twelve. 

I got a bit hooked. This was at the same time that i was doing my master thesis in gender studies. Analysing the sociocultural landscapes i came across was second nature to me. I learned a lot, but it was hard to take it back on to the old island. It felt, in my hubristic mind, like Plato's cave. It was like I'd seen the divine, but i was unable to communicate it to my fellow players. (Of course it wasn't divine and my inability to communicate it had much more with my personal issues and mental make-up than anything else.)

• Recommended reading: Six Cultures of Play over at The Retired Adventurer

Drama and exitement; and the permission to put anything in my game. Even ducks...

What did i learn? Well, i learned about tools for improvising and how those tools could be utilized to create drama. One of the first times i played a freeform game, a sort of parlour-larp/rpg crossover, the players that didn't participate in a scene had the power to cut the scene at any time. The first time i cut a scene in that game was so powerful, intoxicating actually, because i had i a very tangible and very personal way defined the story. Created real drama and put a hard limit on the other players based only on my own aesthetic sense.

How incredible it feels when you are given permission to make something and the table accepts it (whatever it is), before they add to it and that makes it even better before it returns to you. I learned about being a voice in the collective idea and how that is more satisfying than showing up your friends. How a string of fragmentary and individual statements, intentions, desires and ideas will come together as a collective story as long as there is trust and the will to make it happen. And a system to guide it.

I also learned that there are no limits to your game that you don't impose yourself. And conversely you can impose whatever limits you like. Goes for genre; want sci-fi in your fantasy? Go for it! Want cannibalistic feral hobbits instead of those that are a stand-in for English middle class sensibilities in the early 20th century? Go for it! No one has defined a genre so hard you can't tell the to f*** off. F*** Tolkien, f*** Howard, F*** George Lucas, even f*** Moorcock or LeGuin (although they are great, it's not about that), and doubly f*** Lovecraft (racist scumbag that he was), but put Cthulhu in your game in a way no one else figured how to do before. Goes for other types of content as well, like how much violence, or sex or anything else you want.²

I learned the value of procedure. Augmenting your imagination with well-defined procedures relieves the stress of the blank page. Giving planned happenstance responsibility to choose monsters, or terrain, or names, or scene locations, or treasures or whatever else relieves decision fatigue and lets you focus on enjoying and being in the game. Of course you need to trust procedures as well. You can't just make the AI and let it loose, you need rules and a system to guide it.

I also learned a bunch of jargon and technical stuff; point-crawls, fiction first, moves, bleed, "yes, and...", session zero, fronstory, the 2d6 probability curve (and why you should love it), fail forward, pass/fail resolution, narrative rights, jacquaysing the dungeon, emergent stories, the different gaming stances, how to avoid brain damage, quantum ogres and all that stuff.

The hardest lesson for the veteran, in his own mind, from the gaming island where rules were somehow "uncool" was this, the old adage by now, that "system matters". 

What is on the table? Principles for fun

So here is where I come back to the table. Because even with the internet, and streaming, and all of that, my hunch is that most actually gaming is still local. It might not be quite as insular, but ttrpg's is still a medium that happens in smallish groups of people centered on a physical or virtual location (like a Zoom meeting). Even at a con a table of role-players are still quite small and, in my experience, quite personal. It's that kind of social activity.

So knowing that, and having learned that system matters (and at this point i should again remind everyone of the Baker-Boss principle so that we know what we are talking about) I go back to the local table. And we start to talk about what's on the table, not literally of course, but we start to talk about our system, our desires and aspirations for the role-playing experience. We discuss "all formal and informal rules, procedures, discussion, interactions and activities which form this consensus comprise the full system used in play."³ We talk about those things exactly because of that old adage i mentioned, the fact that how we do role-playing games matters. System matters.

So it turns out this was just a long preamble. I wanted to write about my preferences first and link them to discourses and discussions secondly. As this post stands I've done more of the latter and less of the former. So here is the thing, I'll leave you with a bullet point list of salient points that I feel are important to me, personally, when negotiating the local system and then i'll probably expand on those bullet points in a subsequent post.

• Excitement is the real juice. When i play or run games i want to feel excitement. Creating anything with a group of friends can be exiting in it self, but mostly i want the game experience to be exiting.
• Drama is key to excitement. The way i understand drama it is about characters shifting status, going from high-status to low-status or vice versa.⁴
• The game system must support drama in one fashion or another, because system matters.
• Combat is dramatic, but not all drama is combat.
• Rules are not dramatic in themselves, but they help stage and adjudicate dramatic events. In running combat and physical action rules are often necessary. When running social drama rules can enhance excitement, but are often not necessary. In either case, the rules part of the system must never be more important than the drama. Why? Because system matters. 
• I take the Baker-Boss principle (again) to mean that both my priority of excitement as the most important aspect of play and the use of rules are both part of the system, a system that would contradict itself if the rules became more important.
• The system should help foster a safe enviroment for play and promote trust between players.

¹ I'm aware that i'm conflating the terms "rules" and "system" here. It's a simplification to make a point. I agree that they in genereal shouldn't be conflated because system, when talking about ttrpg's, encompasses more than just the rules, in-line with the Baker-Boss principle.

²This is not to say that you shouldn't limit content. Actually, I think you should limit content to make sure that everyone at the table feels comfortable and welcome.

³ Quoting from Emily Care Boss' excellent version of the Baker-Boss principle.

⁴ I take this from memory from Graham Walmsly book Play Unsafe.

G'ldaling

G'ldalings were first created by me for the #2017BÅTSJ competition on the Norwegian rollespill.info Facebook group. I repost them here for the enjoyment of whom it may concern. There is also a rollespill.info website. Both FB group and website are (mainly) in Norwegian.

G'ldings are an ancient race. They arrived on Earth aeons ago, lay dormant beneath the clay of the Trøndelag region, watching and waiting for humanity, a breed always in turmoil and fueled by desire, to reveal a way to destroy their world letting the aliens harvest the energy of all living things as they expire.

To accomplish their mission they eventually took the form of automobile, especially ones of the Volvo 240 make and model. The combustion engines of these perversely majestic mastodont's were perfect to enhance humanity self-destructive purpose by pumping noxious gases into their own atmosphere. The effects of the poison rendering the world in chaos, an exhilarating prospect to the alien minds encased in the metallic husks.

Working their psionic powers through intense electronic music the G'ldalings also created human followers. The Knights of Volvo, shotgun toting and moonshine swilling men and women, patrolling the highways and byways of middle Norway fueled by psychotropic mushrooms and an incoherent but strict code of honor. These knights, unaware of the aliens true purpose, remain staunch protectors against the entropic forces of the bloodthirsty Norwegian troll population. Doing good in their mind, yet in reality serving the ultimate evil.

The G'dalings are, of course, unaffected by the doings of the human minions. The aliens are content in letting humanity, by virtue of it's thanatonic desire for mobility and superiority, destroy itself. Slowly but surely.

There are three ranks among G'ldalings denoted by accouterments added to their automobile body. Lieutenant rank (9HD) G'ldalings have plush dice dangling from their rear-view mirrors. Captains (10HD) sport a gearstick topped with a human skull as a symbol of ultimate mockery towards humanity.

G'ldalings; HD 8-10; AC 3 [16]; Att: Ramming attack (4d12); SV 4; Special: Magic resistance 70%, +1 or better weapons to hit, anyone inside a G'daling listnening to its base-pounding music must make a saving throw or fall under the effects of a Charm Person spell; Move 18; AL C; 

The Fireclown (for Troika)

They have killed the great sun jester
Who danced between the stars
They have stripped him of his manhood
Signs of Venus and of Mars
The cynics left him weeping
And the jackals left him torn
And the jester reaches out bind hands
He can touch the stars no more.

    (The Great Sun Jester, Blue Öyster Cult)

The Fireclown

Dedicated to my friend G. I miss your laughter and your cutting words every day.

The Fireclown laugh in the face of the masked judges who sit silently in the auditoriums. Their smile is too powerful, their blade too quick and their words cut too deep for him to fear them. There are few authorities that can touch the Fireclown. They blind and elude, leaving a hard hot laughter behind to shame those that would use power to oppress or demean. The Fireclown speaks cunning anger to power, and makes fun of the powerful. Yet, unseen to the eyes of those that follow, the words rebound into their own body. Slowly the Fireclown bleeds out, but for one last death of a tyrant.

Possessions

Sun Jester Hat, sparkling with mirrors and golden bells

A Balisong knife

A pad of sheets containing the latest lambast of the unfairness of life

Advanced Skills

2 Spell -  Babble

3 Spell - Flash

2 Knife fighting

2 Secret signs - clowns

1 Acrobatics

1 Stealth

(Thanks to Blue Öyster Cult and apologies to Michael Moorcock)

St.Tropez spy-noir

* I wrote this as a set-up for a solo-game i am running in Modern AGE by Green Ronin. So far i've run about a single "session" (a somewhat arbitary term in solo games). I think the spy-genre is a great for solo (or duet) games as the focus usually is on a single character anyway. Pushing that character to it's limits and reflecting on moral choices also feels safer in a solo enviroment. I'm sure it looses some elements that a group could provide, but provides opportunity for some self-reflexion which is not always available in role-playing games. 

St. Tropez in the 1970s. Haunted by celebrity and decadence. The nightlife is exciting, beaches are full with the bold and the beautiful. 

Money flows fast. Drugs are everywhere. Everyone gets laid.

In this world crime is also rife. The corsicans run the underside of the glitz. Gangsters are popular figures in the imagination of the young bon vivants. But underneath their glamorous exterior the underworld is ruled by money and guns.

The world around is changing. Superpowers are jockeying for power. Spies and turncoats are everywhere. The riviera is a prime location for exchanges and honeytraps.

JaneArt / CC BY-SA

Background

In the autumn of 1976 the french banker Christophe Lallemand is gunned down by persons unknown on his way to La Croix Valmer. The police investigation finds evidence that someone was in the car with M. Lallemand, but the investigation is halted after a few weeks.

In London MI6 commander Sebastian Bristol suspects that Russian intelligence might be involved in the case. M. Lallemand was an MI6 asset and his last report mentions that he has met a young woman named Lily Bonin. Bristol thinks Bonin might have been in the car with him. He goes to St. Tropez in an attempt to find the girl, but he also goes missing after filing a single report.

Commander Bristol’s wife Marcia Bristol is in the US working for the UN, but has secretly been recruited by the CIA. When her husband goes missing she contacts a friend in the Agency and begs them to look into her husband’s disappearance.

The CIA agent Howard Feldman is sent to England to liaison with the MI6. The CIA has knowledge that a prominent St. Tropez gangster, Yanis Mignot, might be working for the Russians. Commander Bristol report mentions that Ms. Bonin and M. Mignot knows each other, and his report contains a picture of them together.

Together with french MI6 agent Ava Baudet, Feldman recruits a french-american girl studying in England. M. Mignot is a prominent part of St.Tropez nightlife and is known to surround himself with beautiful women. A honeytrap is set for the french gangster.

Bloody basic - Weird Fantasy Edition

Note: This is the first of a series of posts about the games that I have on my shelf. The goal with these posts are not to review the games, but to write something personal about them and why they are on my shelf. There might be some opinions, some ideas or just a story about playing the game.

I have written about John M. Stater's (of Land of Nod fame) games on this blog before, with a review of Deviant Decade.

The Bloody basic series of games from mr. Stater serve as introductions to his fantasy heartbreaker game Blood & Treasure. The Bloody basic games (and Blood & Treasure) are OSR games, but they are not retro-clones. System-wise i read them as a stripped down 3rd edition meets Swords & Wizardy. Simple, not simplistic, old-school but not nostalgic (so firmly OSR stuff).

System however, is not the reason i picked up Bloody basic - Weird Fantasy Edition. I wanted it because it feels like old time phantasy when you read it.

You don't play a figther or a magic-user in this game. Your class isn't going to be rogue. In Weird Fantasy edition you can play a Magus or a Puissant. You wear a byrnie of maille instead of a chain shirt, and just as easily fight with a poinard as a dagger. The list of clothing articles include caftans, codpieces and a cotehardie. You pay quadruple for a vestment decorated with brocade.

This use of language is even reflected in character stats. Where characters with high Strength are mighty and those with high Wisdom are sophic while low Charisma characters are vile. There is a Rake subclass and a subclass called the Odalisque. Familiar first level spells have names like Illuminate and Slumber, and a completely original race is called Grotesques.

Language is a powerful thing and choosing resonating terminology can provide inspiration in my mind on a level that regular fluff texts rarely manage. I found myself thinking about Shakespeare's The Tempest and ancient pastorals when i read the game for the first time. Of course there is a lot of Lord Dunsany in it, and other proto-fantasy, as well as the fantasy dreamscapes of one Howard Phillips Lovecraft and, to my mind, perhaps Catherine Lucille Moore most of all.

The game is, of course, about sword & sorcery adventure, but it is also about experiencing wonder. There are suggested XP rewards for having your senses shattered by wonderous vistas or for falling in love with a non-human resident of a fantasy realm. The author suggests that the game be used for a portal-fantasy where inhabitants of the real world cross over into phantasy, but i think both a fantasitcal take on history or just building your own beautiful land of otherworldy phantasy, populated by men with "ruddy jackets of leather that reached to their knees" and elven princesses named Lirazel.

I may never find the right time and the right group to play this game, but my dreams and the implied setting of this game are made of the same stuff. So it truly deserves it's place on my shelf.

Blog necromancy

Well, hello there...

I don't seem to remember owning a blog...

Ah... i'l cut the crap...

It has been a few years since i posted anything to this blog. I simply didn't have the energy or the time for it anymore in 2016. The stress of putting stuff out there on the internet was triggering my anxieties and left me depressed too much of the time. (And i'm a white cis (mostly) heterosexual male, so i don't have to deal with the bulls*it that marginalized folk do.)

I don't know if my situation is much better at this point, but i am feeling a genuine desire to blog about RPGs again.

And now the world is hit with this Covid-19 situation... 

I really love this hobby. I have realized as i went through a year (2019) that was filled with loss and greif, that my interest in role-playing games is really central to me. I'll be 38 this year and i've been playing RPG since i was 11. That is 27 years, a substantial portion of my life.

So in honor of a good friend and adventuring companion that ended his life in 2019 because the darkness inside became too much to bear.

...

And in honor of those friends that are with me in the loss and grief as we keep playing these games that we've played since childhood.

...

In honor of choosing my own way in life, and not letting others decide for me.

...

I will return to this blog. To write, occasionally and when moved, without fear.

Roll dice...