Rants/Raves
It's been more than five years since I last wrote about women in gaming. In that time, we've seen the end of the World of Darkness, yet another new edition of D&D, the advent of World of Warcraft, and (at least in my opinion) much greater involvement of women around the gaming table. When so much has changed for the better, is the topic of women in gaming even worth exploring anymore? At the very least, I have one new piece of advice for male gamers, and one new piece of advice for women in the hobby.
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, there lived a breed of online text-based game called a Multi-User Dungeon, or MUD. The MUDs thrived for a time, and then along came a beast called EverQuest, followed by its larger cousin, WOW. Together they killed the MUD forever. Or did they?
In a world gone mad, one special child stands alone against the forces of darkness. They alone must wield the power of the sacred artifact to deliver the land from the power of the one true evil, before all the world is swallowed in war. This Christmas, take a journey into a magical land of wonder.
While I love the game and the endless hours of fun it provides, anyone with a passing knowledge in Anthropology, Psychology, or even a college degree has to secede any chance of Dungeons & Dragons being "realistic." This is my big problem with D&D.
In the beginning, the darkness came from the valley and spoke unto me, "Dost my will?" and I asked humbly, "I am thine servant Theo, what is thy desire?" The Darkness replied. "Show them, the true power of the dark side, show them what you have been taught of evil through comic books. Lead them into a land of Mountain Dew and Bugles!" And so, I the Prophet received the Ten Commandments of Villainy, to help steer the chosen people from cliches of necromancers and demon lords.
A singular conflict in my love-hate relationship with GD:T&P, my topic-inspiration crutch, is over a passage on story in the design of Tekken, the first game of the well-known fighting game series. I say the passage is a dirty sucker-punch motivated by some unseen bitterness and deserves a fair shot for rebuttal.
Shadowrun is a game filled with imagination set in the postmodernist dystopia of the bleak near-future. Shadowrun is also one of the biggies, a game created by one of the roleplaying giants that generated video games, action figures (well, all right, they were like giant mage knight figures) and a novel series. Because of this, why is it so underground?
Rather than a discussion of people making a living at running scams, this article focuses on the beneficial point of conventions. Science Fiction, Gaming, and Comic conventions are discussed.
A new ideology for gaming, both play and design, based on an unusual example from the world of sports. Salacious hype or a genuine hypothesis that's time has come? You make the call.
One of the most interesting aspects of the new Chaosium line-up is the monographs, freelance tape-bound splatbooks detailing a very specific setting within a game. But do they help or hinder the actual creative development of the game itself?
