Old Posts 1-10

Here are a list of the first 10 posts I created on this blog:

The Tao.  Personal Memoir.  An account of how I was introduced to D&D my very first time, my offline campaign in 2008 and my reasons for starting a blog.

To Make a World.  First Worlds I Created, Personal Memoir, Worldbuilding Theory.  Describing my transition to being a DM, the first world I created based on the Gorean novels, my second world fully self-designed and why it didn't work, my present world and reasons for its design.

How It Got Infected.  Corporate Marketing, D&D's Development, Official Game, Personal Memoir.  First experiences with modules in 1979, TSR's agenda, witnessing the manner in which people moved towards the game, early conventions in the 1980s, my feelings of disenchantment and moving towards isolation as a DM.

Rats in a Maze.  Agency in RPGs, Humor, Personal Memoir.  My first DM and his style, the employment of dungeon doors as evil entities, discussing the freedom of players to live a life vicariously through role-playing games.

Seizing the Day.  Adventure Building, Agency in RPGs.  A theoretical description of how an alternate-form of adventure might be created, not based on the traditional style (the mustard adventure).  A few words on objectivism as a DM.

So What If They Win?  Adventure Building, Agency in RPGs, Bad DMing.  Good vs. Bad playing, appreciating the player, the player's primary value in a campaign, DMs prepared to circumvent the rules in order to preserve a preconception of how their games should unfold.  [I have moved slightly from the opinions expressed].

Dead Thinking.  Agency in RPGs, Alignment, Corporate Marketing, Official Game, Personal Memoir, Unearthed Arcana.  Disappointment in the Unearthed Arcana's release, attempts to subvert player agency with alignment, the bad paladin trope, character codes, end result of point-buy systems.

Give Abilities Their Due.  4th Edition, Game Mechanics.  The release of 4e, negative first impressions, increased emphasis on the die roll, fantasy world demographics, the rational difference between having an clear and unquestioned skill and the silliness of making rolls to determined success.

Enough Junk.  Community Feedback, Ranting.  My emotional response to the apparent present state of the RPG game culture, viscerally expressed, upon beginning to discover how fractured that culture had become, and how the same lazy cliches were still prominent.  Exactly the sort of post I am trying never to write again.  [I am strongly tempted to delete the post]

Secondary Skills.  Character Generation, Father's Table, Pre-Sage Abilities.  A discussion of the secondary skills approach used in the original DMG and the approach I had used at that time, which I described as the "father's table."  This is still part of the background character generator I would develop later (with more results that this post gives), but now sage abilities exist as a complement to the moderate skills/bonuses a player gains from their parent's profession.

Believe it or no, this is about all I can stand.  I can see the benefits of highlighting most of this, but it is a boring post to write.  Maybe I'll try one a week.  That will get through my entire present lexicon in . . . around five years.