GaryCon IV was a blast!

Downside of this past weekend: I had been unsure if I was going to make it to GaryCon, so I had not registered to run any events.

Upside of this past weekend: it didn't matter. :):):)

When I arrived at GaryCon on Thursday, I brought along a whole bunch of material: Empire of the Petal Throne, Classic Traveller, Mutant Future, and Labyrinth Lord.  The only game I ran was the very first one.  Planning for the MAR Barker Memorial occupied a decent part of Friday, but eventually everything got resolved.  By Friday evening, I had gathered a number of players in the Open Gaming Area, and we started to adventure in Old Jakalla.  Over the course of the convention, I ended up running EPT for about 20 hours.  Some highlights included:

• The party of adventurers who got themselves stuck inside an old Bednalljan tomb, and the one priest of Sarku decided to call for divine intervention.  When the Lord of Worms responded with the question, "what would you have me do?" the anguished priest said, "open ALL the portals to this place!"  Lord Sarku promptly did so - and four player characters joined the ranks of the Legions of the Despairing Dead.
• Another party of adventurers were given a mission to escort a priestess from Jakalla to Tumissa, and got sidetracked by the agents of the Temple of Chiteng. The battle aboard the ship involved an Excellent Ruby Eye, two drugged player-characters in the captain's cabin, and the ship being set on fire by the sailors who were abandoning ship.  The party eventually made it to Prince Rereshqala's palace, however.

Next stop: North Texas RPG Con.  Looking forward to it!

Last Chance to Donate!

Over at the RetroRoleplaying Blog, Randall Stukey notes:  "Today is the last day of the Leap Month RetroRoleplaying Cancer fund drive. Donations arriving before I get up Monday morning (say 7am CDT on March 19th) will count as donated on the 18th of March."  I encourage everyone who has not donated to think about doing so.

Another friend passes away

Professor Muhammad Abd-al-Rahman (MAR) Barker, known to his friends as “Phil,” died peacefully in home hospice on March 16, 2012 with his wife Ambereen Barker at his side. Professor Barker is survived by his wife of 53 years, Ambereen. Details on memorial services will follow. In lieu of flowers, memorials to the Tékumel Foundation are preferred: http://www.tekumelfoundation.org

For more information: http://www.tekumelfoundation.org/PressRelease-MARBARKER-1929-2012.pdf

Traveller Tuesday: 2300AD reborn!

This looks rather interesting. I've always had something of a soft spot for 2300AD, after originally rejecting it as "that weird game that was mislabeled as 'Traveller'." Once I figured out what the game was about, I rather liked the connection between it and Twilight:2000. I never really had a chance to play, and now seeing it connected to the RTT rules set makes me think harder about digging out the old stuff and rolling up some characters.

Learning from Lessnard

When I first started playing D&D, back in 1975 or so, I was just a teenager. I played mostly with my high school friends, but after awhile I wanted to see how other people played.  So even though I was in high school, I discovered the Conflict Simulation Association at the University of Minnesota - and an undergraduate majoring in Medieval Studies named Michael Mornard.

Michael's D&D campaign was set in Merry Old England during the reign of Edward III.  Sherwood Forest had a deep dark secret, with the Devil running the show (if I recall correctly).  I learned the old English monetary system (12 pence to the shilling, 20 shillings to the pound, and 21 for a guinea), and what you needed to do between dungeon expeditions (repair your armor).  There was one particular adventure where my hobbit thief ended up in the back rank, so I carefully reached over and turned him around so he could see if anybody was sneaking up on the party, while the front rank was puzzling over a door.  "That's 50 experience points, right there," Michael declared.

Gaming with Michael was often like attending the School of Hard Knocks.  At the same time, it was always fun and definitely something that grabbed my attention.  In many ways, my style of gaming over time has been shaped in part by Michael's tutelage.

More recently, Michael moved to New York with his wife, Jean.  Jean is at seminary, studying to be a priest, so Michael has been avoiding his own seminary studies having fun playing and running D&D for some of the New York Red Box crowd, including Tavis Allison among others.  So it was with a real sense of nostalgia and interest I recently read "Gaming with one of the original D&D players" over on Blog of Holding. Go check it out - Michael's in fine form, reminding us that "The cool thing about your character was what you did in the game." Right on. Preach it.

New Tekumel stuff!

The attached picture is a preview of a new release coming VERY soon from Prof. Barker and the Tekumel Foundation. It will be available through DriveThru/RPG Now. Details to follow soon!

What Zak said

Over at Playing D&D with Porn Stars, Zak is exploring some of the same issues I've experienced attempting to talk with Forge adherents about what, exactly, gaming is and is supposed to accomplish.  I pointed out Glenn Blacow's excellent article about different kinds of gamers, which is itself an exploration of the different expectations that people bring to the gaming table.

So what's my point?  Simple: the process of negotiating the kind of role-playing game you want to play takes place between players as a part of gameplay as a social activity.  Whatever you conclude becomes the basis for your social contract to continue - but there's no requirement that this be codified in the rules of the game.  I would go further and argue that to codify such requirements into the rules places limits on role-playing within gameplay.  Whether or not you want those limits is collectively up for negotiation.