Showing posts with label Little Fears. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Little Fears. Show all posts
09 June 2018
PinkFae Archive #14: Children as Players in Roleplaying Games
We are slowly working our way through the archive of articles I wrote for PinkFae. This week, we come to entry number 14, about playing roleplaying games with children. I hope you enjoy it! This article was originally published on 10 April 2016.
A friend of mine recently posted a link to an article about playing D&D with your kids. It was short, but had some interesting points. In particular, there was the part in which the author described a gaming session with his group that includes some parents who'd brought their children to the game. In this particular session, the three-year-old daughter of one of his fellow players was having fun with his miniatures. He states,
A friend of mine recently posted a link to an article about playing D&D with your kids. It was short, but had some interesting points. In particular, there was the part in which the author described a gaming session with his group that includes some parents who'd brought their children to the game. In this particular session, the three-year-old daughter of one of his fellow players was having fun with his miniatures. He states,
...as I was explaining what each monster was she began to ignore me and make up her own names and stories for them all. I smiled and played along with her. As we played however, I noticed that this was really kick starting her imagination. Stories of strange beasts and dragons with giant spiders as pets...I don't have any children. My wife and I have chosen a different life path for ourselves. But I know several gamers who do have children. John Trobare, whom I interviewed recently, has a few, and he plays board games with them all the time. I don't know if he's ever tried to get them into roleplaying. But I have known other parents who have.
24 June 2017
My Personal History of Roleplaying Games
I spent some time chatting with a friend recently. In the course of the conversation, I ended up describing to her how I got into gaming, and which games I've played, in rough order from earliest to most recent.
It occurs to me that this may be of interest to others, if only in part because my path into gaming was so very different from that of most other gamers. So I think I will describe it to you, my faithful readers.
It's all my father's fault, really. When I was a teenager (15 or 16, as I recall), my father brought home a number of Marvel comic books. He was an executive in the regional offices for Hardee's, the fast food restaurant, before it was purchased by Carl's Jr. At the time, Hardee's was considering doing a merchandising promo with some Marvel characters, and so he brought home a handful of issues of various titles for research. There was an Iron Man, a couple of different Spider-Man titles, an Incredible Hulk, and so forth. But the two that caught my attention were the Uncanny X-Men #258 and Wolverine #23.
It occurs to me that this may be of interest to others, if only in part because my path into gaming was so very different from that of most other gamers. So I think I will describe it to you, my faithful readers.
It's all my father's fault, really. When I was a teenager (15 or 16, as I recall), my father brought home a number of Marvel comic books. He was an executive in the regional offices for Hardee's, the fast food restaurant, before it was purchased by Carl's Jr. At the time, Hardee's was considering doing a merchandising promo with some Marvel characters, and so he brought home a handful of issues of various titles for research. There was an Iron Man, a couple of different Spider-Man titles, an Incredible Hulk, and so forth. But the two that caught my attention were the Uncanny X-Men #258 and Wolverine #23.
07 January 2017
I Want to Play More Games
Note: The article begins below. I'm going to try something different. I'm contemplating the idea of making this blog a podcast as well. To that end, I've made today's entry into a prototype podcast. Let me know what you think. Or, if you're not interested, skip to the regular text version below the podcast.
It's my own fault, really.
I should never have agreed to play with them. John decided that, for his birthday, he wanted to run a special two-session game. We played The Dresden Files Role Playing Game. I played a young changeling who had just recently learned of his faerie heritage and was trying to learn more about his father to understand why he would agree to enter into a somewhat deleterious relationship with a faerie woman. There was also a necromancer, a witch, and a vampire of the Yellow Court. For the first session, we also had a were-armadillo, but that player's son fell ill and he had to miss the second session.
Ever since then, I've been wanting to play more games. It didn't help that, as I was sitting around with the Dork Spouse and two of my good friends, we somehow managed to talk about the Little Fears RPG that I have. I've only been involved in one session of that game, which did not turn out well, because I was GMing for a group of Butt Kickers and Power Gamers who were unable to appreciate the 'you are a child fighting against the monsters from Closetland that adults cannot perceive' aspect of the game.
It's my own fault, really.
I should never have agreed to play with them. John decided that, for his birthday, he wanted to run a special two-session game. We played The Dresden Files Role Playing Game. I played a young changeling who had just recently learned of his faerie heritage and was trying to learn more about his father to understand why he would agree to enter into a somewhat deleterious relationship with a faerie woman. There was also a necromancer, a witch, and a vampire of the Yellow Court. For the first session, we also had a were-armadillo, but that player's son fell ill and he had to miss the second session.
Ever since then, I've been wanting to play more games. It didn't help that, as I was sitting around with the Dork Spouse and two of my good friends, we somehow managed to talk about the Little Fears RPG that I have. I've only been involved in one session of that game, which did not turn out well, because I was GMing for a group of Butt Kickers and Power Gamers who were unable to appreciate the 'you are a child fighting against the monsters from Closetland that adults cannot perceive' aspect of the game.
21 February 2016
A close look at combat and other systems
I was thinking this morning about the combat systems in roleplaying games. With the exception of Fiasco (and possibly Amber Diceless Roleplaying which I've never been able to try), the mechanics of any game system focus very heavily on combat.
Rules systems vary from incredibly complex and detailed, with exacting descriptions of any foreseeable permutations described (like those in Dungeons and Dragons or GURPS) to vague and intuitive (like Little Fears). But no matter the system, it is always the most detailed part of the rulebook (unless you count the magic system, but given how many of the spells described in most games are usually most applicable in combat situations, the magic section may as well count as part of the combat system).
This makes sense, given the way that roleplaying games grew out of miniatures war games. It's only reasonable that the first RPGs were, in essence, a system for emulating combat between individual characters.
Rules systems vary from incredibly complex and detailed, with exacting descriptions of any foreseeable permutations described (like those in Dungeons and Dragons or GURPS) to vague and intuitive (like Little Fears). But no matter the system, it is always the most detailed part of the rulebook (unless you count the magic system, but given how many of the spells described in most games are usually most applicable in combat situations, the magic section may as well count as part of the combat system).
This makes sense, given the way that roleplaying games grew out of miniatures war games. It's only reasonable that the first RPGs were, in essence, a system for emulating combat between individual characters.
13 April 2008
Gaming Costs
Today, I would like to talk about the high cost of gaming.
Gaming has always been an expensive hobby. In the documentary Über-Goober, one of the interviewees says that gaming saved her from a life of drugs. She follows this by saying, "How can you afford drugs when you're spending all your money on gaming books?"
And I know this to be true. I've been there. I've been the one spending the majority of my weekly income on gaming paraphernalia. I used to get a new gaming book every week. I had quite a collection (much of which was lost when it was in the car that got repossessed).
But today, it seems as though a week's salary won't get you as much as it used to. Things have been easier for me since I stopped playing (or even attempting to play) collectible trading card games like Magic: the Gathering and Arcadia: the Wyld Hunt. And there aren't a lot of standard RPGs out at the moment that I feel a need to collect; the last two games that held enough of my interest to entice me into buying anything were Changeling: the Dreaming (which was put on hiatus and left languishing there until they ended that game line) and GURPS (which is in 4th edition as of a couple years ago, and all the GURPS products coming out at the moment either don't interest me or are basically compiling and updating 3rd edition products for the new edition, so I already have all of the material in these books). I don't play D&D, I'm not interested enough in Cyberpunk 2020 or Shadowrun to buy any of the books, Little Fears folded, and I have only a passing interest in most of the other systems out there.
Gaming has always been an expensive hobby. In the documentary Über-Goober, one of the interviewees says that gaming saved her from a life of drugs. She follows this by saying, "How can you afford drugs when you're spending all your money on gaming books?"
And I know this to be true. I've been there. I've been the one spending the majority of my weekly income on gaming paraphernalia. I used to get a new gaming book every week. I had quite a collection (much of which was lost when it was in the car that got repossessed).
But today, it seems as though a week's salary won't get you as much as it used to. Things have been easier for me since I stopped playing (or even attempting to play) collectible trading card games like Magic: the Gathering and Arcadia: the Wyld Hunt. And there aren't a lot of standard RPGs out at the moment that I feel a need to collect; the last two games that held enough of my interest to entice me into buying anything were Changeling: the Dreaming (which was put on hiatus and left languishing there until they ended that game line) and GURPS (which is in 4th edition as of a couple years ago, and all the GURPS products coming out at the moment either don't interest me or are basically compiling and updating 3rd edition products for the new edition, so I already have all of the material in these books). I don't play D&D, I'm not interested enough in Cyberpunk 2020 or Shadowrun to buy any of the books, Little Fears folded, and I have only a passing interest in most of the other systems out there.
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