Last.
The Last prompt on the Last day of the RPGaDay Challenge for 2019.
As far as those participating in the event, I am very much embracing the idea of the word. I would be very surprised if I wasn't the Last person still putting up entries.
As I noted in other places, I got hung up on one of the previous prompts and life outside of the blog caught up with me, causing me to fall behind and fail to complete RPGaDay on time.
Hmmm. That all makes it sound like I am blaming things other than myself but in the end it is my own fault. I let myself get distracted.
There's always next year.
What Last brings to mind is the final session of a campaign and honestly I have mixed feelings about the very concept.
Throughout my time in the hobby I have been part of games as both a player and a GM that were specifically designed to run their course in a given length of time. Before even beginning certain game series, we would all know that it was set to go X number of sessions and then we'd move on to something else.
These days I do this quite often, especially given my current gaming schedule. I am in two or three groups (there's a lot of member overlap), I have a wide variety of genres and ideas I want to try out, and only so much time. I would rather GM a game for a dozen sessions, create a satisfactory ending, and then announce another game then never get the chance to play some of the campaign concepts I have in mind.
Well...sort of...you see...
This dynamic, which is so common these days even for me, is not my default way of going about things. Perhaps it's more accurate to say it's not my default way of thinking but rather something I've adopted and adapted to out of necessity.
In my mind, there should never be a Last session of a really great campaign. The best campaigns are not finite or at the very least should not be thought of as finite. To put it another way, I don't usually plan a Final Episode for my Star Trek campaigns. They run until we don't feel like doing them anymore or the group splits apart do to scheduling/life conflicts (almost always the latter). This is also how I approach Superheroes, Traveller, Star Wars, and most Fantasy projects.
Games Last as long as they Last. Stories have a beginning, middle, and ending, but the beauty of the unique narrative art form that is tabletop RPGs is that they can, in theory, go on and on and on.
I would love to have another campaign like my old, classic, live-in-the-setting, open universe games of yesteryear, where the stories, characters, setting, and plots went on forever, until they didn't. Games built to Last with no Last call.
Thanks for joining me for the RPGaDay Challenge Event of 2019.
Let's do it again next August.
AD
Barking Alien
Connection? Connection to what?
The French Connection? Love Connection? I am definitely particular to the Rainbow Connection?
Ooh wait, that's for me to decide. I see. I didn't see the Connection at first.
If I am being absolutely honest, what pops into my mind when I think about RPGs and the word Connection is the weird paradox of being 'Connected' to other fans of the hobby.
Supposedly we are Connected not only by our love of games but also the games themselves. You may be playing a game right now with rules, monsters, spell names, and other elements that are essentially identical to someone else playing their game a thousand miles away! Gamers in different countries are playing the same game you are in different languages then yours! We are the world! We are the children!
Except...
In all my years of gaming I've never played a game 100% 'Rules as Written', and I am well aware that my approach to certain RPG settings and genres is quite different from most of those who likewise partake in those systems and worlds.
Do I have a Connection to all the other people playing Traveller even if I use my own variation of the game's canon universe? Am I Connected to those running D&D if I run my D&D-But-Not setting of Aerth, which has a closer Connection to those running Superhero games?
It is the great Catch-22 of gaming. If we are all running our games our way(s), if everyone has at least one houserule at their table, how can we all be considered to be playing the same game? In a broad sense we are a 'community of individuals', each group it's own island with unique cultures, terrain, and weather, but we form an archipelago, the 'Gaming Islands' if you will.
I guess what unites us...what forms our true Connection...is that we all enjoy a hobby where you are free to customize things to your liking, to make the experience our own. Even if doing so means playing a game RAW or changing it so it's barely recognizable. We can do that. We share that ability and the same end goal. To make/run/play the best game we can come up with.
I feel so...Connected.
AD
Barking Alien
Gaming as we know it first began in 1974 with the publishing of the original Dungeons & Dragons.
Over the course of the next 45 years, the hobby expanded, improved, changed...Evolved.
Did we?
That is to say, of course we gamers have changed along with the hobby and its industry, but at the same time many of us have not. We long for the glory days of the hobby's 'Golden Age' and the rules and play style we know by heart and rote.
However, for anything to survive, it must Evolve. There must always be change. Gamers will design new systems and consider new ways of playing because they are driven to do so. They will do it because that is the only way the hobby continues and thrives.
So why is it that players and GMs by the hundreds, if not thousands, embrace things like the Old School Renaissance? Why do so many gamers only play D&D, regardless of edition? What is it about this a particular type of game that draws so many in? Additionally, if we all only followed the model of this forty-five year old RPG, would we Evolve.
My personal Evolution in the gaming hobby was one influenced very strongly by each game I played after my first exposure to it all through Basic Dungeons and Dragons. With each set of mechanics I learned, each additional genre I studied, I began to to see new ideas of how a Gamemaster could tell a story. I watched the reactions of my players to understand what it is players want out of games and campaigns.
My approach to being a GM Evolved from the role of rules referee and oral storyteller to the expanded role of director, writer, editor, and cinematographer. I learned not to sweat the details but be expertly aware of them. I learned to think about much more than my ideas, my story, and my NPCs; the real consideration is why others should be interested in this thing I created. How does what I want to depict relate to the Player Characters? Why does it matter to them?
Essentially, I Evolved from a simple, water dwelling fish Dungeon Master to a mammalian bipedal, thinking Gamemaster. Like any Evolution, it took time.
Do we all go through this same journey? I like to think we all go through a journey of some kind, though we surely don't take the same path or arrive at the same place. It is possible some of us don't take this magic trip. Not all creatures have evolved. Some are extinct, having failed to improve or adapt and dying out long ago.
I like to think I am still Evolving, continuously trying to acclimate to the ever-changing face of the RPG hobby. Like most of us, I will always have my old favorites, but I will also persist in exploring new avenues of what makes a tabletop Role-Playing Game what it is and what it can be.
Good luck on your own Evolution.
AD
Barking Alien
Love?
Really? What's Love got to do with it?
I mean, sure, Love is all you need. I'd obviously stop in the name of Love. Really, I'd do anything for love, but a post about it for the RPGaDay event? I won't do that.
Fine. I'll try...
Let's say you started an adventure in, how about, a Love Shack. Soon enough, you might as well face it, your PCs are addicted to Love. Now Love is a battlefield! Next thing you know, you're trying to fill the world with silly Love songs!
In truth, I would probably focus on a Higher Love. An endless Love. I want a whole lotta Love. I shouldn't have to justify my Love and I don't want to Love in vain.
After all, I'm descended from the Love generation.
Well that's all I have. I'm all out of Love.
Oh yeah, one more thing.
I love RPGs.
AD
Barking Aliens
Suspense is defined as 'a state or feeling of excited uncertainty'.
In storytelling it is a time of anxious anticipation usually followed by a dramatic moment. Rarely is the Suspense unwarranted. One does not purposely build up nervous tension only to reveal nothings of significance.
You can of course, though it is anti-climactic. Unless you make a sudden reveal once everyone is lulled into a false sense of security. Ooh-hoo! Aren't you clever. And here we all were thinking everything was going to be fine after all, when suddenly - Whoah! You got us that time.
Suspense is very closely related to Surprise and I have that one waiting in the wings for the 23rd of September. I don't have a lot to say about this prompt as nothing comes to mind specifically. Something should, as I use suspense quite often and fairly well if I do say so myself, but for some reason I just don't feel inspired to randomly discuss it.
You are reading this entry well after the date it was supposed to be posted. This prompt, #27 - SUSPENSE, is part of the reason I couldn't finish the challenge this year. I would come to it and draw a blank, just as I am now, and then go on to write the next one but feel obligated to complete #27 before posting #28 and onward.
I eventually got over it but I still feel stuck on this one. No idea why.
The Suspense is killing me.
AD
Barking Alien
