One of the distinct differences I’ve noticed between gamers who started gaming after D&D became really popular (c. 1983 or 1984) is that they aren’t as curious as those who started before that, in my experience.  Particularly those who started gaming before D&D actually appeared, playing board wargames and/or historical miniatures.  I got my start… Continue reading Raised by wild wargamers

While technology will certainly progress in the centuries to come, it will also remain a fact that one of the surest ways to injure or kill an adversary will be to subject him to a large dose of kinetic energy, and a simple easy way to administer that energy is by bullet impacts…Some weapons, such… Continue reading Traveller Tuesday: 1977 Edition Combat

No pictures this time; I wasn’t able to go for the whole thing, due to other commitments.  However, I did have the chance to run my Classic Traveller intro adventure, “Losing Air,” for a couple of gamers at Madison Games Day 3.  “Losing Air” I wrote as an opportunity to introduce various aspects of the… Continue reading Madison Games Day 3

TARGA Announces International Traditional Gaming Week 2010 TARGA is pleased to announce that the International Traditional Gaming Week 2010 will occur on the week of March 21st through March 27th. The week will be kicked off by the fantastic games happening at GaryCon 2 in Lake Geneva and will conclude with a series of games… Continue reading TARGA Announces ITGW 2010 and GaryCon Auction!

Classic Traveller is iconic.  It was the first really successful science fiction role-playing game, preceded by Metamorphosis: Alpha and Space Quest and a number of other largely forgotten games.  What made Traveller different was that there was actually a minimum of background provided in the rules – most of the other games has assumed a… Continue reading Traveller Tuesday: 1977 Edition Characters

So – as some of you know – about a week ago, I celebrated another turn of our planet around its primary as measured by my date of birth.  I had a grand time – went dancing with the Celtic Dance Society at ISU, out for cake and coffee and soy chai lattes afterwards, and… Continue reading Birthday Stuff

I haven’t been posting as much, partly because I’ve been engaging in bad behavior for a good cause.  As some of your know, I spent about 12 years as a community organizer before realizing that I missed school.  So after getting my doctorate, what did I do?  I went back to community organizing – with… Continue reading That’s me, Mr. Organizer

On the OD&D Forum someone once asked, “What should be on a character sheet?” to which I replied, “Lines to write on :)” Seriously, the only thing that has grown more in size over time than the typical RPG character sheet is the software used to create it.  I used to think that extensive multi-page… Continue reading In praise of the 3×5 card

I got together with some friends of mine – both of them experienced gamers – as they wanted to talk to me about possibly playing in my new campaign.  We had gotten to a discussion of different styles of play, and what people want to do in a game and what makes a game good. … Continue reading What Players Want

Madison Games Day 2 was a success for TARGA events. Some logistics to churn: The total turn-out for this one-day free game-a-thon was somewhere around 40-50 people, with no pre-registration and a request from the event organizers asking for referees to submit events. Event listings were just one-line announcements (see blog), so it was a… Continue reading Madison Games Day 2