The Blog of Roon

This week’s Game WISH asks what’s changed in my gaming life over the years, what I miss and what I wouldn’t change.

Like a lot of no-longer-teenaged gamers, I miss having time to game. Not so much personal time as collective time; I have plenty of time if I need it, but getting a group of gamers together is a logistical nightmare these days.

Oh, you meant game mechanics or house rules? Er, I’m an agnostic on those, mostly. In any case, I find that these days there are so many innovative ideas with regard to mechanics that almost any gaming style can find a game to match.

I do recall a house rule I’d like to see again, though. One of our college GMs handed out little glass pebbles whenever a player did something particularly clever or memorable. These could be traded in for rerolls at especially high-stakes moments. This little mechanic rewarded good roleplaying (all the more important because the game was D&D) and gave players a chance to protect well-loved characters. I liked it.

Another worthwhile tradition from the same group was part of what we called “BSing for XP.” (Er. That sounds like a Microsoft public-relations ploy these days. Ah, well.) At the end of each session, a small experience-point award went to the player whom all players agreed deserved it that week. No agreement, no award. This sent everyone home feeling good about the game.

I suppose I miss the clarity, the psychological simplicity, of my early gaming a little bit. It was nice not to know how subversive Fechan was. On the other hand, it’s nice to have the mental equipment to be aware of what I’m doing, too.

What do I not miss? Well, the overt and covert sexism that blanketed my early games, certainly. There’s also quite a lot to be said (and I’ve said some of it already) about playing with intelligent, creative adults rather than teenagers. (With the usual caveat about age and wisdom correlating far from perfectly.)

I don’t miss the gamer-as-Satanist-freak meme. It’s still around, but I don’t run into it much, and that’s just fine by me.

Openended question, this one. I suspect the answers will vary widely. Well, I hope mine are vaguely enlightening. Or something.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 7th, 2002 at 8:45 am and is filed under Gaming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.