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Prompt: Stack

I find myself without inspiration- this prompt fails to arouse any sort of muse in me, even after a day of contemplation. The closest I come to a coherent thought is the stacks fo tokens in one of my first forays into RPGs. I loved the little games that came in the zip lock bags and plastic boxes. Car Wars, Ogre, and many others. But my first one was Starfire. It was what would be termed a 4X game today, filled with cardboard sheets of counters that you moved on a galactic map. My favorite parts of the 4X formula are the Explore and Expand phases. Yes, the Exploit and Exterminate are enjoyable, but building is more fun than destroying to me, and in those types of games, I go on long after I've won, expanding a building as much as I can. This game was no different, but I wanted something more than the game gave me, especially since I was playing alone. I started then, with the stacks of cardboard chits and the paper board expanding the game to the imaginary worlds and what happened when the dice were rolled. Who were those nameless troops dying on the planets, and what happened during the battles. I suppose that was my first foray into RPGs, and my first foray into hacking games.

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Prompt: Want

What does your character want? It's a question that many times is left out, even when an in depth background is created, and even when we give objectives for our characters- sometimes we forget that root question that lies beyond the objective. I'm currently playing four characters in four different campaigns – Kenetsu Phar, 4th level brawler, 1st level rogue in a Pathfinder campaign, Nelson Crowe, 3rd Level Scholar in a Silent Legions campaign, Grayson Kitsch, God of Asymmetrical Warfare and Son of Ares in a Lords of Olympus Campaign, and Valentinian Decimus Merula, former Actor, now Exalt of Pasiap in a Lords of Gossamer and Shadow/Exalted game. Thinking about this question, I realized that I don't know what any of them really want. I have objectives- Crowe wants to master the cursed sword he is the caretaker of, Valentinian wants to secure the world that he is responsible for from outside influence and harm. But those are just goals. For all of the care that I put into each of their backgrounds, I've never looked deeper than that to see what they want at a basic level, and I think that's one of the reasons that I sometimes lose the 'voice' of the character- because I don't truly 'know' them, nor what truly drives them. It's a sobering thought.

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Prompt: Light

Many people look at role-playing games as just a form of entertainment, and dismiss it as a waste of time. I know that they are more than that to me. They enable a dream of becoming known in the industry for my writing. Aspirations of releasing my own work. Practice for honing skills that I use on my job. To interact with a community that is of a like mind and I can talk about subjects that others might think are strange. And they're entertainment. Entertainment that in many cases is my outlet for stress and release of frustrations- to make the problems that I carry easier to bear. Not a waste of time, but something integral to my psyche and mental health. The patience and understanding that I give of things that go wrong in everyday life is made possible by this small measure of escape.

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Prompt: Shade

In our Rolemaster campaign, we played through Moria, down into the depths of the Misty Mountains. We were a somewhat largish party- a ranger, two magicians, a sorceror, two warrior monks, a rogue, and my barbarian archer. Down into Khazad-dûm we travelled, a raggedy company if there ever was one. It was a rather monotonous trek through the dark and lonely tunnels- we heard hints of noise at times, but never encountered anything other than long dead corpses, and dust covered remnants of the dwarves that once lived there. At times, we caught signs that someone might have been here more recently- ashes burnt out but not old, scraps that were putrid but too fresh, darkened stains that were the signs of blood from battles more recent than the halls were supposed to have seen. Further down into the tunnels we went, arriving at what seemed to be former living spaces. The ranger held up a hand to be silent as he crouched, looking at some sign that only he picked up. He motioned for us to go ahead, silently, as he listened, moving slower, bidding us to close the shutters on the lamps, reducing the light we bled into the darkness. This made the space creepier, but as we moved forward, we finally heard what made him give the order- the sounds of beings speaking. “Orcs,” he said simply as he unlimbered his bow. We all readied our own weapons as we followed his lead- and were set upon from behind. Other orcs had been tracking our presence, and we'd not sensed them. One of the mages took an arrow to the arm even as other arrows whizzed by like angry insects. Light flared, burning our eyes- but less so than our attackers, illuminating the orcs that crouched in a side corridor. We would have made to close the distance, if that same light hadn't also revealed the orcs in front of us, hands over their eyes- the light had interrupted their charge. After a bloody battle, we stopped to lick our wounds. In addition to the arrow taken by the mage, the rogue had taken a hard hit in the side, breaking ribs, and I'd taken a nasty hit to the head that had left my brain a bit addled. We should have kept moving. But the day had been long, and the battle fierce, so we just made our way to the closest room that we could find away from the bodies.

So tired we were, that we didn't even notice the shadow slipping away from the wall. The wraith hit the mage that was not hurt, chilling him, and the crit unfortunately silenced him. Despite that, my character noticed something strange moving beside the mage, and that something was off, moving to see what it was. The wraith attacked the mage again, killing him before he had a chance to come out of stun, but I was able to see the beast. I drew and shot, but hit only the wall. Moving to where the wraith was, there was no sign that anything was there- other than the dead mage. Someone else screamed out, hit by the undead shade, but after that hit, it retreated into darkness. We tried to fight it, but the GM used the shadows cast by our bare light and the darkness all around to great advantage. It was one of the first times that I'd seen someone use light and shadow so effectively to make us powerless, and instill fear- beyond that what the table was expecting. We did survive, but took horrendous damage, that would set the tone of the entire delve into the mines. In the end, we lost 3 out of the eight members of the party, and didn't even make it through Moria to the other side of the mountains that we were trying to reach.

It was a very good example of playing to an adversary's advantages to make them scarier than just numbers on a piece of paper, and was an encounter that we've never forgotten.

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Prompt: Couple

I know that many people game with their significant others, but I've only played World of Warcraft with one girlfriend- never #RPGs. I currently play #BoardGames with the family, but never have played just with my wife. When I did play WoW with my girlfriend, it was nice and also I could see myself falling into a malaise where our life was completely consumed with it when we weren't at work. I've seen some other friends experience the same as the hobby bled the sides of their lives together into one indistinguishable whole. I suppose that, and the fact that most of my significant others have been pretty dissimilar in interests has made me not want it.

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Prompt: Forest

This one surprised me, and I'm struggling with it. Though we have had to walk through forests at some point in almost every campaign, they have never been the focus of any adventures. I'm not sure why. We've had adventures in jungles, deserts, mountains, and just about every other biome. But the forests are neglected. The only time I can remember them playing a part was in media res, when the party was being chased through the forest by another party. That was an epic scene, but nothing other than that. I'll have to rectify that with this brought to my attention!

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Prompt: Tribute

This prompt took a bit more thought, but quickly I came to the luminaries that preceeded us in the gaming industry, that blazed the way for the games that we enjoy. Greg Stafford was the first that came to mind- though I started with AD&D and Rolemaster, RuneQuest and BRP were large parts of the experience, especially as they were the systems used in Call of Cthulhu, which became the basis of most of the experience, leading to Gumshoe today. But tributes can also be made to those that shape my present day gaming: Vincent Baker, Fred Hicks, Robin Laws, Kenneth Hite, Greg Stolze- those and many more shaped my preferences and gaming style, and continue to do so today.

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Prompt: Vision

Another prompt that spawns multiple thoughts about what I want to answer. On a personal front, my vision for my place in the hobby is as a writer and designer. Not for profit or really anything other than as a side gig- I know too many really good people that struggle to do that, and I don't want the hobby to be intertwined with the need for financial gain. I've made strides towards that, releasing a few things on my own, and taking on minor gigs in the industry. I want that to continue and grow to be more.

On a grander scale, I'd like the hobby to lose the stigma that it has, and be more visible to those that might benefit from it as an outlet. There have been strides made towards this, but the “you play that game?” look is still prevalent, and it is definitely still misunderstood.

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Prompt: Thread

Since I moved several years ago, I have only been able to get one campaign going with people from work, and though that went for a while, and through four campaigns, it eventually petered out. I haven't been as driven to find a new campaign- I'm just not that good at even reaching out to try anymore. So my gaming currently consists mostly of play by email games. I find it a very good gaming and writing exercise, and since the play is asynchronous, you can play whenever you have time. Though I love playing with pretty much anyone in that fashion, I find that the best threads that I have in games are with writers that are better than me. It seems to push my boundaries and make me a better writer. It makes the game a bit more challenging and makes me put in more effort, but I've found it a rewarding exercise, that has paid off in making me confident enough to actually try to make a living from my writing. I've also made contacts in the industry that I otherwise would not have done.

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Prompt: Change

Change is a loaded word, as it means so many things. There's change going on in the world right now because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Calls for change spurred by police brutality, especially towards Black people, and specifically Black men. Calls for change in our government, from the top down. Calls for change by women in how the world at large treats them, especially men in charge- and a call to be equally represented at that level so that their voices are heard and respected. But what does it mean for tabletop games?

Steven Barnes once said that he had to sacrifice his melanin on the altar of his testosterone. That put a phrase to something that I'd felt my whole life. It's hard being a Black man in Fantasy and Science Fiction fandom. On the one side, your peers see it as a strange pursuit, and one that White people partake in. You also see few people in the hobby that look like you, or that can be mentors if you want to get into the industry. That is changing. And not just in my story- women, other people of color, all sexual orientations and gender identifications- diversity has taken the hobby by storm. And I think this is a good thing! My inner child smiles to see that other children won't have to make the gymnastic efforts to reconcile the cognitive dissonance of a hobby that doesn't recognize them or even want them in it. I can say that I'm proud of the vast majority of the community that has embraced these changes and realized the revitalization that comes from it.