Casting Shadows

Week 5: Share Prompt: Share whose gaming excellence you are grateful for

There are many, many ways to answer this prompt for #RPGaDay2018. While all the answers will be people, the nature of those people can vary substantially. Designers, mentors, peers, friends, strangers, groups, individuals, people from the past, or people from the present…. so many ways to see this question present themselves.

So….?

Normally for this class of question in this event I end up talking about the genius of Wiggy and Jeff Combos, or the lost genius of my friend Tom. However, I am hoping that you will go back over old responses to hear about my usual targets of praise as for this year’s response I want to focus on the people ‘around me’ as that better suits the vibe of this iteration of #RPGaDay and this week of ‘sharing’.

This year, I am going to go for a group of people that I have enjoyed interacting with for the past few years through a private Facebook group we laughingly call the RPG Techniques Consortium. It is a small autonomous collective given administrative guidance from an aquatic sword distribution center. Well, to be fair, only a part of that description is correct. I leave it to you to figure out which part.

With open-mindedness and good intentions, this group explores tricky and theoretical aspects of RPGs, shares reading and play reports, challenges preconceptions, and serves as a sounding board for ideas. As a result, it is small and participants tend to get to know each other quite well, the Internet notwithstanding.

Those who read this blog and follow my channel may already be familiar with a few of the more active members, Ivan Podgwaite, Brian Gregory, the CGA, Louis Counter, Murderbunny, and Scott Rhymer – the Black Campbell. In the group, I like to say that these folks are good eggs. There are more who participate, of course, and many more good eggs, but it is with these folks that I communicate most often.

And…?

I am grateful for my interactions with these people because it is with them that I discover most of the challenging ideas and technical RPG questions which I find to be so satisfying to consider. A gamer like me cannot live on gaming alone – I need to tear into the very fabric of the games, too.

TOMORROW

We continue Week 5 of #RPGaDay and in the land of “Share.” In this final week of the event, we will be asked to share the games of others that we appreciate, share stories of those who have influenced us, and so on. This final week is all about who we are.

YOUTUBE

As has been my habit since the second year of #RPGaDay, I am also keeping pace with the prompts on video. The content of the videos and the blog overlaps, but is not exactly the same, and where the greater emphasis on detail resides varies from day to day.

#RPGADAY 2018

This is the fifth week of the fifth iteration of the monthly roleplaying gaming celebration launched by Autocratik for all forms of social media. Share your responses however you prefer to share. If you want to get involved, grab and share the infographic with the prompts and jump right in!