[UPDATE 1/6/21: I no longer support spending money on products that benefit Zak S, or giving him positive attention and connection. The short version is that I find credible claims that he has engaged in unacceptable behavior and not made up for it. For more detail, see here for the core of the accusations. To get Zak's side of things, he maintains this separate blog from his main one to post updates on the legal status of these complaints.
Please consider these claims and make your own decision on their validity, and the implications thereof, before either supporting or shunning Zak.]
So, again with the absence of blogging thing. You know, apologies, et cetera. Reading through awesome OSR/DIY D&D blogs has made me realize something important, though: my “fictionalized” accounts of each session were ass. Though in my heart of hearts I may have dreams of writing fiction, this here gaming blog is not the place for it. More than my questionable literary style, in recounting a bunch of in-fiction actions, I’m leaving out the best stuff. What’s fun and interesting about D&D (and especially what is fun and interesting about reading about other people playing D&D) is the interactions at the table, the problem solving, the jokes, et cetera. “The fiction” as a coherent thing only really matters to the participants, I think, other than as the context for and product of the interesting stuff.
The other big thing I realized is that I’ve been holding off on using this blog for hammering out some of the more nitty gritty stuff for Fellhold for fear of my players seeing it and spoiling the surprise. I’ve decided that this isn’t useful or super necessary. Any game content that might spoil stuff for the players will just get a big fat SPOILERS warning of some kind at the top, and that will be that. If my players read it, they’re adults, they can still have a good time anyhow. Especially since most of what I’ll be hashing out here will be systems and tables rather than plot points or secrets or what have you.
Finally, after reading this post by Mr. Rients, and this post by Zak S., I’ve decided that my campaign needs to be more awesome. I’ll admit it, I’ve succumbed to the artsy fartsy urges that Mr. Rients talks about and limited my setting (no elves or halflings, for instance). I need to continually remind myself that whatever cool aesthetic vision I may have for the world and adventures in it, primarily it is the setting for a game, the players’ characters are the focus of that game, and what makes this more fun than writing up a tedious fantasy novel is the surprises I get from interacting with other human beings. So, I’m going to relax my iron self-imposed “genre restraints” in the face of things that are totally flippin’ sweet.
Oh, I lied. Finally finally, I’m going to strive for more posts with more gaming content (monster interpretations, stats, whatever).
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