Fistful of Wits is a blog dedicated to stories, games, and story games.  We talk about books, movies, video games and role-playing games, and share our thoughts on what makes them tick and what makes them good.  We also sometimes post our own fiction.

The blog was started by these three people:

Mattias “Gentleman Gustaf” Lehman

Mattias grew up with language as his life, seeing reading and writing as methods of describing and creating truths. As a child, he was fascinated with Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, prompting him to learn Latin at an early age, to delve into the world of science-fiction and fantasy, and to try his hand at language construction. His involvement with gaming is relatively recent; he started roleplaying and playing Warhammer 40k late in high school, and at the advent of Starcraft 2, started gaming casually competitively. While he has since been involved with theory-crafting and semi-competitive play in both games (not at the same time), his main interest has always been game design. His game design style prioritizes accessibility and narrative.

Jason “Zeeblee” Leonard

The Jason formerly known as Zeeblee (or is it the other way around?) grew up watching movies, obtained his first console (a Sega Game Gear) early in his elementary school career, and played his first role-playing game (Shadowrun 3E) when he entered high school.  In time he grew to become a strong critic of narrative structure and game design.  This habit was only made worse upon obtaining his degree in Cognitive Psychology from Reed College, where he learned to review decision-making processes, reward structures, and learning mechanisms.

Henry “henrythewhite” White

Henry is a storyteller.  He’s been listening to stories for as long as he can remember, and making stories with his older brothers since he was four or five.  He first played AD&D at the age of seven, and that started his love-affair with role-playing games.  He’s been playing them and running them ever since.  These days, he’s getting an MFA at Simmons College in Writing for Children (which also covers middle grade and young adult work, but they don’t say that on the label).