Tag Archives: fantasy

Vampires, billionaires, & entrenched power, 9/10/26

Posted on by Henry

Vampires and billionaires were a thing in the 2010s, objects of fascination and fantasy. This was exemplified by the Twilight and 50 Shades books and movies. Those stories were part of a return to a fascination that we’ve had before, and part of a larger pattern of fetishizing terrifying concentrations of (abusive) power. As has been true previously, the themes that reached the larger zeitgeist were fantasies about some powerful and implicitly dangerous hunk who would obsess over us, sweep us off our feet, and (romantically) ravish us while also offering us impossible financial security. We might also have the personal validation of being able to “fix” the bad boy / billionaire / vampire or make him feel true love for us (they’re kind of the same thing, and they’re evidence that, first, we were right that he wasn’t totally unredeemable, and second, that we were special somehow because he changed for us). The overtones of contagion (and the fear of disease) from earlier vampire crazes still lingered in the background, but they were downplayed in favor of emphasizing the weird power dynamics between a mortal and a mostly-immortal lover.

I don’t think it’s surprising…

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Lyme disease, & humor in Dungeon Crawler Carl

Posted on by Henry

This is a week for arthritic pain, fatigue, and wondering what makes “funny” things funny in Dungeon Crawler Carl (which I wrote about last week).

I’m pretty sure I’ve got Lyme disease. I’m already on doxycycline. I don’t yet have a positive test for Lyme disease, but I’m not waiting for one either.

I have enough circumstantial evidence. I walked through scrub forest and near tall grass in a high risk area—Cape Cod—while on my way to the beach. Two days later Ley noticed I had a weird bruise. About a week after that, stiffness and pain started spreading through my left leg and up my left side. I also got even more sleepy.

Weirdly, some part of me is relieved.

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Class, classes, LitRPGs: implications of game systems 7/16/26

Posted on by Henry

I’ve gotten so behind in tracking what I’ve read in my reading journal, I’m not sure where to begin.

The problem? LitRPG books.

No wait, the problem is that I don’t have the focus to keep up with my usual book logging commitment. I don’t have that focus because baby. And I don’t make time for logging the books I’ve read because… baby. Baby, and everything else that needs to be done.

Another part of the problem is that I can read ebooks on my phone while I’m doing other things, including while I hum and rock my baby to sleep. That works just fine. It works far better, far more easily, than…

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Room to grow: Lootbound (demo)

Posted on by Henry

The Lootbound demo fascinates me. It scratched a series of my itches, handily eating an hour and a half of my Saturday evening and keeping me up past my bedtime. Days after playing it, I find my mind returning to gnaw at its design choices.

It is not, I think, the game for me. But it might be the game for you.

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Teaching storytellers: recipes, ingredients, how to cook

Posted on by Henry

How do you go from “Running a game of D&D sounds fun” to “I have some idea of what to do”?

You could do what I did: play enough RPGs at an early enough age that you don’t remember  feeling daunted by or awkward about the transition from playing to running games. I figured running games was just what you were supposed to do. I paid attention to how my siblings ran games, and I tried to replicate that.

That obviously won’t work for most people. They could try the adult version, playing lots of games run by other people until they have some idea of what to do themselves, but what if they don’t have a good play group? What if they want more tools?

What other entry points can we (the RPG community) offer? What resources and pitfalls should we and new storytellers be aware of?

When I think about resources and pitfalls here, I think of ingredients and recipes. Roleplaying game materials are strong on ingredients; RPG books often include lots of “what” and “who” and even “where” to use in your stories. But these materials are often weak on recipes, and they certainly don’t teach you how to cook; they don’t offer much “why” or even “how”.

Without understanding the “why” and “how,” what is a would-be storyteller to do? How can we help new storytellers learn the why’s and how’s of the art of storytelling?

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Collaborative worldbuilding #3, theme tags

Posted on by Henry

I mentioned ‘theme tags’ in Collab World Building pt2, but didn’t explain at all. They’re a simple concept tied to a character, place, or idea: e.g. noble or nobility, priesthood, gods, thieves, crime, trade, The Thousand Year Empress, ancient relics, treasure, corruption, etc. Each tag reminds me to connect or reference thematically linked elements. I find that tracking these tags works well in conjunction with the style of sandbox game prep that Kevin Crawford proselytizes in his RPGs.

Through the collaborative world building and character creation process of my Worlds Without Number game, I’ve collected a set of tags for each PC. I’ve also kept adding tags to the PCs any time they specify interest in a particular topic, or as their players articulate the PCs’ goals. This helps me in my setup for following sessions.

For example, one player has stated that their PC is interested in ‘humbling jerks.’ Now ‘jerks’ is a tag in my repertoire. But what does that mean? How do I use it? And how does it work with Kevin Crawford’s sandbox game tools?

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Eat your candy! Finding the fun in your games

Posted on by Henry

Eat your candy. ASAP.

I don’t mean your literal candy.

Heck, I don’t eat much candy. When I do eat candy, I eat it in small amounts. Even ice cream, which I love, I eat sparingly.

But when it comes to RPGs I think everyone should eat their (figurative) candy right away, even if that means sharing your character’s “secrets.”

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Collaborative worldbuilding for a new game, 2/26/26

Posted on by Henry

I started a new game this week.

Our prior GM is a freshly minted parent. He’s currently in the land of absolute sleep deprivation. Having been there not too long ago myself, I’ve offered to take over with a new game (at least for some of the time).

I’m taking the opportunity to experiment with new ways to build connections between PCs and the setting. I’ve written about at least one of those ideas before. I’m taking things a step further by starting the group even earlier in the world creation process.

We began with a collaborative setting creation session. We’ll be playing Worlds Without Number from Kevin Crawford, and I want to use WWN’s general setting concept… but I want the players to have a hand in how our particular slice of the world feels. I want them to influence what direction our Latter Earth takes.

Alongside that…

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2/3rds through Cold Fire, by Tamora Pierce

Posted on by Henry

I’ve gotten stuck.

I loved Tamora Pierce’s Circle of Magic series, her first quartet about Sandry, Briar, Daja, and Tris. I was eager to read the next quartet. For the most part, I still am.

I breezed through the first two books in this quartet. Sandry’s book (Magic Steps) and Briar’s book (Street Magic) both went by so quickly that I nearly inhaled them. Daja’s book, Cold Fire, has really slowed me down.

I try to find times in the day when I can sneak in a little bit of reading. Often enough this ends up being at night while I’m lying in bed. I’ll read a chapter, then set the book down. Except with Cold Fire reading a chapter leaves me feeling sick to my stomach. Stopping there doesn’t help.

I’ve discovered the hard way that I find it difficult to read a story about arson, especially when lives are lost.

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Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End (Netflix 2025)

Posted on by Henry

I’ve finished Netflix’s season 1 (28 episodes) of Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End. I finished it a while ago, actually, but for baby-related reasons I haven’t had the brains to finish this post. Better late than never, right?

Melancholy, meditative, meandering… Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End has won a spot in my heart. It is a fantasy adventure that cares more about the everyday personhood of its heroes than about epic plots or dramatic achievements. It made me cry, and laugh, and I love how it manages to be bittersweet and yet feel like one of the most forward-looking and optimistic shows I’ve watched in a while. 

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