[LINK] "In D & D we trust"

[rfmcdonald]

3 Quarks Daily linked to a Los Angeles Times article by one Ed Park that mentions James Maliszewski. Maliszewski, a Torontonian gamer who's a former denizen of Livejournal, Grognardia, has a blog that has gained some repute.

Though it's nominally about "the history and traditions of the hobby of role-playing" -- Dungeons & Dragons and its ilk -- it's also an invigorating meditation on aesthetics. Maliszewski is an adherent of the "old school" movement, which favors flexible, elegant gaming systems (the original D&D, circa 1974, a.k.a. OD&D, published in "little brown books") to those that pile on so many supplementary rules and tables that they begin to feel restrictive rather than prescriptive.

How many rules -- how many words -- do you need to create a world?

The same question could be asked of literature. Indeed, a session of a role-playing game, or RPG, with its emphasis on character and absence of winning or losing, often resembles a story, collaboratively generated by the players. Reading Maliszewski's lucid writing -- on vintage RPGs, unearthed Gygaxia, the literary DNA of D&D, and contemporary system-philosophy brouhahas -- is both a kick of nerdy nostalgia and a satisfying take on what it all means, even if you're someone (like me) who hasn't rolled a 12-sided die in ages.

Grognardia's an interesting read, while Park goes on to cite some recent examples of roleplaying games in popular fiction. Go, read them.