I’m writing what I want to write today. Screw schedules and plans. Screw what I think anyone needs or wants. This one’s for me. You can probably skip it. I doubt it’ll be useful to you. I don’t even know if it’ll be useful to me.
Let me explain…
Wait… let me disclaimer…
This is what I call a Random Bullshit Feature. I don’t do them often — I have a rule — despite some people telling me they’re some of the most helpful things I write. Personally, I think they’re crap. They’re barely more than diary entries. They’re blogging in its oldest, purest, most self-indulgent, least useful form. I use them to work out whatever is on my mind — to do with pretend elf games, of course — stream-of-consciousness-style and you get to read the inane babble that pours forth from my damaged brain. I don’t promise there will be any useful advice, any structure, or even any kind of conclusion. All I promise is a pile of words.
See why I’ve got a rule about not doing this shit very often? See, also, why I suggest you skip it? Especially today.
While I’m disclaimering, I’ve got to acknowledge that I’m still in extreme catch-up mode. You probably guessed that from my bunching up my March releases like this. I’m sorry, but also, I warned you it might take me a few weeks to get aligned with the grand plans I started the month publishing. What can you do? Stuff got snarled up and I tried to do too many different things all at once. Consequently, I’ve had to shift my content schedule. Heavier, harder stuff has been pushed to April while I take care of other things. Despite appearances, I am bringing things together. I may have missed the moon, and I probably won’t even hit the stars for a while, but I’ve managed some sort of stable, high orbit. That’s pretty good.
Now that I’ve disclaimered, let me explain…
Prelude to the The Feature That Never Was
I’d initially planned to put this Feature out in the last week of December. Then I pushed it into early January. At the time, I called it My Life as a Half-Elf. I have no idea what the hell I’m going to call it now. I’m hoping a title will suggest itself by the time I’m ready to publish it. We’ll see.
See, I’d gotten into the tradition of doing a kind of New Year’s reflection in late December or early January. I’d look at where I was as a Game Master and a content creator and consider where I wanted to be and then figure out what to do about that in the coming year. Two years ago, it led to that whole True Game Mastery series thing — which remains one of my most popular and highly praised things ever — and also to the announcement that I was going to publish a crappy D&D knockoff engine — code-named The Slapdash Engine.
Things went south after that and you all know this part of the story so I’m skipping it.
Obviously, I wasn’t feeling up to the whole reflection thing to start off 2024, so I didn’t do it. Neither did I do it this year, though I really should have.
In My Life as a Half-Elf, I was going to talk about how I’d lost the plot and then figure out what the hell I wanted to actually do with Angry Games. It’d culminate in me writing a new mission statement and setting myself back on course.
I so should have done that.
A month ago, I thought again about writing My Life as a Half-Elf — I swear you’ll know by the end of all this crap why I was calling it that — a month ago, I considered writing My Life as a Half-Elf again. Instead of setting a new course and writing a new mission statement, I instead intended to use it to sort of introduce myself and my approach to the sudden influx of new readers my metrics were telling me had appeared. I wanted people to know what to expect from me and why I was different from every other roleplaying gaming content creator out there. You know, apart from the fact that I mostly blog and haven’t gotten around to any actual content creation in a long time that is.
Sorry. Just get used to that. There’s going to be a lot of self-recrimination today. You see, the reason I suddenly didn’t want to write My Life as a Half-Elf was that I knew, deep down, that once I started writing it, I was going to talk myself into despair.
See, I’m becoming increasingly convinced by several external, outside factors that I have completely lost touch with roleplaying gaming in general and my audience in particular. Worse yet, I was realizing that I’d had a chance to do something great a couple of years ago and now that window had probably closed and it would never, ever open again and now I was a useless old relic with nothing left to offer anyone.
Yeah, yeah… skip the cheerleadering and don’t bother commenting. I don’t need to hear it and if I really did need to hear it, I’d also be incapable of listening to it.
The problem with depression — real, actual, medical depression — the problem with depression — well, one of the many problems with depression — is that you never know whether it’s you talking or the depression talking. What I said above? Probably the depression talking. Bolstered by my own biases and heuristics, of course. You can’t ever count them out. The unfortunate side-effect of learning too damned much about psychology and neurophysiology thinking they’ll help you make and run better adventures and games is that you learn how much your brain is fucking with you. Even healthy, well-adjusted brains lie and cut corners and make mistakes. You have to treat your own brain with a healthy dose of skepticism. Of course, if you take that too far, you can make yourself neurotic and, if you’re already neurotic…
Anyway…
I know I’m making a difference to people like you. Hell, I got an e-mail this morning in response to something I did in the last few days that was a very kind and heartfelt thanks for not just helping someone run better games, but also to be a better person.
By the way, in case any of you dumbasses haven’t figured out the lie yet, of course I do life advice. I know exactly what I’m doing. I’m not stupid. Yesterday — or whenever the last Ask Angry actually got published — I took a giant-ass risk that the reader who wrote to me could handle some really heavy abuse so that I could deliver a very important message about how important empathy, charity, and active listening are in resolving conflicts. You probably noticed that, gradually, through the article I shifted from abusing the reader to abusing myself, thereby making myself the monster abusing an innocent person who just wanted my help to drive the message home. To make it stick. I made myself the monster I was accusing him of being and stopped just short of yelling it out so you could all make the connection for yourselves. You don’t accidentally do that kind of crap.
I give life advice. But I do have rules about that.
First, I only give life advice when it’s also good gaming advice. I’m not a life coach, I’m a Game Master.
Second, I only give life advice to help people avoid making a mistake I’ve made or to keep someone from having to learn something the same hard, ugly way I had to learn it.
Third, I only give life advice if I can back it up with some good, reliable, reputable evidence from a published source from someone qualified to give life advice.
Anyway…
I know my voice matters. I know I’ve made a difference in people’s games and people’s lives. I know my readership numbers, I know my crowdfunding support levels, and I keep a giant-ass pile of e-mails and private messages that run the gamut from, “Thanks to you, I ran my first game and it wasn’t a total disaster,” all the way through to, “I know you don’t give life advice, but you changed my life anyway, so thank you.” Intellectually, I know I’m doing some good for someone. That should be enough. It usually is enough.
But…
I feel like there’s been this shift in the roleplaying gaming industry and community in the past five years. I feel like everything is drifting away from what I want from gaming. And I worry that maybe I’m alone. That everyone’s moving on to something else except for me.
This is where that whole half-elf thing comes in. I feel like I’m stuck between two increasingly disparate roleplaying gaming worlds and that I don’t belong in either one and, while I have a sneaking suspicion there are actually a lot of half-elves out here, I’m desperately frightened that maybe I’m alone and I’m deluding myself.
Given my furious work on The Slapdash Engine and my serious need to rewrite my Mission Statement and get my content creation back on track, I’d really like to know whether there’s a giant community the roleplaying gaming industry as a whole — big publisher and indie alike — has stopped serving or whether it’s just me and I need to either evolve or die.
Key Change, Mofo?
Let me tell you about one of the best roleplaying gaming sessions I ever ran. Let me tell you about That Arena Adventure. That’s what we still call it. Even though it was twenty years ago and I no longer run a table for the players in question, someone still brings it up occasionally when we’re catching up and reminiscing about old games. “Hey,” someone will say, “Remember that arena adventure you ran?”
A lot of the picayune details of that arena adventure are kinda fuzzy, but let me run you through the big picture stuff. In this especially magical world with a sort of magic-as-technology setup — I think I might have actually done this in Eberron now that I look back on it — a group of enterprising, high-level wizards set up the world’s greatest gladiatorial arena. They wanted the greatest warriors and spellslingers — and even the occasional fantastical monster — to fight the most spectacular battles viewable anywhere to the delight of a paying — and gambling — audience.
This wasn’t a bloodsport thing or a place to throw criminals or people who followed the wrong religion. It was voluntary. It was supposed to attract the best of the best. So, while the fights had to be real, and spectacular, they also had to be safe. Reasonably safe. Like any professional sport, accidents happen. But they weren’t making the Thunderdome. They were building the Fantasy MMA. Likewise, to make money off the venture, the wizards had to keep the audience safe. No wayward lightning bolts arcing into the crowd, no dragons getting loose and eating paying — and gambling — customers, none of that shit. Also, the fighters had to be matched carefully against each other based on rankings, certain shit had to be banned, and there could be no cheating or match-fixing or anything. All of this is just good business.
The fighting floor floated free in the middle of the arena and, during fights, it was surrounded by a transparent sphere of force so that nothing got in or out. The sphere of force came from a magical device on a smaller platform floating high above the fighting pit which was also inside the sphere of force. Everyone knows shield generators have to be inside the shields they generate. During the match, three high-level spellcasters — two wizards and a cleric — stood on the floating platform as Overseers to activate the sphere of force and to intervene in the match if anything went wrong. They’d judge the fight and decide when it was over and they’d use spells like hold person to stop an overzealous contestant from trying to get one last blow in.
The whole thing was the fantasy blood sport equivalent of the Titanic. It was the arena where nothing could possibly go wrong.
Naturally, something went wrong, and thus began the adventure.
The player-characters were approached by the widow of a champion who’d accidentally died during a match. Apparently, it had been a freak accident. The dude hesitated or slipped or dropped his guard at the wrong moment, took an unlucky blow, and died from it. Of course, she didn’t believe it really was an accident. Especially given that it was the third such freak accident in as many months. The Overseers were just chalking it up to bad luck — their safety measures hadn’t been compromised — and so they weren’t looking into it. It’s not like there hadn’t been accidents before. Just not three fatal ones in close succession.
What else could the players do but join the lists and investigate from the inside. Given the risk this was an inside job and given the Overseer’s insistence that nothing was wrong, they’d have to work quietly. Because combatants’ privileges and access were dependent on their rankings, at least of few of them would have to fight up the ladder to earn some renown. Finally, they’d all have to make sure none of them became the next accident.
So the players fought their matches and got to know the cast of Mortal Kombat characters in the current season and ran down clues and followed leads and eventually, they put the pieces together.
One of the managers was actually a shape-shifted — and pregnant — succubus. She was working with a cult — yeah, I’m pretty sure this was Ebberon because this is some Blood of Vol shit — to harvest the heart’s blood of the greatest warriors in the world to make sure her little demon spawn would pop out as a super soldier. Of course, the arena was a Darwinian wet dream if you wanted to harvest the hearts of the best of the best in the fantasy Street Fighter circuit. They were covering their crimes by making them look like accidents which also gave them access to the bodies.
As to how she pulled off the crimes, it was like this. When it was time to harvest a champ and his match was about to start, the succubus would retreat to a hidden chamber under the arena and do an ethereal jaunt. She’d leave her body behind in a trance and her spirit would float up and hide right under the arena floor. That would leave her out of the Overseer’s sight — in case one was using true sight to watch for ethereal or invisible security breaches — until the sphere of force was in place. Then she’d quickly slip up through the floor and go right into possessing her chosen victim. Once in control of the champ, she’d wait for a crucial moment and then, just, hold him back or make him hesitate or have him trip onto his opponent’s spear or whatever. If the victim needed a little help dying, she’d also stop his heart or something. Then she’d slip back through the floor and wait for the sphere of force to shut off so she could return to her body.
The players put enough of the pieces together to figure out what was going on. They didn’t figure everything out, but they did know that one of the arena’s managers was retreating to a secret chamber during the matches and there was magical mind control or possession happening. They also knew she was a demon or a devil or whatever. They’d even worked out her murder schedule since she only ever killed the current champion and, for the last three months, there was always an accident on the same night of the month. Everyone knows magical, pregnancy-influencing rituals have strict lunar schedules to keep. Duh.
So, they knew when she’d be in the chamber and likely in a mind-control trance. All they had to do was sneak down there and kill her before she woke up. Easy.
Naturally, when the scheduled matches were published, one of the player-characters was scheduled to fight the champ on the night they knew the accident was going to happen. But that was no big deal. All he had to do was draw out the fight and absolutely not accidentally kill the champ. Meanwhile, the rest of the party could do what had to be done.
Unfortunately, the succubus and her allies had tagged the player-characters as meddlers. They’d gotten careless. She decided that this one time, a second-place combatant would still be good enough for prenatal super soldier serum, especially if it got rid of one of the Scooby Gang that was threatening her plans. So the fight started, the party snuck into position, and then…
The PC in the arena failed a Will save and the succubus got in his head.
Meanwhile, below the arena, the rest of the PCs discovered a small swarm of minor demons guarding the passage to the succubus chamber. They’d have to fight their way through.
As soon as she was in the PC, the succubus knew the whole plan, and she panicked. She had to get out of the sphere of force and back to her body. She left the PC in a daze — with the reigning champ charging at him thinking the fight was on — possessed one of the Overseers and then turned on the others with the intent of bringing down the sphere of force so she could get back to her body before it could be killed.
A very complicated scene happened. The PC in the arena had to repel the champ long enough to convince him things had gone wrong, overhead, a demon-possessed wizard was slaying his business partners, the PC and the champ had to intervene, and down below, the rest of the PCs were trying to fight through a wall of dretches or something to kill the succubus before the match ended.
You see why we still talk about that arena adventure? That’s the kind of gaming experience you never forget. And that is why I do this shit.
For the Love of the Game
I love games. Fucking love them. All games. Every game. Not just roleplaying games but all games ever. I grew up playing Atari and Nintendo and Super Nintendo and still play video games at least a few times a week. Usually more. My family played the old family board games like Monopoly and Risk and even Dungeon!. When I was old enough, my father introduced me to his wargames. Not the minis-on-sand-tables, refereed wargames Gygax used to play, mind you, but the hex-and-chit games Strategic Simulations used to put with little square pieces marked with NATO standard military unit designations and shit like that.
I had my own collection of games, of course, bought with allowance money or the takings from my paper route, or received from Santa or as birthday gifts. Fireball Island, HeroQuest, Screamin’ Eagles. I also bought and rented plenty of cartridges for my video game consoles. Action games and platformers and RPGs and puzzle games. I’d play anything.
The thing is, though, that I didn’t just love playing games. I loved sharing games. Somehow, I’d decided it was my solemn duty to make sure my sisters, cousins, and friends all had games to play, even if I had to invent them, teach them, and Game Master them. I was running games before I’d ever heard of Dungeons & Dragons. There was this one game I’d run for my cousin during family gatherings or when I was left to watch him for a few hours. I’d draw this Shadowgate-like menu setup on our chalkboard easel and then draw a series of first-person puzzle rooms. He’d tell me what he wanted to — “I smash the chest open” — and I’d erase the picture and draw the results and tell him what happened.
Actually, that game didn’t predate my discovering Dungeons & Dragons, but lots of my other games did. In the pool, my sisters my cousins, and I would play this fighting game based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I’d take on the role of a series of boss characters and use floats and pool toys to launch patternized attacks and they’d dodge or deflect them and then look for opportunities to attack. There was this game we played on an old cot where they were riding an out-of-control raft down the rapids while I’d provide thrown pillow-boulders to dodge or use my arms as low-hanging tree branches and occasionally I’d offer powerups. There was a spy game where they’d search for hidden evidence in a dark living room while avoiding a roving security spotlight I provided with a flashlight from my perch atop the stairs.
I grew up in the kids on bikes era. In the summertime, Mom didn’t care what I did as long as I wasn’t home bothering her. I’d leave the house after breakfast and return before the streetlights came on for dinner. In the interim, my friends and I wandered the neighborhood or rode our bikes around, doing whatever. I used to spend hours upon hours planning out these combination scavenger-hunt/LARP games and hiding treasures, clues, and maps in our favorite spots so I could run my friends through a Dragon Warrior quest that weekend.
I don’t want to brag, but as I think back on all that shit, I have to admit I had a pretty good understanding of game design even as a kid. I’d absorbed a lot from my board games and Nintendo carts. I understood the importance of patternized attacks the players could learn to avoid and I knew how to construct solvable puzzles and conceal hidden things so they could actually be found. I couldn’t put any of that shit into words, of course. I was just imitating my favorite gaming experiences so I could share them with my friends. Only better. Because they were mine.
It’s a damned good thing that Mentzer’s Basic Dungeons & Dragons was the version I found at Waldenbooks. If I’d had opened my box to find that Holmes or Moldvay crap, I would have noped the hell out of the hobby right then and there. Because Mentzer got it. His whole Basic Set was a pretty sophisticated — for the time — three-part lesson in building games for your friends.
I was hooked.
I Choose Joy
I’ve been devouring games in every form since I could hold an Atari joystick and understand the rigors of Candyland. My brain’s full of amazing gaming experiences. I remember the weird mix of accomplishment and melancholy that came with beating my first game ever, Mega Man 2, and I remember the roller coaster of victory and dread and victory again fighting Dark Soul’s Bell Gargoyles for the first time. I remember frustratedly picking my way through Shadowgate and Maniac Mansion. I remember feeling like something profoundly important had changed in gaming when day turned to the night for first time in Dragon Warrior III. I remember the triumphant feeling of redemption when Cecil became a paladin. I remember the excitement when I bombed the Maridia tube. I remember portaling the moon, I remember deciphering the Golding Path, and I remember noticing that the Obra Dinn’s hammocks had numbers on them.
Seriously, I could list a thousand moments like those and why each one was significant. What each one meant to me. I won’t though.
Each of those is a moment of joy. And when I say joy, I mean it in its correctest sense. I’m not talking about happiness. Joy is a wonder that such things can be, whatever such things happen to be. You can feel joy and sadness, joy and dread, joy and melancholy, emotions be complex, yo.
As a Game Master, I want to create joy. Joy is my gift to my players. I want them to wonder that such things could be. I love games and I love all the different things that all the different kinds of games can do. Roleplaying games, as a medium, let me create moments of joy and give them as gifts to my players. I can let my players feel how I did in the Glitz Pit when it turned out the arena was being used to siphon the magical power from the world’s greatest fighters while also letting them feel that dread that comes when you realize your plan has gone to shit and now you have to improvise and also that feeling you get when you solve a Sherlock Holmes mystery before the story reveals the ending.
This site is an extension of that. I want to give you the joy of giving your players joy. Whatever moments you carry with you because of your love of movies, video games, board games, books, anime mangas, or whatever, I want to help you pass them on to your players. I want you to hear a player say to you, twenty years from now, “Remember that arena adventure you ran?”
My brain is full of joyful memories. All my experiences with board games and video games and movies and shared fun with friends and roleplaying games and everything. I treasure them the way I treasure all the messages and e-mails people have sent me over the years thanking them for the joy I’ve helped them find. Or create for their players.
The thing is, there are a lot of joyless people in this hobby. I don’t get it, but it’s true. I’ve been doing this content creator thing for seventeen years and, in that time, I’ve had everyone from Twitter randos to celebrities to editors at major game publishing companies tell me I’m doing everything wrong. They’ve told me I’m hurting the community, that my advice is not only bad but dangerous and damaging, and that I shouldn’t be running roleplaying games because I like the wrong games or I run them the wrong way.
Until very recently, all the joy in my heart has shielded me from that crap. I know the truth. I know what I’ve given my players and what I’ve given to my fans, readers, and friends. “I create joy, asshat,” I can say, “So fuck off.”
Adrift in the Great Inland Sea
I’ve commented a lot over the last several years that Dungeons & Dragons seems to be drifting farther from what it once was to me. I ain’t talking about socio-political woke horseshit or the dumbass opinions of any activist mouthbreathers who also happen to work at Wizards of the Coast. I don’t give a single, solitary shit about any of that, really. If you do, good for you. Go care somewhere else. I just want a toolset that empowers me to be a great Game Master. That lets me create joy for my players.
D&D is still fun. It’s still fine. Objectively, D&D is better designed today than it’s ever been. I’d be lying if I didn’t concede the point. I can still create great games with D&D just like I always did. But then, I can get a great game out of a flashlight and a pair of water wings, so spare me your edition war bullshit. It’s a shitty artisan who blames his tools.
I’m seriously burnt out on edition wars and system wars and all the rest of the joyless fuckery we gamers get up to. It seems like the only thing anyone cares about anymore is letting everyone else know what they hate. Isn’t it kind of sad that the sweary, ranty guy who literally named his corporation out of spite is the one that has to point that out? I don’t care what you hate and I especially don’t care if you hate what I love. If you want to waste your life on hate, go ahead and do it, but do it where I don’t have to hear it anymore.
That said…
D&D isn’t interested in giving Game Masters tools to create gaming joy. It seems kinda embarrassed that it even needs Game Masters to work. And that’s when it even remembers Game Masters exist. I get the sense D&D wishes it could just give the players a fun play experience without Game Masters getting in the way.
You took away my monster design tools. Why the hell would you do that? Now I have to reverse engineer the math if I want to make my own monsters. I will. I had to reverse engineer the previous set of tools you bothered to provide and then rebuild them to make them usable, but I actually added some neat extra features, and they came out better and that’s another thing I did that people are still using and praising today. I’ll fix it. I always do. But that hurt. The game is overburdened with character-building option bullshit and I can’t even make my own monsters? Thanks for that. Seriously.
Meanwhile, the big names are already chasing WotC’s tail. It’s all focused on performance play or cinematic play or whatever you want to call it. No, your favorite system isn’t different. Spare me the comment. You all assume I never look at anything but D&D and I have no idea that other games even exist. Bitch, you do know it’s my job to know what’s going on right?
Yes, I know Pathfinder 2 exists. Yes, I know it’s got plenty of tools. I also know what a fucking mess it is. If you actually try to tweak anything — hell, if you even touch the wrong tool at the wrong time — the wheels fall off the engine catches fire. Besides, it’s also turned into a performance play power fantasy.
Sorry. I know I just got done saying it’s not productive to waste time hating on shit. I don’t hate Pathfinder, to be fair, but it’s doing the same thing, D&D did, it’s just one edition behind schedule.
But that’s okay because the indie scene has never been more robust, right? While D&D is marching toward a future I don’t want, dragging its imitators and would-be successors along for the ride, the indy scene is hanging back, right? Well, the problem is, it’s hanging back a little too much for me.
Again, I ain’t disparaging anyone’s preferred style of play, but the open-ended, player-driven experiences of old where tomb robbers tromp around the hex map, defining their own goals, and plundering ruins for the lost treasures of forgotten empires don’t do it for me. I’m just not into the murderhobo scene.
By the way, I’m using that term correctly, not insultingly. Murderhobo is one of those terms — like Karen — whose roots have been forgotten and now gets used in a way that’s almost completely the opposite of its original intent, but I’m done dying to protect Jargon Hill, so fuck it.
Also, I do admit I’m getting a little strawmanny for emphasis. Just forgive me this one, okay? I’ve been called a tyrannical railroader forcing his player-puppets to dance on strings through his pre-written plots by enough grognards to have earned the right to stab a scarecrow of my own.
I run the kinds of games I want to play. That’s the secret, by the way. Doesn’t matter whether you write books, design games, make movies, or just run games, create the art you want to consume. Don’t chase an audience that wouldn’t want you in its midst.
So what games do I want to play? I explained it thus to someone in a private chat recently…
Some people, you put a sword in their hand, they’ll use it to plunder ancient ruins just because they can. But if you put a sword in my hand, I’m going to find a dragon to slay and a princess to save. I want quests. I want challenges to win. I want mighty monsters to slay. I want puzzles to solve. I want mysteries to unravel. Give me a goal and dare me to prove I can accomplish it. I want that moment when everything clicks into place and suddenly I see the solution. I want climaxes that feel like they’ve been building up in the background for weeks and months and I’m only now noticing it. I want to recognize in a moment of desperation that shooting a portal onto the moon is going to save my ass. I want to be completely surprised by things I realize I should have seen coming and then have to adapt. I want moments of redemption and release. I want to discover something that changes my understanding of the world. I want to be celebrated in song and story. I don’t want to be a Murderhobo. I don’t want to be Conan. I don’t want to buy levels with plunder. I want to be Luke Skywalker. I want to be Indiana Jones. I want to be Aragorn, Son of Arathorn. I’ll settle for being Bilbo Baggins. I want to be Link. I want to be Samus Aran. I want to be the Doom Slayer.
I think there’s room for both kinds of gamers in roleplaying gaming. In fact, if I’m being honest and not trying to avoid yet another fight with some joyless one-true-wayist fuckwit screaming at me that anything other than XP-for-Gold is a crime against my players, I’m pretty sure most gamers would rather be Luke Skywalker than Conan the Murderhobo. Most gamers would rather be dared to win an impossible quest than pick their own destiny. Most gamers would rather kill a dragon and save a village than plunder a ruin and ruin the village’s economy leveling up.
People crave something to fight for. Luke Skywalker is nothing without a Death Star to destroy. Link is just a pantsless, mute elf without a Triforce to reassemble. Batman needs the Joker.
See, I never could have given my players that arena adventure without weeks of careful planning and construction. That said, I didn’t know how it was going to end — though I did know that somehow, some way, I was going to split the party and lock someone in that arena with the succubus — and I didn’t even know whether the players would get to the end. They might have failed. They might have died. They almost did both. That’s the difference, by the way, between making a game the players can win and one they can’t lose. In fact, the grand art of game design is knowing how to make something that a player can win and that a player can lose such that the only difference between the two paths is the player’s choices and skills.
That, by the way, is agency kids, no matter what any screaming fuckwits on the Internet tell you.
I’m rambling now… I say as if I haven’t been rambling this whole time.
My point is that I’ve had this sense over the last couple of years that there’s a sort of continental drift going on in the gaming industry and its orbiting community. Roleplayingea has split and the two halves are drifting apart. East Roleplayingea is now for performance play where the Game Master is a necessary evil, there only to give the players a stage to act out their dramas. West Roleplayingea is now for old-school play where the Game Master is a hands-off referee whose only role is to build a world for the players to explore on their own initiative without meddlesome quests and incentives and plots and goals.
And then there’s me, in the middle, a Game Master who does what he does for the love of the game and the love of the vast, broad spectrum of experiences games can provide and a willingness to do whatever it takes to create them. Someone who understands how to build a challenge you can win, a mystery you can solve, a climax that feels like it emerged organically but also like it’s been there all along, a game you can win or lose by your own skills and your own choices but a game nonetheless, a quest where you earn your victory or your defeat and live with the consequences, a place for people who want to be heroes, who want to put that sword to good use.
Not that I plan on quitting. I’m still betting that there are a lot of Game Masters out there who got into this for the same reasons I did and who run on the same passionate desires and who are willing to work hard to make the best damned games they can for their friends, whatever game that happens to be this week, whether it be an open world that’s carefully designed so the action never stalls and he players never feel lost, or whether it be a quest to cross the world to the lonely mountain and drive out a dragon so the dwarves can have their homeland back, or whether it’s anything in between.
So here I sit on my island with a sense that the sea is growing around me. I’ve got a bonfire burning on the shore and I’ll keep it going as long as I can. Maybe I’ll die here alone screaming at a volleyball about how amazing Chrono Trigger was. But maybe, just maybe, there are lots of other boats out there, and they’ll see my fire and land on my shore. Maybe this island is bigger than I think. Maybe there’s already a whole lot of people here and I’m just missing them somehow. Maybe there isn’t even an island at all and I’m imagining the sea and the rift and the drift.
Maybe it’s all just the depression talking.
Happy Belated New Year.
Long time listener, first time caller. That was beautiful.
Thanks for all your hard work.
Well said.
I have been struggling to define what is bothering me about current DnD paths. I think you have described it well. I have attributed it to the effort by big corp to find a profit center in this hobby. The DM making a game is not a big enough customer base. The players, as the customer base, increases the customer count by a factor to 5 or more. Making the DM more a mechanical process of reading the text boxes in the purchased content (because creating worlds is hard) also means another profit path.
I don’t mind folks making money in this hobby. What bothers me is the feeling of the hobby moving in the “Monty Haul” direction that followed the early edition releases. The players stopped being about the adventure and started to be more about the things they have gathered along the way that make them more cool.
It feels like a loved video game that has started to sell new skins for the avatars so folks can run around looking cool regardless of whether they are actually playing the game. I am just waiting for the micro transactions that allow some characters to buy more Luck Points or some such crap.
I read your content because it offers solid advice on how to build, maintain and operate that game world that I love from the times before. I suggest you build a tower for your fire in order to make it easier for other folks to find your island.
BTW, TSR games sucked. Avalon Hill games were much better. Squad Leader, Wooden Ships and Iron Men, France 1940 and many others gave me a solid foundation in gaming. None of that sand box crap. 😉
I really appreciate this feature Angry and you’ve helped me a ton in understanding how to be a better GM, and [insert all the very nice things that I want to say and you don’t want to have to read here]
I’ll just say I’m in the same boat as you, I feel like every time I’ve read one of your articles you give words to something I’ve been thinking but not been able to articulate before. In fact I remember thinking about how football (American not Communist) teams don’t make amazing memorable games by trying to make memorable games but by playing their best and it makes amazing games as a byproduct about a week before you published almost that exact same statement word for word in one of your articles.
I think part of the problem is that D&D and TTRPGs got dragged into the culture war which brought in a lot of people who weren’t so interested in gaming for its own sake, as much as using it to posture (on both sides). I think that it also got popular which brought in a lot of people that were brought in because it was the cool thing to do but didn’t do it for the love of the game. I think a lot of people hear about it from their friends or the YouTubers and got into because they had a mistaken idea of what it was, and not for a love of the game.
I do think that people who get into the TTRPG scene for the love of the game are always going to be a small group. There’s a reason the hobby wasn’t popular and composed mainly of the less socially adept for a long time. But if it makes it any better I’m with you, I hate how things have ended up where the world is not longer real, it exists as either a place for emotionally stunted adults to work out their unresolved daddy issues or for emotionally immature adults to behave like moral pygmys. Where there is some desire to do something to achieve to accomplish to uncover a story but also make it your own.
I don’t know really what my point is either than to thank you for your campfire that is sitting out there on the edge of the beach, each time I read your posts I get excited about TTRPG all over again and start thinking of all the stories to tell and adventures to have. So thanks for keeping your light out there, it is helping some of us know how to keep steering our ships so that we can come and join you with our little lights as well.
You are not alone. TTRPGs with a story to play in are more joyous to me, too. I have been demonstrating that to my players in my current campaign, and they’re getting it, too. I am gladdened to know you will continue to show us the way.
“I want to create joy”. Yes. Exactly. You fucking get it. Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. This is why you have my support.
“I want quests. I want challenges to win. I want mighty monsters to slay”. YESYESYES! HELL YES! YOU FUCKING GET IT!!!!
That’s the games I want and strive for. That’s why you have my support for as long as I have two nickels to rub together. That’s why I don’t allow evil players. Fuck the instant gratification crowds ( performative and murder hobo), there’s no joy in that, just a dopamine hit that’s hone as fast as it happened.
You get it, for whatever this old not-quite-a grognard’s opinion might be worth (that and $2.50 will buy you a cup of convenience store coffee in most markets)
I see myself in a lot of what you said, about being the guy making games and stories for his friends even before tripping over dungeons and dragons, about wanting to create joy, about That One Adventure you’re still reminiscing with the old friends about (conclusion of a year long campaign in 9th grade Boarding School on my end), and about sitting in the gulf between two clusters both moving away.
Of course in a lot of ways I’ve got less riding on there being other people clinging to the driftwood in that gulf. I didn’t stake my career on it, after all. But in other ways… My son is walking in my footsteps in this regard. He has been coming up with stories for me to play through, or get eaten in, since he was old enough not to try to eat my miniatures. The summer where I showed him the Warcraft III map maker he filled my spare 500 gb external hard drive with half-finished custom maps. And so on and so on. And… I know what having D&D, having tabletop roleplaying games, to create those experiences in did for me as a kid and as a teen. What creating that joy for my friends did for me back then. And I want my son to have the same kind of tools to do that, and to share that with his friends. Hell, I want him to have better tools than I did, because what the hell is life for if not to try to make the world a bit better for the next generation than it was for us?
So we need lights in that sea in the middle Roleplayingea, I need there to be lights for my son’s sake and for the next generation of kids like I was. I am with you every step of the way in setting yours ablaze, and if there is anything I can do to help you tend it, please don’t hesitate to ask.
Neither the skirmish wargame/CRPG/board game of East Roleplayingea or hex-crawlers of West Roleplayingea require as much commitment from a dedicated group of players and GM. You a can pick up and play and if anybody, including the GM, drops out you can either carry on, or start afresh. That’s especially appealing for anyone with a business model in terms of reducing barriers to new customers.
Running a quest-style campaign is challenging on all sorts of levels and there are likely to be lots of times in your life that it’s not even aspirational, it’s just plain out of reach. However it is still the game that I aspire to play, regardless of how many other games I play. It is those quest campaigns that I remember and talk about with my friends for years to come. I will therefore continue to devote hours of my spare time to reading rules, campaign books, articles about how to run this type of game and planning my own quests, in the hope that one day I get to run such a game.
If you build it, they will come. My father-in-law once commented that I was the most self-referential person he knew. What he meant was that I steer by my inner compass as best I can, and don’t really worry or care what anyone else’s compass might be saying.
Please keep your bonfire going for those (like me) who appreciate it. At least as long as it is sustaining you (fiscally and emotionally). Although I suppose, given your response to a sword in your hand, you want to be a/the hero who saves the world from going to hell in a handbasket. Unfortunately, as you know, the world does not want to be saved. Perhaps you can be mollified by considering that there are a few who do want to be saved, and you are having an impact there. Good luck with whatever you decide your quest is, and thanks, masked man.
I just wanted to say that this article really, really speaks to me. I’ve been reading your work since 2019, and while the style has certainly changed the advice has stayed golden and amazing. Reading the articles on my lonesome — and never seeing another Angrican in the wild — it can become easy to think that there’s no one else in the hobby that thinks or wants the same thing as me, but I am so glad that there are new readers and that there is indeed a growing and mighty community of folks. Thanks Angry.
Wow. Just wow. That article hits HARD. I was not prepare for the karate chop to the feels. You have so perfectly described the feeling I have about the kinds of games that are available and the kind of game I desperately desperately have been searching for. I’m building a raft to get to your island, would you like me to bring some chips or something?
“Joy is a wonder that such things can be, whatever such things happen to be.” Well said! I too believe in monsters to slay and quests to win. I believe in good and evil, and the power of stories to reveal truth, and I think RPGs are a wonderful way to do such things. I’m one of the GMs that wants to run games the ways you’ve described, and you’ve made me an immeasurably better GM (and a better IRL teacher and man, to tell the truth). I think there are a lot more of us than the world would have you believe, so keep doing what you’re doing!
I’ll take my stand and plant my flag with you on the little island in the sea; if you go down, you’ll not go down alone. But remember what happens with continental drift; mountains grow underwater in the middle of the separating plates, and pretty soon, you have a whole new continent rising from the sea! Atlantis fell, but it can rise again, too.
Finally, for some reason, the words of a much wiser man than either of us, who has had an enormous influence on our funny little hobby of pretend elves, keep coming to my mind: “The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all the lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.” The peril may be growing for those of us who care about pretend elf games, but it is still fair, and love for it can grow, even when mingled with grief.
I’ve been running games for my friends for 5 years now. They’ve rescued prisoners from greedy goblins, slain tyrannical dragons, thwarted evil wizards, and deciphered clues to save a city from a demonic contagion. They’ve also found themselves in the inescapable grasp of other-worldly squid people, making deals with devils out of desperation, backed into a corner and betrayed by trusted allies, and countless other dire situations.
By in large, I think I’ve managed to create a good amount of joy in my games. My friends and I are now able to share a few “do you remember the time when…?” moments that I hope we’ll still look back fondly upon in another 20 years.
None of this would have been possible without the inspiration, guidance, and tutelage of Angry. He’s been helping me to run the least worst games that I possibly can. He’s been helping to bring joy to a half-dozen folks on the other side of the world.
Thanks Angry.
Thanks Scott.
Thanks for the joy.
You’ve helped me realize my love for game design and my desire to make games for the people I care for and the people I don’t. You’ve helped me find my passion. You’ve helped put me on a path out of the mundane malaise that I once was in where I felt like I had no goal in life.
Now I do have a goal. I’m a Game Designer at heart. It’s what I was always meant to be. You helped me see this.
You’ve have given me great joy and a purpose to work towards. I can’t thank you enough for that. I hope my words give you the wind for your sails and helps continue your passions. Just like you did me.
I’m rooting for you till the very end.
> I’m pretty sure most gamers would rather be Luke Skywalker than Conan the Murderhobo
I think this is one of the most accurate statements about and – by the lack of options to do so – strongest critiques of the TTRPG industry today. Big players are chasing the profit horse with movies, “real play” live streams, and all the other stuff that’s about showing a world rather than making a great game for people to play. OSR type folks are saying “sod this, I’m playing what I used to” – which is fine, but there’s plenty of us who don’t really want to play what they’re into. The DnD movie did a great job of selling a fantasy of “what could happen in your game” that makes it all the sadder that there’s such a dearth of tools and support in making such a game happen.
I’ve been supporting and reading your work for years because it’s good to still hear at least one strong voice championing the version of TTRPGs that have given me so many incredible memories over the years. It reminds me I’m not alone in wanting that and, when opportunities cross my path, helps me make more of those memories. So here’s my small voice to say “yeah, me too”.
I want to be on your island, at your bonfire, playing games and eating smores with you.
In April of 2016, almost 9 years ago, I stumbled upon your blog while looking for advice on how to build a megadungeon campaign. I devoured that series, then everything else you’d written at the time, and put your writings to work – and it was the longest campaign I ran and the source of my own “that adventure” – nine years later I still play with those players and we still occasionally reminisce about “that beholder fight.” Your advice has been the best damn thing keeping my games running the best they possibly can.
I could never have been much good without your blog. Maybe I’d have stumbled on some imperfect fragment of true game mastery eventually, or maybe I would have given up the hobby in disgust before then. I don’t want to be murdering random shopkeeps because there’s nothing to do but follow random whims. Nor do I have any interest in being a quirky, sexy, thinly-veiled self-insert character with a pointless traumatic backstory.
I want to be Master Chief. I want to be Kratos protecting his son. I want to be the Commander of XCOM, making the tough decisions in order to save humanity. I want to be Corvo Attano, or Gordon Freeman, or Kai Allard-Liao, or Johnathan Harker, or even Sherlock Holmes. Heck, I’d settle for being Flux Dabes.
I want the alternative. A way to run great games about heroes and monsters and villains, about epic quests and clever, desperate plans. And you’ve been providing it to me every step of the way. I will stand with you, and if there’s any way I can help this little island community grow into an entire floating city of boats lashed together in the stormy sea, I want to do it.
Masterfully, beautifully put, sir. I was the kid who made a pseudo mtg card game from line paper just so my sister and I would have something to play that wasn’t monopoly. As a 40 yo gm, The thing i want the most is for my players to develop a love for the game because of what I do. I recommend you to every one of my aspirant-dm friends because you are real, focused and knowledgeable. You aren’t out of touch, the game industry is changing. It’s not about making art, or a memorable experience, it’s about a product that puts more dividends in shareholders pockets. Thoughtful writing replaced with power fantasy. Rules? Debatable. Lore? Who cares. I feel you.
Keep going. The game may change, and people will always be stupid, but the things that make truly great and memorable games haven’t changed in thousands of years. You are a part of that history, and it is a part of you.
I feel like I’ve been understood. For a long time I’ve felt like there’s no middle ground RPG for me, where I can run and play games that spark joy. I, too, want quests, dragons to slay, princesses to rescue, kingdoms to save. I want to be Link, or Samus, or a Warrior of Light, and I want to give others a chance to experience these joyful things themselves. More than that, I want *games* – not Amateur Improv Drama Hour, nor Tomb Raiding Freeform Skullduggery.
As a GM, I feel abandoned and unsupported for the style of play I want to create in just about every system I’ve looked at. I’m adrift at sea, a gamer desperately thirsty for great games. I’m so glad I found your island, Angry. As long as it exists, I’m happy to be here, eating smores and enjoying the comfort of the bonfire.
Thank you for all that you’ve done over the years. Thank for spreading your joy.
The part about a climax that seems surprising but also feels like it’s been building all along is such a great point put into words
those are my favorite, and I’m glad Angry is out there fighting for them
I’m running a campaign currently, but I much prefer being a player. There are running a game hats I enjoy – I enjoy worldbuilding, I enjoy plotting. I’m not terribly keen on the actual running of a game.
As a player, I’m constantly bewildered by why it’s so hard to have fun adventures. The amount of meandering aimlessly in home play is stunning. The lack of a plot, of subplots, and of having a world to react to in more sandboxy play consistently confuses me. Because all of my play is now online (and not text based which I think might be better than voice based online play), it’s not unheard of for me to fall asleep during sessions because my character has nothing to do, including falling asleep during combat at least once because had to spend 5 rounds getting to the fighting.
Maybe great RPG play is unlikely without some level of effort on the part of a group … I don’t think it’s just GMs that are the reason home play isn’t better. But, simple, decent RPG play should not be hard. I feel like too many GMs put way too much of the burden for narrative on players making stuff happen, all while the players don’t know what they are supposed to be doing because there’s a lack of goals and/or no plot and/or the world isn’t developed enough to engage with.
I consistently tell people my average convention one-shot is superior to my average home play session. Because there’s a plot, there’s resolution, the focus isn’t on a character I just chose out of a pile but on resolving the plot in the limited amount of time we have. Do I “care” about my character? I care what my characters *do*. I maybe didn’t even name the pregenerated character sheet I chose or was given. I come out of some one-shots wanting to play this one character again, but it’s not necessary.
I don’t perceive this continental drift problem like Angry does because I don’t really care what the industry is trying to do. I stopped looking at new RPGs. I can pull 50+ old core books off a shelf (or the floor) and try to run what I hope my players will enjoy that will also be something I’ll enjoy.
Thanks for this, resonates a lot. Keep doing whatever it takes to get more people to “yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
Just wanted to let you know that I am forever grateful for finding your bonfire 5 years ago.
I don’t know what to say but i want to say something, oh yea… i got one!
The other day i listened to a dude speaking about it’s campaign and how proud he was of his “Playing to lose RP moment”…
I really don’t want to be hateful, really, i’m a very open minded person, but what the f..k?!!!??
Man, why not just saying something Like: “I did sacrifice myself to save Mister X, I soo fucking love Mister X, the DM was so great portraiting him”.
No, instead of a normal human interaction, in this fucking obtuse wicked world, some super smart people sacrifice themself in the game just to say to the world that “I’m the coolest roleplayer, I play to lose, all of you play wrong!”.
And all this happened AFTER i read about your great article about not jumping to conclusion, so while i tried to be careful in the judgement process, a curious kiddo come closer and asks “What does mean playing to lose?” and the dude answer “it means not playing to win but to portray your character, young timmy” and kiddo asked: “and you really like that?” he answered “yes, that is what RPG are for, play a board game if you want to just win” and kiddo answered “But you did what you liked, what you really want, so… well (embarassed), i think you win” the dude did not know what to answer for a while, then he walked away with an excuse.
After watching that scene, i can’t stop laughing my a.. off.
Btw, Thank you Angry, happy new belate year to you and your family
I can confirm that you have another GM here, washing aboard the shore following that light you’ve built and keep burning bright.
This craft is my *art* and I couldn’t quite put into words what I wanted out of it except I know it’s vital for me – but the way you’ve described “joy”, is it.
To design a great game and execute it so, even when I have players who lean towards differing styles of play, I can see the moment when they as *players* are completely invested in what’s happening.
It’s good to see there are more of us than one would think spread across the globe.
This is lyrical. It resonates. Lord knows I have butted heads enough times on the Discord and something like this comes around and reminds me why I stick around. Absolutely beautiful essay.
I have to admit that I am not comfortable with the various ‘narrative games’ that stick every player with a portion of the GM’s responsibility. Sure and some of them are well designed. But they don’t feel as much like games to me. I’ve tried playing them and running them and it’s just missing something.
Give me a problem, a goal, and a situation where I can make a difference. That’s the most memorable thing for me, the times when I have given my players a jumble of seemingly disconnected problems that they can solve by applying their creativity and skill. Not skills as in ‘list of things on character sheets’ but skill at playing games.
My increasing unease at the direction some RPGs have taken was definitely something I didn’t have a good ability to put into words and analyze before you provided it. Now, our preferences are maybe 90% aligned and that 10% can be the source of plenty of heat and smoke. But we are traveling in the same direction.
I don’t feel like I belong in the current roleplaying climate. Outside of the game, I’m not into collecting merchandise, following streams, or pledging support on kickstarter to the latest “D&D but it’s “. Inside the game, I want to have fun obviously, but not to make the goal being funny. Nor do I want combats to play-out like a chess tournament.
I resonate with what you want to be when you play. I want to play as the heroes townsfolk look to when the chips are down. The ones that dare to oppose figures, empires or nature for those in need.
I made heaps of my own board games growing up – much to my family’s exasperation. Being a GM seems like a no-brainer; I can run players through all sorts of fun games. Yet I’ve found running the currently most popular RPG (5e) to have siphoned that enjoyment. I didn’t expect the system to fight against me so hard to run those sorts of games. Am I playing wrong?
So I too, am feeling rather adrift.
But… but… you’d support the right Kickstarter, right? Right?
Look down man, the footprints are mine and I’m sure other people’s. Enough of us remember story with room for player freedom. All hail the story.
I think there are a lot of us who have come, are coming, or will come to your beacon of a bonfire.
Also both East and West somehow end up sharing a trait which is what puts me off them: The GM just provides a stage, is meant to just act as a neutral referee robot. Both reject the careful, lovingly crafted adventure design in favor of player-centric and player-focused experiences.
Extremes meet?
No. They’re still very different experiences. Sharing one trait in common does not change that. ‘Extremes meet’ only makes sense when you fixate on one particular similarity and discount everything else.
Yeah, this is what I am looking for too. Joy is the undeniable wonder that is experienced as a result of choices, decision points, consequences. You had no idea this was where your personal exploring, your daily decisions, and your desperate efforts to take up and continue the quest would take you. Or at least you had no idea what it would mean to you when you encountered it just the way you now have.
You stood up and said to God “prove my faith, prove who I Am” – my hope in things that are true, but that I don’t really 100% undeniably know just yet are true – but that there is still something good to confidently look forward too and take action on even though I couldn’t possibly truly really know that.
A humbling awe that leaves you grateful even if technically you are in incredible danger. Joy is the blessing of a god of adventure who lets you see how bad the filth is, so that you can finally begin to understand how good the good really is, even when the good is in a way, a terrifying ride.
The frog paladin was kinda overpowered.
Yep, at the risk of sounding like old man yelling at cloud, I’m right there with you. The times they are a’changing. And not always in a good way. I have no appetite for youtube-worthy wannabes, performative psychodramas, nor a giant blank map that slowly fills in with all the conscious intent and deliberate curation of a concussed spider that wandered through an ink puddle.
However, I’ll stand up in defence of what might be called ‘woke’ at the same time. I think it’s perfectly possible to have gaming sessions where you interact with tribes that don’t fit neatly into “bloodthirsty idiots” or “noble savages” archetypes – and that it can be good to spend a little time poking at those concepts – while still running a traditional plot strand about searching for a McGuffin. I think you can rescue a princess (or a prince) and do some light interrogation of gender roles in your pretend society along the way. I think you can hold a mirror up to some of the things that average D&D players take for granted or don’t devote much thought to, while at the same time running a completely by-the-numbers hero’s journey. I don’t think any of these things are mutually exclusive, or even detract from each other. One of the things I love about RPGs is their ability to put PCs in the place of Ashitaka from Princess Mononoke – ‘to see with eyes unclouded’ how groups in our pretend-elf world interact.
However, that isn’t the same thing as proselytising your politics to your players or making these topics the sole theme of your adventures. Just that (as I know you enjoy doing) you can push your players out of their comfort zones and help them think about their values, how they treat others, and what they’re willing to sacrifice or trade, and what they’re not.
That said, ‘woke’ is a cudgel-word, thrown around too much and used imprecisely. So it’s entirely possible you had something else in mind.
Indeed 🙂
Greatly inspiring post. Both sides you mention (East and West Roleplayingea) are really both player focused to the exclusion or diminishment of the GM, and both ultimately result in bad/mediocre games that no GM wants to play in the long run. No GM, no game, and a bunch of players looking to AI for their lame solution to roleplay while figuratively looking in a mirror. (Also agree with iclee that one-shot convention games are better on average than long campaigns nowadays because of the obsession that players have in controlling their own characters and everything around their characters, including wanting to dictate the story and the gameworld).
Hear, hear. I can understand the appeal of East Rollplayingea but it’s not really for me. And I’ve dabbled in West Rollplayingea, and it’s fun, but it’s not where my heart is. I belong right there on the island with you, and Chrono Trigger is my favorite game of all time.
I believe there might be more axes than you’ve highlighted. Some games are interested in strategy, some focus on exploring fantastical societies, some tell stories about people (not necessary PCs). The spectrum of what RPGs might be is mind-boggling. The questions is, what experience do we want to provide as GMs, and which systems can help us achieve our goals.
Although I enjoy trying out different ttrpgs, I personally never found a system that’s right for me, neither as a player nor as a GM. I suppose there’s only one solution then. If the ideal game doesn’t exist, then you gotta create it yourself!
Loved the article. Side note, can’t wait for slapdash. The rpg future is bright thanks to the angry Gm.
I really want to build hexcrawls and open worlds where PCs can pick and choose the quests and problems they want to address. I don’t want endless dungeon crawls and characters who don’t care about anything but money. I want something in between what you describe as your island and West Roleplayingea. I am very grateful for the advice which you have which helps me with my goal and respect those things you have to say which do not align with my goals. While I may not live on your island, I would be sad to see it gone.
I am also a half-elf. And proud to say it. Thanks for all you do. 🙂
Thank you for pouring out your heart to us, Angry. Now to harvest all that blood to make a super demon baby or something.
In all seriousness, even though you and I have very different backgrounds, we love games for exactly the same reason. And even though I haven’t been running D&D for very long, your advice has been a big factor in how I run my new campaign, and I want to thank you for everything I’ve read here.
I don’t think I’ve really commented at all on this site in the decade(?) I’ve been reading your articles, but I guess I can stop lurking to affirm that I do like the way you teach and what you have to offer. Your posts pretty much what inspired and motivated me to run games. The megadungeon series, how to run an angry open-world game series, and the true game mastery series all changed how I look at TTRPGs for the better in one way or another. As of last year I even managed to semi-competently take a game from its start to a sort-of climax before scheduling f%#&ed everything up.
Naturally not everything has been my cup of tea – especially when you need to do remedial bulls$&% such as explaining that players can feel like they lost even if they did achieve the best possible outcome in a scenario – but I know those articles are probably mind-blowing epiphanies for at least one person in the same way that incorporating actual f#$&ing level design into dungeons blew my mind back when I started reading the megadungeon articles in high school. Your blog has serious value – not that I have to say it, you already know that – and I’m glad that I decided to support your work.
I’ve spent many years loving gaming in all its flavors, but always being bothered by all the nitpicks and flaws of every specific game I played. I still feel, as of now, that I haven’t found the RPG that is really “for me.”
What did change for me in the last year or so, is I decided if no one else had made the game for me, I would make it myself. And I am quite convinced I would never have reached this conclusion if not for your articles, and the perspective they’ve given me to actually analyze, modify, and feel empowered to make, RPGs.
So for what it’s worth, here is yet one more human you have brought joy to. I hope it helps.
I… I really can’t quite convey what you stirred up with this feature – not with my poor Esperanto-native-speaker-level poetic skills in English and without a whole blog post to publish. But your story about becoming the GM you are resonates strongly with me. It was very moving. I can see myself in that and man, am I taken to my own past when I invented games and LARPs… And it’s been a while since my last “thanks for the «mislabeled non-life advice»” message, too. So: thank you again for putting great content (and honest, actually worthwhile and constructive story) out there!
As for the gaming continental drift, I didn’t see it happen. I might just be too narrow-sighted or too careless to notice. Or perhaps I live on this island too, but always considered that other continents to on par with the ass-barking dog people that my tribe’s elders tell about in the campfire stories? Speaking of fires:
Would I join your beacon-litting and send aid? In the immortal words of Bilbo Baggins to Frodo:
“You have my moral support – and my wallet!”
There are few things I’m looking forward to more than seeing you throw that One d20 into the fire and forge the games anew!
“I once was lost, but now I’m found. Was blind, but now I see.”
It often feels alone out there. Your bonfire gives me hope. Thank you.
You’re not alone. It’s not that I feel like I’m caught in a middle ground so much as living in a third direction entirely. And I’m not convinced that it’s accidental.
The RPG industry at large has become very player driven. They give the players the tools to make the characters they want and push the game in the directions they want. The GM is told to sit quietly and to try not to break anything. They give no guidance to player’s going off script but practically fall apart with improvisation.
It’s even worse if you have a game or scenario design mindset. The biggest games seem to actively resist building anything from scratch.
My games of choice are still D&D 3/3.5 and Pathfinder 1 because they allow me to provide experiences that no other game even tries to accommodate. If you feel isolated from the community, it’s because the publishers aren’t selling to you.
A second problem is that game masters don’t really interact with each other as much as we should. You only need 1 GM at a table with 3-5 other people, and if you’re just running published modules, you don’t need a designer at all. Plus, the internet is generally a bitter, joyless place that amplifies negativity a disproportionate amount.
I love the work you do here. Your articles and thought processes are much more helpful than any video on youtube or elsewhere.
Damn bro… Summed it up exquisitely. For me I became adrift in the hobby when the few friends I enjoyed playing with decided they preferred to spend their limited time with Sony over me. I still knew the games I had in me were amazing, but they were presented in a media that was and is becoming harder and harder to sell. The spark is there… It always will be, but without real people to stoke the embers once in a while it doesn’t blossom into flame. Still I keep the old vigil. Perusing books, and content, and advice from far and wide. Acknowledging that my skills are deteriorating from lack of use all the while trying to maintain their edge just in case the opportunity presents itself… But the truth is opportunities have come and gone aplenty… I’ve lost myself from the shores of actually gaming into the abyssal solitude of theory-crafting and solo-adventuring. A time will come when I have to admit I enjoy gaming more than designing games, and like I like designing them more than running them – at least the limited effort I have available makes these more sustainable goals… And now I see the pattern inherent in the cycle. Auld lang syne I guess… I’ll take a cup of kindness, and a healthy dollop of joy to boot.
5e 2024 specifically has left me behind, but 5e also doesn’t feel like my jam. I want something between OSR-oriented play and the 5e story game-oriented “characters always win and there are no lasting effects”. I miss the feel of the 3e books with their myriad of crunchy mechanics for the DM to build a simulate a world, but I can’t stand the needlessly crunchy +1/-1s for characters to quibble over, spending more time out of the game than in the game building memories, experiencing joy at the “real” feel of D&D. You’ve hit the nail right on the head.
I tried GMing for the first time in 2017, went looking for advice and found this place. Best thing that could have happened.
I’ve never stopped running games, nor trying to make them less worse.
I’ve made awesome new friends I never would have spoken to otherwise.
Thanks to your advice on brain junk, I can give better advice to my clients professionally (Not a therapist, but people talk to their PT about everything so..)
I’ve discovered I love understanding games on a technical level. I’ve become much better at maths as a consequence. I’ve learned history, sciences, sociology.
Oh, and most importantly. Thanks to GMing, I recognized a turn of phrase in someone’s dating profile. Commenting on that phrase got me a date. We’ve been together ever since and have just bought a house.
Because this site gave me a framework and a goal, I stuck with GMing for longer than any hobby. After a long track record of picking things up, hyper fixating, and losing interest.
So yeah….. Keep it up.
And thank you.
You’re definitely not alone, but you’re just as surely, and sadly, in a minority. Your island is a mountain, and most people are too lazy to climb, even leaving out the financial incentives against climbing. Some, though—even otherwise lazy ones—hear about what’s up there and do it. Some of them don’t want to buy something just because it’s for sale. Some don’t want to march off a cliff just because everyone else is doing it. Those people will always exist, and the World Wide Web has made it easier than ever for them to communicate.
At the risk of cheerleading, even if the window you speak of is now nailed shut, that neither makes you useless nor means you have nothing left to offer anyone. But, like many treasures, you are an old relic. :p
The space for serious TTRPG content for GMs that wanna get better doesn’t seem massive, and to top it off there’s so few people giving actually useful and actionable nuts ‘n bolt advice you can use to make games better instead of high-minded rhetoric or lofty ideals. But you’ve somehow figured it out and figured out a way to communicate it to other people in a way that makes sense. I think that’s something to celebrate.
And for what it’s worth, I do hear your name somewhat frequently outside of here in the TTRPG community and it’s usually quite positive. I even saw your work mentioned directly in the back of the “Further Reading” for a system I run as something to check out if you want to learn how to be a GM and run role-playing games.
I’m just gonna pull my boat up here on the shore if you don’t mind. I’ve always wanted to play RPGs more than I’ve ever gotten to actually play them, but I do find so much joy in games and dream of creating that joy for others. I’m really looking forward to Slapdash.
I am only a player that likes to know how the sausage is made, yet I too see the growing gap. Fortunately, my little archipelago has a Forever GM and a lovely view of Angry Island.
The question on my mind is how new entrants into field can discover this middle ground we like to occupy when the far ends occupy so much of the public consciousness? As much as I love to read, I fear a blog does not reach enough people for their default source of knowledge is youtube university.
Not a suggestion, only thinking out-loud and wondering why not. Maybe AngryGM advice needs a stronger YT presence with the articles read aloud and some genuine roleplaying game live-streams to grow a new audience?
Hold those thoughts. I’m aware of the issue of attracting new blood. We’ll handle it; you’ll even be able to help. One step at a time.
I’m on the island with you too. I’m glad people are finding new ways to play these games, but I feel the same way. OSR stuff doesn’t do it for me, I like my rules crunchy. And I may be a bleeding-heart liberal, but if an orc is baking bread, they are making it out of your bones. I don’t comprehend the point of “cozy RPG’s”. If making tea is your cup of tea, you do you. But there are deep holes with monsters and treasure in them that need heroes to explore. Thanks for doing what you do. I’ve been running games since ’82 and still learn things from you and I appreciate that.
Fascinating article that I connected with strongly. I asked my 14 year old son read this, too, and we talked about it. He was surprised by this issue, saying that all of his peers are interested in the middle-ground, ‘heroes going on quests’ type of games. He doesn’t think anyone he knows is trying to play at either of the extremes you talk about here.
Just one random anecdote. Nothing to see here.
Your stuff is always good. Articles like this and alignment resonate with me perfectly. Are you ever a player anymore? I hope so. And I’d so love to know which celebrities and editors.
This whole article made me feel less alone, since I’ve been feeling the exact same way. Trying to find advice to suit your playstyle is hard. I may not agree with everything you write – obviously, no people will agree on 100% everything ever – but articles like this are why I always appreciate reading it. I want the same damn things. Thanks for this one.
I’ve read a ton of your articles because I love your perspective and the sense that there’s real experience or hard work behind your words. Every time I open a new piece by Angry, I get top-quality material and a fun read. You’ve already saved my campaign and helped me shake the feeling that I was wasting 10 hours a week on game sessions for nothing. Now I have a hobby that brings me and my friends joy again—something I’m truly passionate about. And with this article, you even moved me to the point where I got chills while reading and maybe a few nostalgic, happy tears.
For a while, I felt lost, like I didn’t know where I was sailing. My boat with friends had capsized, we were all drowning, and sharks were circling… until your angry rants from your little island (where you sit and write these articles) scared them off —
mainly because one of them (it name was Tim) took your angry tirade personally
HI Angry,
Hi all,
I feel the same and, as far as I am concerned, I think it is a question of references.
In the eighties, when I started role playing, I was influenced by fantasy and science-fiction litterature and less so by movies. All were about adventures and heroes. The main characters were bigger than life, but most of them were not superheroes. They were heroes and they were more or less behaving like humans.
Fiction has gradually evolved. Nowadays, it is all about über mega superheroes facing über evil superpowered villains threatening the galaxy, if not several ones. Each movie tries to be more spectacular than the previous ones. They are an endless show of power and special effects… more, higher and higher, always. Special effects and soundtracks are nowadays more important than the story, if there is one at all. Dialogues ? What for ?
Younger generations are more influenced by mangas, superheroic comics and movies, by action movies in which the main character falls from a 100 yards cliff and jump again into the fray shouting « just a flesh wound! ». These are the characters and stories the younger players want to emulate in their games, characters and stories like those they read and watch. These are different references, different sources.
Established companies have to sell their products if they want to earn money. To do so, they have to catter to the growing audience, which isn’t my generation anymore. On the other side, younger designers craft games for younger people like them, people sharing the same references and tastes. Games for another audience.
Unfortunately, this is perfectly normal. I am 58, I am getting old, I have grown and lived in a different world, with different expectations, dreams and references.
Is it bad ? The answer is a point of view.
As far as you are concerned, you gave me the tools I needed to run games again. I was lost, unable to understand what I was doing. I knew that I was doing things the wrong way, but everything I read before I came to your blog was confusing. I read a lot of theory about game mastering and your blog gave me the base I needed to analyse, understand and act upon purposefully on what I am creating as a game designer and what I am doing at the table as a game master. You also gave me the base I needed to seperate the good grain from the darnel in my other readings.
Thank you!
But I still have a lot to learn, keep on please!
hell yeah
middle roleplayingea squad assemble:
let’s build a complex, high speed rail system from coast to coast. all the stories, all the challenges, all the world-building, all the drama! I want games that make me feel like I’m part of something huge.
Thank you for keeping the pyre lit, Scott.
Is that a Railroading joke?
[sideeye]
I promise we’re on the same side about that – just embracing the bit. I’m gonna wear a conductor’s hat and carry a nice watch to my next session and see if my players notice (they won’t).
Will you please share the rest of the Arena story?
I’ve been an avid reader for a few years. I feel like I’m approaching the point in parental life where I may be able to run a campaign soon. I’m excited to attempt to put into practice all the things I’ve learned here. Thank you.
What more did you want to know?
The clues you planted , and things you did to make the encounters work would be really interesting.
I’ll dock my boat here I guess. Feels good to not be alone.
See, the way I started to think about this East and West Roleplayingea, maybe even before you put a name to the concepts, is the same way you can think of other related art forms as movies or videogames: you have a lot of “easy to get in” stuff, simple and catering for the masses, but that never leave a big impact, and you have the names, the stuff from particular individuals which impart into their art a particular character and that you might or might not be into it, but if you’re in, it’ll hit deep. GMs from your island are exactly that, creating a game experience that is unique to each GM, and while it might not be for everyone, it’s definitely more memorable than all the bland generic stuff.
So yes, please, keep the light on, I’ll help bring wood and coal if needed. There are lots of GMs with a lot of experiences inside them, looking for a way to share them, eager to get better at it, and this island is the best hub we have for that.
Looking forward to slapdash.
Both sides of this ”continental drift” happen because making, preparing, and running games the middle way is hard work. Worthwhile, but hard.
I’ve tried building mechanics that make prep easier. Limited success.
I wonder: can you make it more fun to do instead? Can you re-gamify GMing?
-keep up your valuable work.
No. You just give people tools to make it easier and more effective so the barriers are lower and the payoffs are higher. Prepping games is never going to be fun. Hell, GMing technically isn’t fun if you’re doing it right. It’s rewarding, it’s satisfying, it’s meaningful, but it isn’t a game you play. If you want RPGs to be fun, be a player. A player’s only job is to have fun.
I’ve been reading your site off and on for years, and I definitely feel like your specific brand of advice and analysis are both unique and valuable. Thank you for them! I hope you’re able to keep finding delight in this RPG writing.
Also, I’ve been holding my breath for an Angry RPG for ages. Would back/buy something like that in a heartbeat. (But no pressure, of course!)
I’ve been super burnt out on dnd recently. My last campaign ended because we started talking about what we wanted to do in the next campaign after the finale and everyone bailed. Before the finale. We had been on break because I was sick but.
I get it. 2024 really sucks and feels more like a bad source book. The dmg does have some fun stuff in it but alot of the fundamental stuff feels like they just didn’t wanna bother writing rules when they could be writing a method of writing stories.
Which sucks because this is a game that needs rules for this shit. Where’s the adventuring day gone? It sucked ass but at least it was backed by numbers and gave us something to go off of.