eNERDgy, Incorporated

2020 brought an end to countless things, including my already barely existent blogging presence.  There are plenty of reasons I wish the tragedies and horrors we faced in 2020 could have been prevented from happening, but whatever you believe; whatever the reason; whatever the climate; COVID-19 was a freight train too  fast on the tracks.  No one, and nothing was going to stop it. I attempted to utilize my time during the early days of The Lockdown industriously, but failed spectacularly as the days wore on. What I wanted  to do was return to work, to live my life, game with my gaming group once a week and enjoy the company of my then girlfriend (and now wife) and my kids. Some of that, I got to do. The rest of it, because of COVID-19, and the local shutdowns, I did not. In fact, I couldn't  have a gaming  group once a week now, because most of us were unwilling to risk contracting a virus that none of us really understood, and those who were willing to bra...

Leading up to what would become a nationwide panic of Satanic Panic of the 1980s, a 16 year old child prodigy by the name of James Dallas Egbert the III would disappear from Michigan State University dorm room in 1979. Egbert’s parents hired a Dallas, Texas private investigator by the name of William Dear. Though Detective Dear knew next to nothing of Dungeons and Dragons, he suspected that the popular role playing game had a part to play in the prodigy’s disappearance , as Egbert and his friends would LARP (Live Action Role Play) in the steam tunnels below the school. Detective Dear theorized that Egbert was injured or somehow disappeared in the tunnels below. Meanwhile, Egbert had gone into hiding at a friend’s house, it was revealed later by numerous eyewitnesses that he <Egbert> may have attended GenCon XII. The news media latched onto the idea that Dungeons and Dragons somehow had a part to play in the disappearance of James Dallas Egbert, III. The search for Egbert c...

I was uncertain how I would write this and at the time I’m writing this, that uncertainty lingers. For close to a year now – on and off – I’ve written on tabletop role playing games (TTRPGs).  I write often as I can, but I don’t write daily content because life happens, and it is a strange life happening every day since the first recorded US case of SARS COVID-19 as early as Monday, 13 JANUARY 2020. By Friday, 27 MARCH 2020 the United States began shutting down. In some places, this happened sooner and in others, later. Non-essential workers were laid off. Non-essential businesses were closed down. Most of us were sequestered to our homes with the suggestion (if not order) to remain there with exception to necessary travel. I wrote a blog entry titled Satanic Panic! Occult Hysteria and RPGs in the 1980s.  In brief, the entry details the events that led to a moral panic in the United States over the TTRPG Dungeons and Dragons. Reflecting on the moral panic, an...

After  months  of a slowly developing cooperation between characters, they finally got it right; not the kind of cooperation that helps me progress a story, but the kind where you see teamwork for ruing between players and player characters. When it comes to whether or not players will intentionally engage with the pursuit of sabotaging your game by derailing it - deliberately or otherwise - gaming is fun - with our troupe. What started with only four players has become seven - no easy task - with myself as the eighth in our troup as the GM. Latecomers enjoyed high adventure, and endured the politics of a Galaxy set against them, dealing with danger in the Galactic Empire, criminal syndicates, Rebel forces and the struggling survival of Jedi and domineering tyranny of the power of the Dark Side of the force. Of all this, the story developed beginning with a luxury cruise ship - a galactic cruise ship - whose likeness was made from that of the titanic. His Imperial Royal Ma...

Never mind where from the the virus came, COVID-19 Is here and now.  Odds are your state’s issued a stay-at-home order and you’re probably bouncing off the walls. You  The responsible person-to-person contact ( apparently defined by texting or video chatting)   appears to be limited to those locked inside your gilded cages with you, or those who like you are practicing responsible self quarantine.  We as human beings whether extroverted or introverted, hermits or social butterflies, require in some way or another real  human contact. Well, because of the current state of affairs here at home, this one or more month long quarantine may be a way of life for a little while. Whether you believe that COVID-19 is a threat or not, the physical reality remains that our way of life as we know it is on hold for now.  Whether you and your gaming troupe met up once or twice a week or a couple times a month, if you’re observing the local stay-at-home order, those sessio...

Last time, our characters were trapped on board an analogue Event Horizonesque pre-republic frigate that was filled with the presence of a being comprised of living Dark Side energy. The multiple gaming sessions between then and now were spent with characters wandering blindly through the ship corridors, going up and down elevators, and exploring without really exploring while the ship chipped away at their trust in their own group.  This last Thursday (day after Christmas), we ended the first part of the saga that closed out with a twist none of the players really expected - except for the character Aeon Crow, Jedi. The climax of the game occurred when the players were forced to face a minor boss type character, a dark side character, and were lured into the flight deck of this ancient frigate. There on the flight deck, they were faced with  another  dark side character, one that was levels far above the characters, and well beyond their skill. This w...

It feels really, really good to tell a story. I’d like to say I mean as a writer, and that I’ve found my self-discipline again and I’m writing diligently, but that’s just not the case. Last night was Nerd Night at Grimm Manor (I have an apartment, don’t let my superfluous use of pretentious household titles fool you) and I got to really flex on the story for our Star Wars tabletop RPG. It was straight back to the basics, too. Some action, sure. It’s Star Wars, but when it comes to the Star Wars universe, there’s a lot of story to be told, and it’s not all Republic / Empire / Galactic Civil War. I ran a campaign that led into some horror elements I haven’t used for a Star Wars game since around 1997, when my brother Allen and I were playing second edition at Baywood. In 1997, Allen and I saw the movie Event Horizon. It was probably the scariest sci-fi horror film to show since the 1979 Ridley Scott film Alien hit theaters. Event Horizon opened up so many possibilities to the space horr...

How often have you played with a group where there’s no organization and you spend the majority of the game unable to play because someone’s drunk, or someone’s gotten into a heated debate over matters that do not belong at the table? Through years  of trial and error, my core group of twenty years and I developed a system of caveats, our gaming rules of engagement, that ensured hours of enjoyment in gaming. These are not the gospel of all rules and maybe some things that worked for us, may not work for you. Check this brief article out, and see for yourself if anything here might help turn things around if you’re having trouble keeping a game’s focus where it belongs (on the game itself). Be Sober . This rule has been a controversial one in the past, and I’ve been called a Prohibitionist because of it.  Sobriety  helps keep the focus on the game; even if players enjoy derailing a campaign, sobriety grants players a clear head, and it keeps the game fun. ...

For a long time you were a knight, a cleric, a barbarian, a wizard, a mage, or any of the various classes in fantasy role playing games. Maybe you were an intergalactic warrior bent on stopping some evil space tyrant in a science fiction game.  The point is, you were always the hero protagonist in a story where you had to crush some evil force or another simply because it was evil. Twenty-eight years ago that all changed, when in 1991 White Wolf released Vampire: The Masquerade.  The release of Vampire: The Masquerade changed everything in tabletop role playing games, a departure from the traditions of playing the role of the good guy protagonist, and descending into the role of a villain. The shift into a setting of personal horror put players for the first time in a position of constant struggle. Vampire: The Masquerade coined the phrase, “A Monster I am, lest a Monster I become.” The game was a hit, and grew a massive following that ensured a broader world ...