I was thinking this morning of the tactical infant combat game I designed in elementary school, Baby Wars. It’s basically a Melee rip-off, but what struck me looking back on it is the fact that my central premise is babies fighting to the death. It’s a little transgressive, and also speaks to both my early enthusiasms and blind spots. It’s a game, it’s about babies – what else could they possibly do?
I wonder if anything has changed…
I’m having a pretty involved conversation over at TheRPGSite, which has been very interesting. It started as a thread about the Indie RPG Awards, and I registered and waded in when they started talking about Grey Ranks. I offered to answer questions and correct any misapprehensions and a number of thoughtful people took me up on it. They are asking some challenging questions and it’s been very good for me to formulate cogent answers. It’s making me realize how insular my gaming/Internet world is – why haven’t I been asked these questions before now? We need better critical faculties and mechanisms as a community.
We’re also talking a bit about the Indie RPG Awards and how to make them better, which is strictly awesome.
Of course, this truly productive conversation is occasionally interrupted by some lunatic screaming “SHITCOCK!” in my ear, which baffles me, but that’s the noise in a lot of good signal.
Matt McElroy asked me to write an article for Flames Rising, so I did!
Pop Matters “In the Field” column at Gen Con. I wrote Glenn McDonald and was all “dude! I so don’t sell my game out of my living room! Also, Wolfgang Baur!” But it’s a fun piece and Glenn’s very nice.