Shrine of the Nephilim

Let's start with a simple premise, shall we? You have a noble. You have her knight. You have the knight's squire. You have the noble's friend. Let's say a court magician. You have the magician's apprentice. They go out on an adventure! But are they the same level? Probably not. We mean, why would they be? You've a knight, trained in the sword, and lance, and horseback riding. You've a noble, who may have never had to train for anything, because she's third-or-fourth born. The noble's friend has studied magic, but not much of anything else, and then there's the squire and apprentice, who are absolutely green. Why should they be the same level? Want an example? Lord of the Rings. You can't tell us the hobbits were the same level as Legolas, Aragorn, and Gimli, and there was no hope in hell that any of them were up there with Gandalf. "But Gandalf was an NPC!" Was he? Why should he be? Why couldn't he be a PC along with everyone el...

So, we've seen a lot of push back against the 2024 Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide. Whether it's the art, or the inclusion of a 'consent' form, or certain text, there's a huge cry against "woke culture" and "politics in gaming". Yeah. There has been a change in gaming. And yeah, it falls under "woke" and "politics". There's another way to look at it, though. It's accepting that there's people beyond what's normally seen in fantasy, and that there's a diversity of cultures, beliefs, and people. It's stepping outside of the old stereotype of the 70s, 80s, and 90s, and accepting that the world is large and complicated, and that people are also complicated. And it's always been political. But we'll get to that in a minute. So. You're seeing orcs that aren't thuggish barbarians and shamans. That's good. Because societies can change, and it's a very tired stereot...

 D&D has definitely changed. For the better? For the worse? I can't say. I can say, however, that it is an entirely different beast than it was in the 80s. Someone had suggested, with the choices you now make in character creation, how you build the character you want to play, people are more invested in their characters. You have backstory, you have a feeling of who the character is - they're not disposable heroes. And thus, you don't want to see all that work go to waste by having them die. I don't believe this. I made characters with personality, backstory, a vessel for me to explore with, since the early days of gaming. Maybe not to the extent I do now, but it was there, with each hand-crafted six+ page character sheet. Death was always on the table. The first TPK I faced had my favourite character as one of the victims. That hit hard. I didn't like it. But I accept that it was a part of the game. If you don't want your character to die, you either plan ...

 Getting sick and tired of being called a 'groomer' or worse by the right, because we're pro-LGBT. Listen. It isn't about sex. Conservatives are the ones dragging sex into this. It was never about sex. It's about identity . A kid who's five years old decides they like girls. Is that about sex? No. It's about the idea that they like girls . That is all it is. When we were six? We had a crush on the Invisible Woman, Sue Storm. We saw her in a Spider-Man comic, and she seemed nice, and nurturing. She was shown to be a good and caring mother, and we decided at that point we "liked" her. We didn't have a fucking clue what sex was. Sex wasn't even in the picture. (By the by, before you start guessing our gender -- the answer is "yes". Our gender is "yes".) Being a lesbian doesn't have anything to do with sex when you're a kid. That isn't on the radar. It just means you "like" girls more than you "lik...

Everything is Political. Doubly so if you're writing an RPG set in modern times. We mean, if you're going to look at the international stage as part of the setting, how can you not get politics involved? Case in point. You're writing a superhero game. It's set in 2024. Superheroes are showing up now . And you want to address how this reshapes the world, how it impacts nations, how it changes the balance of power, how governments have to shift to adapt to this new reality. There's two major wars going on. You've got the Paris Olympics. And you've got this huge influx of people with supernatural powers. How do you not talk about the elephants in the room? "And this is how the nations of North America and the EU are affected." "How about Russia and Ukraine?" ".... so, Africa..." Of course, you could lay out a 2024 where nothing of import is happening, and the super beings that show up have little or no impact on national events (lo...

"And there I was..." Alright, we aim to offend. What's wrong with this picture?  Nothing.  That's what's wrong with it. But some people are having serious difficulty with this picture. "There's sushi!" "There's tacos!" "This doesn't inspire to adventure!" Know what that's called? A lack of imagination. You see... sushi was around during the Tokugawa Shogunate. Tacos are even older than that. Neither of these things are "modern". The complaint is that it's ethnic food. Oh, but hey, there's pumpkin there.  But that's Western food and that's okay, even though that's from the New World.  Bet they won't complain about corn or potatoes, either. Which is why we're calling Bullshit on this. They don't like it because it's not European / Western Fantasy. And the complaint that the picture doesn't inspire adventure? Listen, peeps. What do your characters do between adventures? Kn...

So, let's have a little talk about good and evil.  Most people have a pretty good understanding of 'good' and 'evil', but let's more look at it from a theological standpoint.  We'll start with Judaism and Christianity, then we can flip into Shinto a little bit.