Too Many Games, So Little Time

I blame podcasts. I used to only really concern myself with whatever system we were using to play the campaigns we always played. Historically my main group (my and a few of my cousins) have played the same system for every campaign we'd play. First it was Rolemaster, then it was a homebrew system heavily based on World of Darkness, then it was Exalted (after brushing off all of the fluff), 3.5, and now 4E. Every time we'd stumble on a system we liked we'd just convert every campaign over and approximate character creation in the spirit of the character.

Did I mention that I blame podcasts?

I stumbled upon Dragon's Landing Inn sometime in early 2008. I hadn't listened to any podcasts before so I didn't know exactly what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised at what I had heard. It was a fun show hosted by guys that just loved their hobby. That was the gateway drug.

From there I started trying out just about every gaming podcast I could find. The more I listened the more I began to realize how much was being offered in RPGs. So I've been picking them up here and there, most have gone unplayed. Burning Wheel, Houses of the Blooded, I just wasn't used to these kinds of things and though I still haven't played them I love the game theory that's behind them.

I think some credit has to go to the OGL for these types of games. It dominated the third-party RPG industry for most of the aughts and that created a vaccum. I'm sure that the Luke Cranes, John Wicks, and Fred Hicks of the world didn't need such a vaccum to exist to make the games they wanted to make. Now that d20's heyday is behind us we are left with tons of great designs that are getting all kinds of credit.

I understand, however, that I took my red pill into the gaming industry about 8 months after WotC announced that 4E would be comming. The d20 bubble was already gone by the time I had started taking part in the wider internet gaming community. It's likely that all this stuff was already just as popular and that I was just begining to hear about it (history doesn't begin the moment you first realize what's going on). Although in the last year I have seen my FLGS (The Griffon, South Bend, IN unsolicited props) carry more and more games that might cater to the more experimental gamer.

I think it's time to get the second gaming group around and start getting a feel for what else is out there.