In which a pattern emerges

When I was a small child, my favorite game was Natural History Museum. I'd get out all my dinosaurs (and I had hundreds, mind you-- everything from those Carnegie Collection models they sell at museums to Jurassic Park action figures to 50-years-out-of-date neon plastic 1" tall ones from the plastic army men and cowboys section of the hobby store) and just... arrange them. By taxonomy, by the period when they lived, by features I wanted to highlight, any old way. I'd make display cards or signs or draw murals. And then when it was all sorted, I'd get my mother or father or sister to walk through like I was giving them a tour of a museum I curated, and just having all my toys in the right order and my knowledge and ideas on display was the bulk of the fun.

Sometimes I think that's just what I'm doing now, but with fantasy instead of dinosaurs.

(I'm sorry if this seems masturbatory to you or whatever, I'm just reflecting on my general approach as I have frequently been for some time now. Perhaps I felt the need to write about this to gain the insight of others, but I think it was mainly just so that those of you out there who read my thoughts better understand where it's all coming from.)

I think the issue is...

(First of all, a reminder that I'm still looking for three more alternative type II demons)

But anyway. I think the issue is that I'm just in the mood to try running other things. Lately the sorts of games and setting that catch my eye have been... very episodic sorts of games, many of them outside of the purview of typical D&D fantasy-- Star Trek, Doctor Who, noir, wrestling, westerns, things like that (though also a flirtation with a Harry Potter campaign of some sort.) I think part of that may be my previously-discussed need to feel like I have everything prepared-- a more episodic sort of game can be more... focused, so that only what's needed for the scenario can be prepared.

At the same time, I'm less inclined to blog about that stuff, because I know there's nothing as annoying as following a blog with good D&D ideas and having that veer off into a bunch of games you don't care about.

New look, and a BFRPG house rule document

Yeah, so I got a bunch of complaints about my old color scheme, and that was kind of upsetting me, so in a display of atypical levels of cowardice, I'm bowing to peer pressure and going monochrome.

Actually, I'm doing this because the complaints inspired me to at least give it a look and I found that I like it in monochromatic. I think it's gone from Victorian-antique pretty to gothic-lolita-outfit pretty. But either way, they can only have the pretty when they pry it from my cold dead hands.

Also, I made a house rule document for Basic Fantasy RPG, which for all my flirting with ACKS and FH&W recently, is still a damned solid game, and which I'm thinking I may use if I want to get a game moving in time for the 40th anniversary of D&D's publication (which, if Playing At The World is to be believed, is sometime in the last week of January!) Check it out here and criticize my pathetic leniency at your earliest convenience!