This is episode eight of the podcast here on my gaming podcast site, and it is a nice day here in North Dallas.

We are approaching the end of false fall.

We had about a week of absolutely gorgeous, cool, sometimes rainy weather, and it’s about to get hot again.

So anyway, everything’s been going pretty well.

I’ve got a couple of SpeakPipe messages to play.

The first two are from Jason at the Nerds RPG Varietycast, and then I will comment, and then I’ll play one from John McNally.

Hey, Jason here.

Just listened to, I think, episode eight.

Sorry, I can’t look at it while I’m recording because I’m driving, which I know I shouldn’t do, but you can use me as an example of a bad caller.

Anyway, your latest episode on consumerism and complexity in games was interesting.

I mean, I’m a completionist, and I fight that tendency that I want to buy everything for a game line, so I definitely understand the struggle.

As far as complexity in games, though, it’s interesting because I agree with you.

Just adding complexity definitely does not make a game better, but I do think games need a certain level of complexity to be interesting as games.

I mean, storytelling and sitting around and being the characters and all that is fine, but unless you’re doing something like Otherworld Immersion, like our friend Jay Webster does sometimes, if you’re actually playing the game where the players interact with the rules, then really there is a point where you have too few rules, I think.

I don’t think that’s the issue with really any of the games we play, but I do think it’s an interesting thing that you can’t get too light, maybe, although that will really depend on your group.

I’ll call back with another thought.

So you mentioned AD&D First Edition, and the interesting thing is, you’re right, if you look at an 8th level Paladin and another 8th level Paladin, they’re mechanically basically the same.

Obviously the way the player plays the character is going to differentiate them, but the way they’re mechanically differentiating the game is by the magic items they have, and that’s kind of how AD&D works.

That’s why AD&D First Edition.

Now obviously you can play games however you want, but in First Edition it’s kind of designed not to be stingy with magic items.

You’re expected to have magic items kind of flow for your characters, so you can customize these classes.

And then of course the other reason is you can sell the magic items, and you need that money and those experience points to level up, because you have to pay for training and all that in First Edition.

But yeah, magic items kind of are the way to differentiate those different classes.

Now your magic using classes are kind of differentiated maybe by their spells, but when you look at Thieves and Fighters and things like that, that’s kind of where AD&D expects you to tell the difference between them, not to mention the way the player plays them, of course.

Anyway, keep up the great work.

I’m glad you found a great place to walk your dog.

That is cool.

And I will talk to you soon.

Thanks for the messages, Jason.

I am essentially in agreement with you on all points.

And yes, a game does need to have a certain amount of complexity, or I suppose it’s not really a game in the sense that you and I and many of our ilk think of them.

We want some rules.

We want some structure.

Like you said, storytelling is great, but playing a game is different than sitting around a table just collectively telling a story.

So yes, totally agree.

And I think it seems like a lot of disagreements that come up with play style these days seem like they’re trying to navigate that boundary, like where does the level of complexity, where should it be for your particular game?

Anyway, thanks again for the call-in and the engagement in this little podcast.

And now I’m going to play some comments from John about my last episode as well.

Hi, Bob, it’s John McNally calling from the Pacific Northwest.

I want to thank you for inviting us to listen to your new podcast.

I do really appreciate the shorter format of the episodes.

And I also wanted to comment on consumerism in gaming.

I have more thoughts than I think I can squeeze into a speak pipe call, but I’ll say it’s been a lot on my mind as well, because I think in my more balanced moments, I can recognize that it’s a distraction.

I’m feeling some resistance in my hobby, which then triggers some angst.

And I look for a way to quickly alleviate that.

Looking at new rule sets, buying some new rules, or a setting book, or something else gives me that little chemical hit, whatever it is, that makes me feel better.

But that sense of resistance, it’s going to return.

So I think that like a lot of things in life, the answer is within, or the only way out is through, you know, one of those phrases that return to the practice.

See what the practice has to teach you is where my mind has been of late.

Maybe we can say more in another forum.

But thanks, Bob, hope you’re well, talk to you soon.

And thank you, John, for your first call in.

It’s really fun to have people calling in for this little podcast and contributing their impressions on what I blabber about.

Man, I totally get it.

Consumerism is insidious, and it can be really fun too, right?

Like who doesn’t like getting a new game book?

I love it too.

I think it’s just important not to kind of assume that buying the new thing is going to really improve your game a lot.

It probably won’t.

The things that improve our game seem to be the things that come from within our own heads and from the thoughts of others who do this a lot, and sharing ideas.

So yeah, it’s funny because I think the day that you sent this message in, I listened to it while sitting in the parking lot of our friendly local gaming store, Madness Games and Comics, where I felt the consumer’s itch quite strongly.

They actually had boxed sets of pretty much all of the OSE material, which I thought was amazing.

I loved seeing that stuff on the shelf at the same time the new 2024 D&D Player’s Handbook has come out.

I thought it was amazing that they had that sitting there as an alternative to 5th edition.

And they also had the boxed edition of Mothership, and they had a new Traveler book, which I bought from Mongoose.

But one thing that’s really cool about this gaming store…I don’t frequent a lot of gaming stores.

This is really the only one I go to, so maybe this is common.

I don’t know.

They have their shelves with all of your standard games, D&D, what else is popular.

They’ve got a lot of the current Chaosium stuff.

They’ve got a lot of Call of Cthulhu, a lot of RuneQuest, a little bit of Traveler.

In the past, they’ve had a lot of GURPS.

They’re down to practically nothing now, but they did get a restock on the two core books for GURPS, which made me very happy, and I took a picture of those.

But this section of the gaming area where they had OSE and Mothership is a section where they have all of the kind of small press and zine-like stuff.

And I was standing there looking at the stuff, and looking at the OSE box, and there were a couple of other old farts standing there gawking at things.

And I looked at them, and we had a little conversation, and I told them that if the whole store were composed just of this kind of stuff, I would probably buy $100 worth of stuff there a month.

It’s really interesting to me how much more attractive that kind of material is to me than the big polished stuff.

So there you go.

Anyway, it is Thursday today, and I’m playing D&D.

I’m running my D&D campaign this coming Sunday, so tonight and tomorrow night, and probably a lot of Saturday, I’ll have time to prepare for my game, get some stuff ready.

I think I’ve got a pretty cool idea of a non-player character to introduce to make things interesting and complicated, and not boring.

So I’m looking forward to getting started on that.

You know, I took last week pretty much off from game prep.

Of course I did a lot of reading and thought about a lot of things, but I didn’t actually write anything down, because I felt like I really needed a break.

My week is…the first part of the week is pretty busy.

Monday night I go to Aikido practice, and so I come home, and then I go to that, and then there’s not a lot of time left after that for anything else.

Maybe take the dog out for a late walk, and then Tuesday night I’m usually tired from practice and from work.

And this last Tuesday night we watched the presidential debate between Trump and Harris, which wasn’t really…it wouldn’t have been on my preferred agenda of things to do, because I already kind of know what I think, and I know who I’m going to vote for.

Anybody who knows me will know, like, it’s a pretty obvious choice for me.

And I didn’t really need to see the debate to figure that out, but yeah, it was something to have on TV, and my wife really wanted to see it, so I was happy to sit there and watch that and kind of fiddle around on the internet.

Then Wednesday night, normally also Aikido night, so I practice two week nights.

So really that’s a lot of time devoted to it and a lot of energy.

So Thursday and Friday nights are kind of my chill nights for sitting down and really getting some gaming stuff written up and prepared and all of that.

I’ve tried doing it through Tiny Prep during my lunch at work, but I found that I enjoy doing this podcast more than Tiny Prep during lunch.

I feel like, you know, when I’m at work, while I like the idea of doing prep during lunch, I need the time off at lunch to not be looking at a computer screen or writing things down so much, and it feels a little bit too much like work when I’m doing it at lunch at work.

So anyway, there you go.

What else is going on, y’all?

Lots of good conversation in the Roleplay Rescue Discord.

It has been super nice to be involved in, if not simply read.

Lots of good people and good thinking in that Discord.

I think that’s about all I’ve got for today.

Hope everyone is well.