Remember When Games Used to be Fun?

It's 2017, I have been a DM for a decade. I think I've earned a blog. So here I am, and I may have no idea what I'm doing, I might not have any published material, and sure I've never been to like a convention, or played at a game store, or public... What I do have are a lot of good references like the awesome blogs over at Goblin Punch, Dwarves in a Trench Coat and The Angry DM, a few friends and players who insist I'm kinda good at this crap, and like 3 failed Nanowrimo attempts.

Recently I've had a bit of a falling out with Grognardian D&D, I'm sure this falling out has been happening in my mental background processes for sometime, but I recently stumbled across a video featuring Garfield the Deals Warlock, and I think it was at that moment that it dawned on me, just how much I had started treating D&D like it was some sort of "Serious business" My brain water steeped that bit of information for a few days, and then the girlfriend showed me this pilot for Olan Rogers cartoon rendition of The Lions Blaze. The story can be simplified as follows for those of you lazy hicks who can't bother to go watch it:

The players are trapped in a game. Tron style, or is it sword art style now? Dot hack? Ah man, so many "Help I'm stuck in this video game!" things exist now that it's become irritating to describe them, I bet there's a trope for all this shit. (I went and found it, here you go) But anyway, it's like basically a DnD type game called, you guessed it, "Lions Blaze" and they have to complete quests and retrieve the stones of the lions blaze until the game master releases them. 

Well, they get stuck for like 15 years, and one of the players, The nimble thrust knight, Sir Luke John Perrier is ready to call it quits. He can't handle this anymore, it was fun at first but it's been 15 years and he wants to see his family. He can't handle one more shitty sidequest, from one more shitty old man quest giver. Not even if it's to literally slay a dragon, which we all know is pinnacle cool, I mean they've got their name on the book cover right?

Some shenanigans occur, the group realizes they can pause time, and get Sir Luke John to join them in beating the ever loving CRAP out of the old man quest giver. (all of the NPCs in this video make me so happy, the shop keeper later, who I won't spend time describing was probably among my favorite parts of this video) They end up glitching him out and he like screams and glitches through the floor and flips out while the group gets a good hearty laugh out of his NPC ordeal.

Then they go and slay a dragon, except, somebody cheats, and the Game Master balances the game by killing off Sir Luke John with a Game Masters Arrow (see, this is why I never make DMPCs) 

With his dying breath Sir Luke John whispers...

Remember When Games Used to be Fun.

And then we see a montage with their first atari, their first arcade games, and I teared up a bit, as I recalled whole days spent, inside a Carls JR. with a single pen, and a couple d20s. I remembered drawing maps on the backs of those paper tray inserts, and laughing as my friends just made shit up about what their characters could do. I remember arguing over whether or not an Orc "Could actually make that attack" No one had a character sheet, or a dice set, hell we didn't even have HP. And we didn't really "Advance" we usually told stories with the same characters though, and my friend was trying to turn all of that into a comic once upon a time.

I guess what I'm saying is, somewhere along the way, somewhere in all that math, between all the story crafting and the quest design I lost that childish glee that D&D once brought me. So I guess this blog is my attempt to find that again, in some form. This is my Murderhobo Rehab. I hope you find it useful in some way.