The Ash, the Elder, and the Hen Elm

 'System matters' discourse is essentially a lie. I agree with it, advocate for an understanding of design and the tailored experience over attempts to cram your great unwritten novel into 5e willy-nilly [ archaic ]. Still a lie though. It would be better translated as 'system is efficient'. 'System pleases me and my friends'. It  produces smooth, surgically-augmented games, designed for a particular social experience knowable to the person living in this time, this place, with our own history. Do you want an experience of doomed horror? Play Ten Candles . Do you want to be demigods in a fading Creation (what a novel experience!) without too much unfortunate crunch? Play Exalted: Essence. ' Needless to say that sometimes the games don't work as intended to produce the experience you want, and if you're sure you understand the designer's mind (conveniently descriable from our blog!) you should tweak or twist to keep things running as intended....

This started off as the September book-blog based on Bihani Sarkar's Heroic Shaktism , then expanded to a two-month book-blog riffing on Banerjee and Wouters'  Subaltern Studies 2.0. Then it became neither, because I didn't enjoy either book that much even if the ideas were in theory interesting. (The whole post will probably be enhanced if you read Bret Devereaux' Practical Polytheism series first) When was the last time your PCs sacrificed to a god? If you're anything like me, the answer is 'never'. In my experience of playing, watching, running and reading a fair number of games, the interactions with divinity I tend to see are: The PC is a 'prophet' class, including D&Dalike Clerics/Priests/whatever, with direct and reliable access to divinity - either for chats or just for powers The PC otherwise has a conversation with a sympathetic or antagonistic god which wants them to do something or wants to reward them for having done something (Exal...

 October this year, I found myself suddenly a lot more intellectually occupied than I have been for a year or so. You'll have noticed, if for some reason you're internet-stalking me, that I haven't posted anything in a couple of months.  I was very clear when I started the blog that it wasn't going to be another chore for me, so I don't mind letting it sit for a time. Posts will come when the moment strikes. Letting the book-blogs go by the wayside was a shame but also, to be honest, a relief; the exercise of regular writing on a pre-chosen topic is anathema to the state of creative flow I normally try to enter when working, and it's been nice to be able to put aside the painful push to finish in favour of letting things just be. Of course, such an approach has its limits, the main one being that I tend not to make anything. Instead, I spark off little bits of art, plus pushing on doggedly with whatever game I'm running at the moment (a mage game currently, ...