2016/03/30
Mesmerizedbysirens changes
Mesmerized by sirens has been online since 2011. Besides, some among you are aware that i had a previous website before embarking on this project which had been running for several years as well.
Taking into account all this, and after 432 posts, 1012 comments and 144 followers, i think i pretty much contributed to the OSR community (mainly in terms of obscure fantasy role-playing games knowledge database).
Time changes. Time is tyrant. And i have literally tons of other interests in life in addition to fantasy rpg's. Also, the audience nowadays is somewhat lazy (largely due to our common habit of using social networks and the like, perhaps), and therefore the written form of communication is increasingly becoming cumbersome.
Given all this, i am certainly not going to give up my "mission", but -to cut it short- it may well be that this blog will turn into a VIDEO BLOG. As you may have noticed, i already made some short videos and i found this is fun and much easier for me than writing long posts.
Should i opt for writing about the games i intend to talk about, i would surely need more than one lifetime.
But i positively believe that making videos instead could prove very useful to my cause, hence the change. Nay, to be honest i should admit that i am quite excited because i realized for the first time that making video posts halves the time and this is good news because i could finally analyze all the games in my collection- a task that i consider impossible if i rely only on the written medium.
The official address of the Youtube channel is:
MESMERIZEDBYSIRENS
Of course all the new post will appear here as well.
So even if you follow only this web page that you are currently reading, you won't miss anything.
Taking into account all this, and after 432 posts, 1012 comments and 144 followers, i think i pretty much contributed to the OSR community (mainly in terms of obscure fantasy role-playing games knowledge database).
Time changes. Time is tyrant. And i have literally tons of other interests in life in addition to fantasy rpg's. Also, the audience nowadays is somewhat lazy (largely due to our common habit of using social networks and the like, perhaps), and therefore the written form of communication is increasingly becoming cumbersome.
Given all this, i am certainly not going to give up my "mission", but -to cut it short- it may well be that this blog will turn into a VIDEO BLOG. As you may have noticed, i already made some short videos and i found this is fun and much easier for me than writing long posts.
Should i opt for writing about the games i intend to talk about, i would surely need more than one lifetime.
But i positively believe that making videos instead could prove very useful to my cause, hence the change. Nay, to be honest i should admit that i am quite excited because i realized for the first time that making video posts halves the time and this is good news because i could finally analyze all the games in my collection- a task that i consider impossible if i rely only on the written medium.
The official address of the Youtube channel is:
MESMERIZEDBYSIRENS
Of course all the new post will appear here as well.
So even if you follow only this web page that you are currently reading, you won't miss anything.
2016/03/15
Are we eternalizing Dungeons & Dragons?
Cubicle 7 Entertainment and Sophisticated Games have announced plans to make a Dungeons & Dragons® compatible roleplaying series for J R R Tolkien’s legendary fantasy world of Middle-earth, the setting for The Lord of the Rings® and The Hobbit®.
I wasn't particularly excited when i read this piece of news yesterday.
We already have a beautiful game set in Middle earth which was published by the same company.
Countless gamers out there already tried the so-called "porting" (as this term is used in the software field): that is, trying to adapt Tolkien to D&D mechanics or vice versa.
I am not saying that Cubicle 7 won't be able to do that: quite the opposite. I feel they are likely to publish a decent game, considering how well they did with their entire line.
But this is not the point of my rumbling today.
thiInk - quite simply- that Tolkien fans and people who want to play in a Tolkien environment should stick to "The One ring" RPG or for what that matters, to MERP (Middle Earth Role Playing game) by ICE. Or "Tiers Age". (link here).
But please, stop try to tweak D&D to anything. This is the same old blind attempt. As far as i am concerned, this is tantamount to believing that only D&D exists- without taking into account that other games serve the scope in a far better way, without admitting that there are rule sets devised specifically to convey a certain flavour to your game sessions.
And this is, again, one of the reasons why in the past D&D "clones" or other fantasy games published by other companies never really hit the market. They provided other flavour to the game sessions, but people instead tried to correct and make amendments to Dungeons & dragons when they realized that its rules were not fit and that there were "holes".
When D&D isn't enough, that prods us to see things right. And maybe to change our game of choice.
We are compelled to use another system, not to tweak D&D instead.
If we hanker to have a Tolkien-like experience, we should use TOR by Cubicle 7, not D&D.
But it seems that we always grudgingly recognize that D&D may not suffice.
2016/03/12
So many games
I have always felt buffeted by the sheer amount of old fantasy role playing games that i would like to try. There are just too many and it becomes increasingly difficult to play them all- even just once. In fact that entails that one should learn more different game mechanics than it's hardly possible for your brain to contain without getting confused. Sure, it is also a question of time.
But nonetheless i want to. The scope of my collecting is not mere collecting, for the sake of admiring my cherished treasures through a stained glass, i want to play these games, and until now i can feel satisfied: i extensively played Powers & Perils, AD&D, The One Ring and recently Phantasy conclave.
I can manage to play four different rule systems and i learnt something different from each of them. Still, there are many more - I need to find a way to defuse the sadness of not being able to play them all. To counter my discontent i could decide to play at least one new game every half of a year or something like that.
Other questions are: will the knowledge of many different rule systems cripple my ability to master each in a decent way?
It is obvious that if you focus your effort on just ONE game at a time you will develop a talent in game mastering it which is barely obtainable splitting your attention and concentration on many. Or not?
But nonetheless i want to. The scope of my collecting is not mere collecting, for the sake of admiring my cherished treasures through a stained glass, i want to play these games, and until now i can feel satisfied: i extensively played Powers & Perils, AD&D, The One Ring and recently Phantasy conclave.
I can manage to play four different rule systems and i learnt something different from each of them. Still, there are many more - I need to find a way to defuse the sadness of not being able to play them all. To counter my discontent i could decide to play at least one new game every half of a year or something like that.
Other questions are: will the knowledge of many different rule systems cripple my ability to master each in a decent way?
It is obvious that if you focus your effort on just ONE game at a time you will develop a talent in game mastering it which is barely obtainable splitting your attention and concentration on many. Or not?
2016/03/10
Mesmerizedbysirens is on Facebook
As an experiment, now a webpage of this blog has been made available on Facebook as well.
Recently i was noticing that the blogspot platform is somewhat obsolete, or at least that's my impression.
G+, Facebook and youtube channels now are ways to interact faster with people and i feel that only a few have the patience required to delve deep into a blog post with all its level of detail.
I am not saying that i will abandon Blogspot, but in the meantime, MBS is available as i said on Facebook.
You can find it here:
MESMERIZEDBYSIRENS
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