Michael Tresca
Recent & Upcoming Releases
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April 16 2024 -
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February 18 2025
Gatekeeping, Edition Wars, and Fandom
Role-playing games are not immune to the tribalism that is itself a symptom of the Internet bringing humanity together. Defining oneself by an allegiance to a topic and defending it from others has been around as long as humanity has been interacting. To understand the controversies that sometimes roil geek fandom, sports teams provide a useful guide on what constitutes a "fan."
Everybody Cheats?
Gary Alan Fine's early survey of role-playing games found that everybody cheated. But the definition of what cheating is when it applies to role-playing games differs from other uses of the term. Does everyone really cheat in RPGs? Yes, Everybody Gary Alan Fine's work, Shared Fantasy, came to the following conclusion: Perhaps surprisingly, cheating in fantasy role-playing games is...
Why Did "Solo" and "Rogue One" Feel Like RPG Sessions?
If you saw the two most recent "Star Wars Story" movies--Solo or Rogue One--a common refrain is that they feel like how Star Wars role-playing game sessions play out. The reason has a lot to do with a shift in franchise-building philosophy and what kinds of stories role-playing games are good at telling.
D&D: The New Poker?
Dungeons & Dragons is more popular than ever before. As a result, D&D culture is starting to seep into other activities for grown-up gamers, including their professional lives. Is D&D now being used to network and blow off steam the way adults play poker?
Flipping the Table: Did Removing Miniatures Save D&D?
Dungeons & Dragons is doing better than ever, thanks to a wave of nostalgia-fueled shows like Stranger Things and the Old School Renaissance, the rise of actual play video streams, and a broader player base that includes women. The reasons for this vary, but one possibility is that D&D no longer requires miniatures. Did it ever? Picture courtesy of Pixabay Wait, What? When Vivian Kane at...
Is It Worth Printing Your Own Miniatures?
We previously discussed the "digital line" when a physical product's value online dips to below one U.S. dollar in value, but miniatures are a bit more complicated. 3D printers continue to come down in price, but how cheap do they need to be before the miniature and terrain market is impacted?
How Long Before the Digital Dam Breaks?
The recent crash in pricing for digital comics provides a data point for the future of electronic versions of tabletop books, 3D-printed miniatures, and terrain. How long can retailers keep their price points for physical product before the dam breaks? The Line is 99 Cents Many businesses are being upended by the move to online sales, as products transform from physical to a digital format...
When the Treasure is Real
Ernest Cline's Ready Player One book and movie created a virtual world where winning a game could result in personal riches. There's precedent for a video game awarding real-life riches going all the way back to the 1980s with the Atari 2600, and it begins with a game called Swordquest.
The OASIS That Never Was
In Ernest Cline's Ready Player One, real life is intertwined with a virtual overlay that permeates all of society. In the book and film based on it, James Halliday co-created the Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation (OASIS) a Massively Multiplayer Online Simulation Game (MMOSG), and its success made him a billionaire. It's hard to imagine now, but we nearly had our own OASIS with an immersive virtual world where every player had an avatar: Second Life.
Meet the Real James Halliday
Ready Player One posits a future where billionaire James Halliday creates a virtual world that encompasses every form of gaming. He's actually inspired by a real-life game developer who made a fortune off of his games: Richard Garriott.
Whatever Happened to Acererak?
Fans of Ernest Cline's novel, Ready Player One, know that there's an entire sequence that takes place in a virtual recreation of a classic Dungeons & Dragons adventure by Gary Gygax, the Tomb of Horrors. Fans of the book will find that D&D's presence has changed in the film. Please note that this discussion contains spoilers for the book, the movie, and the Tomb of Horrors. Cline Likes D&D...
RPG Evolution: Do We Still Need "Race" in D&D?
The term "race" is a staple of fantasy that is now out of sync with modern usage. With Pathfinder shifting from "race" to "ancestry" in its latest edition, it raises the question: should fantasy games still use it? “Race” and Modern Parlance We previously discussed the challenges of representing real-life cultures in a fantasy world, with African and Asian countries being just two examples...
From Dogs to Dragons: Kobold Evolution
Kobolds in Dungeons & Dragons have their roots in mythology, but they have gradually transformed into devious trapmakers capable of routing a high-level party, and for that we can thank a DM named Tucker.
When the Fans Take Over
We've previously discussed the original end goal of Dungeons & Dragons and the rising success of video in boosting the game's popularity, but the enormous success of Matt Colville's Strongholds & Streaming seems like a turning point that brought both of those elements together at the right time. Here's a few theories as to why.
Do We Still Need "Oriental Adventures"?
Orientalism -- a wide-ranging term originally used to encompass depictions of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and East Asian cultures -- has gradually come to represent a more negative term. Should Dungeons & Dragons, known for two well-received books titled "Oriental Adventures," have another edition dedicated to "Eastern" cultures?
Latest Posts
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