I’m currently trying to get through the TTRPG tome Blackbirds. I can’t say I’ve made much headway. I’m 20 pages in in this heavy, unwieldy and somewhat morose volume and already there are two things that strike me as Gatekeep-y. The first is the opaque language, that I assume is intended to bring with it... Continue Reading →
Artifacts of Games
I’m playing The Witcher 3 - reluctantly - for at least 30 minutes every day. It is part of my “game literacy” project that I’m putting myself through in order to increase my library of played games. I play a lot, but alas, only a few games. When I was playing, I had to make... Continue Reading →
TTRPGs and Usability
A table-top role-playing game is probably one of the least usable gaming artifacts that I know of, with the possible exception of that thing PlayStation did with movement, or maybe the Kinect for non-English speakers who were women with an accent. I’m being a bit snarky. I feel I have deserved it. To give you... Continue Reading →
The Unplayability of (some) TTRPGs
Some background before I dive into this specific opinion. I have reviewed games and more specifically TTRPGs since 2005 in the Swedish gaming magazine Fenix. To date I have written around 600 reviews, and more than half of those are of role-playing games. I’m telling you this so that you won’t think that this opinion... Continue Reading →
RPGs, TTRPGs, What’s in a Name?
There’s one development that I kind of resent, and that’s the fact that what we used to call RPGs have now morphed into TTRPGs. I understand that this is a development that comes from the fact that the digital version of role-playing games is now the standard version, and that table-top role playing games have... Continue Reading →