Putting The "Do" Into "Dodecahedron" Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Not sure if any of my readers read as many game reviews as I do, but when it comes to pen-and-paper games, board games, card games, and all other things low-tech and geeky, I do my best to stay abreast. And it's nice to read an off-beat review every now and then, just so that you know someone else out there in cyberspace feels the same way you do about my favorite hobbies.

The latest installment of Out of the Box, a column by Kenneth Hite (who has credits including Call of Cthulhu d20 and the Star Trek RPG), is just such a review.

That's right, as promised, it's time for the Best of Breed d20 Column, Core Game Version, Ultimate Badass Edition. One can be forgiven for believing that all d20 design is simply tired reiterations of the same crappy elf template or desperate tries at jiggering the encumbrance rules or lame attempts to jury-rig "retro flavor" into a far better rule set than any of us had when we were fourteen. (Oh, just a hint -- the reason that your D&D game seemed so much more exciting then? Everything seemed more exciting then. You were fourteen, for God's sake, your blood was approximately 88% hormones and 12% Wild Turkey.)

And you know what? I think the guy may be right. For those of us who long to recapture the excitement and wonder that we first felt when those dice clattered across the table, for those of us who refuse to use a DMG without a big red demon on it, for those of us who think that orcs should have pig noses and that's final, let's all take a step back and remember what it was really like to be a kid, and wonder if Kenneth hasn't hit on something. Sure, gaming was the greatest thing ever back in the day. And sure, we don't all have the same warm-and-mushy feelings that we used to when we sit down at the gaming table as thirty-somethings. But maybe that's just the way of things. Maybe it's not gaming that's changed. Maybe it's us.