Wombat's Path VIII: Why The Retrospective?

For my own organizational sanity, here's the entire series of Wombat's Path posts with links.

• I: The Early Years
• II: Off To College
• III: Sophomoric Pursuits
• IV: Focus On Story
• V: To All The Games I've Played Before
• VI: The LARP Detour
• VII: Then 'Til Now
• VIII: Why The Retrospective? (Yes, it's a link to this post. "Entire series" means exactly that.)

"So Wombat," you may ask, "why the heck did you write up Wombat's Path and document your gaming experiences over the past 30 years?" And you pose an excellent question.

The ego wants what the ego wants. I'll admit to shameless ego-stroking as a reason. What person with almost 3/4 of his life tied up in one activity wouldn't want to celebrate that, especially with a 30th anniversary coming up this fall? I'm not a slave to my ego, but the process of writing brought home to me that I may have learned something useful to share about running and playing games. That feels good to me.

Still selfishly, I can mine these posts for blog fodder to expand on an aspect of gaming that I find interesting or useful. Finding topics and generating content for a blog can be challenging if you paint yourself into a corner. I'm purposely not limiting topics for this particular public writing endeavor. I've done so many rules hacks on the fly while GMing that at least one of them could make sense to you. So many times I have wanted a supplement that would cover something missing in the rules as written, so it makes sense to expand on or add a system that would increase the depth and enjoyment in a game. So I'll do exactly that in this place as much as I'm able. I may not know what you'll find useful, but I hope I can solicit your help to guide me.

Contrary to the beliefs of 17-year-old me, history is important. History teaches newer generations about previous forays and failures, and hopefully saves some trial-and-error time when working on new ideas. It gives us a sense of what's come before and a sense of involvement in something bigger than just the people involved. However, 17-year-old me got burned out on 5 years of American History that studied battles and skipped over the meat of motivation.

On a more altruistic note, documenting my game experiences brings my past into focus and make me think about how my gaming preferences have matured over the past 30 years. This gives me a well of learned lessons to draw from as I try to share my experiences where appropriate. Not everyone games the same way, and not everyone cares to hear advice. Though in the cases where people need help, I'll do my best to get you where you need to go.

Yummy gaming book!
Order 2, they're small!

If you have any questions about GMing or comments about anything I've written, don't hesitate to get in touch and I'll do what I can. I will answer, even if it's just a quick "Thanks!" You can leave a comment to any blog post, or twittle me at @twwombat, or email me at jim (at) twwombat (dot) com.

Yes, I'm playing with pictures linked to my Amazon referral account. Sue me. Or better yet, click through one of them and the Google ad to put a penny or two in my account and then hop in your '91 Indignant Huff and drive away. I think the pictures add a little graphical oomph which is great for a non-graphics person like myself. Also, please let me know what you think about the new background I put up in the past couple of weeks.

Thanks for reading!