Building a Binder, Part 2 - The Blark Background
If you are visiting this blog for the first time, welcome. I recommend you check out the previous post, Building a Binder Part 1, to get an impression of my organization and attitude. This part of the series covers a miniscule topic (myself) to help shape a better idea of my own framework, outlook, ponderings and aspirations in the tabletop hobby.
SO WHAT, Mark Conway, 2013.
Then.
My start in ttrpgs comes from joining a game group after moving to Chicago in 2015. It was the first group of pals I made after college. We played every weekend -which I now know to be a rarity- supplemented by heavy drinking. Drinking seemed much more the point back then, myself blacking out at nearly every session. We played Pathfinder 1e, yet during that time I never read a rule book and instead learned by observation and example. Even when it was my turn to DM, I never read the rules of Pathfinder, I focused on writing my precious little story. My thoughts on games then versus now are very, very different, but I still think that the first adventure was the most cohesive campaign I ever ran. I look back on it fondly.
The first game book I bought and read through completely was Troika. I don’t remember how it came into my hands, years of heavy drinking have left blank spots in my memory. I struggled to read through it, always being deathly hungover, but it showed me another way of playing without the minutiae of rules and procedures. Its cover art (by the prolific Andrew Walter) struck a chord in me that resonated acute wonder. I felt I was holding a secret in my hands. I still believe the introduction to be one of the best in table tops games:
“You now have the context and key terms to explore the medium independently and nothing I can say here can fully instruct you on what is a deep and rich form of entertainment on par with cinema or fly fishing. Treat it like you would any new hobby.” - Daniel Sell
In 2020 I lost my job and was collecting unemployment for over a year. It was during that year I sobered up and began to pursue the day dreams I had at my previous job. I released Thousand Pound Canvas and things have been going up and down hill since then. I’ve made pals with a lot of really cool and kind people I would’ve otherwise never have known. By the time this post comes out its successor, Bizarro Blade, will have been released.
Now.
I’ve made some bucks selling games but I’m no darling. Regardless of releasing work, I try to play often, having a good group of friends nearby with similar interests.
The most frequent game I run is a campaign started in 2016 using Pathfinder 1e. This was run in the house-style I learned after moving to Chicago, adapting it further to my own liking. My players consisted of my then roommate and college pal, two acquaintances I knew from college but didn’t befriend until inviting them to join, and a work friend who was interested in what roleplaying games were all about. With the exception of a near two year hiatus due to COVID-19 quarantine, we’ve played nearly every week for the past nine years.
For that table, I am currently pushing Spelljammer through the strainer of Pathfinder in a bastard I call Spellfinder. It’s a mess. I don’t recommend it. High level power fantasy isn’t a thing I’m really interested in, but I do have a lot of fun plugingin in ideas to play out as the player crew pilots their ship fleet across the phlogiston exploring spheres. That will have to be a write up for a completely other blog post.
The second most frequent game I run is a Dungeon Crawl Classics drop-in-drop-out hex crawl started on a friend’s birthday that has been going on for just over a year now. I first made a 200+ hex overland map, then added a massive underlake, while dotting it all with plentiful encounters and locations. It’s been great exercising ideas out on the table and just seeing what we get up to. Being an open table I’ve invited strangers and have made friends through us playing games together. The detailed construction of that game will have to also be made into a separate post for further details.
The majority of my influences come from movies, literature and music. I don’t have any interest in emulating video games for tabletop play. While I largely play dungeon crawlers, I do try to branch out to at least read other game genres. I don’t consider the design of a game to be its end all be all. My first year toying with game design made me believe that the mechanics of a game should be informed by its themes and laced together to convey its overall intention. It took years to undo that thought process. I’m now honestly beginning to think tabletop roleplaying games aren’t really games at all. Oops!
Currently I am still working to release games while still practicing writing, illustration, design and layout. Meatheads is the largest project I’ve worked on yet, hovering over 100k words and currently being trimmed in the editing process. While the rules are around 18 pages, the bulk of the book is the 300+ room megadungeon meant to drive years-long campaign play. I am very proud of my work on it.
So What?
Obviously, writing and running games are two completely different things. My editor once said to me “I’m not expecting Hemingway”. That honestly did a lot to improve my direction in writing. This artform has the potential to become cultural texts, but it is a hobby for children, or even worse, man-children. While I don’t believe in writing down for children, I think it is important to recognize this as a juvenile avocation, and being as such, it has the endless possibility to grow up. But you must find joy in it and not just compulsion or profit or productivity.
An important part of creating art is asking yourself why you do it. Brandon Yu (Chaocalypse) once asked me this in regards to illustrating. I used to like drawing as a child, and even in college, but somewhere I stopped. I no longer liked it because I didn’t feel I was good at it. My joy of expression was robbed by my fear of embarrassment. To make anything simultaneously isolating and liberating. I am thinking I can only find ways of connecting to others through my work.
There is often the answer of compulsion when asked why we do it. “I just can’t imagine myself doing anything else” Yet I can easily imagine myself doing anything else. Yet I wouldn’t feel fulfilled if I did. So why do I create stuff? Because my ego wants people to like the work I do and by extension like me. It’s really that simple and is probably true for a large number of artists whether they acknowledge it or not. I’m not really an expert on the topic anyways. Forgive my moment of self indulgence.
There isn’t a grand thesis to these thoughts, it boils down again and again to the compulsion to churn our creativity into profit under the sole of capitalism. Writing makes me feel joyful in some small part.