The Literary Khan: fiction, wisdom, and writings of The Khan

      Dad jokes aside, I must admit that the topic of lore is one that is pretty close to my heart. I will be the first to admit that for me I will be hooked by lore first and gameplay second. In the realm of videogames I will admit that both the Mass Effect , and Dragon Age , games hooked me not with graphics, gameplay or design but kept me interested with the story, world building, and lore. I have asked other gamers this fundamental question, and through this piece will ask the same of you my readers.      "Would you still play a game with no consistent, clear, or substantive lore?"     I do not think that I could personally do so. I think when we talk about lore we often forget its purpose. To create a world, and for that world to have the various levels of depth required to provide a key outcome. Immersion, or emotional buy in for the audience. Whenever I see this in the various fandoms I move through they are always turning themselves inside out over the lore of their c

  Game design and Rules     I have played various tabletop games as far back as I can remember as a kid and as I have gotten older this has only been built upon by my love of miniature wargaming from small skirmish games such as Mordheim, to the larger battles of Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000. Or into the historical wargames such as Bolt Action. After the better part of three decades I think I have formed a few fundamental opinions over what makes and breaks a game from a design and rules standpoint as a player. I wanted to explore a few of those ideas here.  GRAVITY: keeping it grounded here we have it the bedrock of our game, the core rules     There should at the core of all game rules and design a set of immutable rules. These are the core assumptions of a game that govern how its various parts move, such as pawns move forward or queens move any distance along any line. This are aptly called the core rules in most games and they form a lynch pin that holds the game togethe

  -R.A the Rugged 'A Philosophy'     As a lay historian I cannot exactly put a finger on the definitive moment in time that began the age of the of the cynic. Perhaps, it was some time between the death of the nineties and the rise of the  naughts. However, somewhere along the way there was a rejection of shiny heroes. Instead pushing for darker, grittier, deconstructed, and more often faulted heroes. An almost counter culture like scenario where instead of mocking going to work in a cubicle and buying into 'the dream', they instead rallied around the idea of not buying into traditional heroes and mocking the idea as immature or unsophisticated. As if to say there is no way that anyone can be good. Yet, I wonder if this new found 'maturity' has not come at a cost, and if we have gone too far. Have we trained ourselves into a landscape where sarcasm and cynicism are the norms we accept. I want to make it clear. I am not against characters having faults, infact I

      So I am sitting there with my wife recounting a strange dream I had that I was hooning about in an old school van with the classic Larry Elmore art plastered on the side running a DM business. It was like some kind of parody of the days I was a tutor, and without doubt far more enjoyable. In her trademarked way of smiling at my nerdy nature Allison listened to my ramblings. She really is the best thing that ever happened to me, and probably without a doubt the best wife a gamer could have ever found. The longer I talked the more an idea was forming in my head. Not a paid DM, but what about trying to start a club. A Tabletop Roleplaying Club.  From another intro game I ran for new players, one of many.     Many moons ago I was part of a large D&D group. About forty odd people, with five dedicated DMs crafting the campaign and a pool of over thirty players. To this day the Seareach campaign was the most enjoyable time I have had in my time playing TTRPGs. It came fairly early i

  Approach with caution     In a recent article with the Independent, George RR Martin expressed that he simply does not understand how people can come to hate so much something that they loved. He was quoted as saying 'if you don't like a show don't watch it'.  Lamenting how things have become so toxic. Comparing the franchises of GoT, Star Trek, and Marvel. Martin goes on to explain that he was a huge fan of Marvel growing up and even wrote to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby to tell them they were 'better than Shakespeare' (as a former teacher myself I concur), and talks about the adaptations of Marvel at the time such as The Hulk with actor Bill Bixby. Martin states he did not like them, but 'didn't go crazy and start writing hate mail' suggesting that social media has a lot to do with how things are now. For those playing along this the last on point thing Martin says in this article. However, whenever a story, or discussion, of toxic fans comes up I can