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Author: Tom Doolan

Stages of Gamer Development

Stages of Gamer Development

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diceI am currently in a master’s program for Counseling Studies, and part of that is the study of psychological theories. Something I have learned is that many theories have been presented over the years about psychological development. What stages are involved, what the normal “process” of psychological development is, and so on.

This got me to thinking. Do gamers go through a development process? (And by that I mean tabletop role-players. Video-gamers may go through a similar process, but that’s not my focus.) Perhaps someday, when I have to write a research paper, I will base it on this idea. Because I’m a geek like that.

Anyway, here’s my initial theory on The Stages of Gamer Development, from a psychological point of view. This theory assumes an average gamer, introduced to the hobby during adolescence (ages 11-13 or so), who continues playing through adulthood. Obviously there will be many who do not fall within these parameters. But, given it’s a psychological theory, it is a broad generalization at best, and open for individual interpretation of course.

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Almuric – Howardian Sword & Planet

Almuric – Howardian Sword & Planet

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Planet Stories - Almuric

A few years back I became more enamored of Robert E. Howard’s writing than I already was (which is saying something), and made it a personal quest to read as much of his work as I could find. El Borak, Solomon Kane, Bran Mac Morn… I tried to locate copies of everything I could. (This was before the Del Rey editions came along, and made the quest easier).

Among the many treasures I gathered was a copy of Almuric, Howard’s first and only foray into the Sword & Planet sub-genre, and one of only a handful of book-length works he completed — although Robert E. Howard scholars now seem fairly certain that someone else completed the novel. Some believe that this posthumous collaborator may have been Howard’s agent Otis Adelbert Kline, himself a successful author of Burroughs pastiches such as Planet of Peril, but Howard scholar Morgan Holmes has argued convincingly that it might well have been pulp author Otto Binder. The late, lamented The Cimmerian posted a fine article by Al Harron describing the history or Almuric’s composition and scholarship about its origins.

Be that as it may, Almuric is a classic adventure tale in the Burroughs tradition, but written in Howard’s muscular prose. The narrator, Esau Cairn, is cut from the same familiar cloth as many of Howard’s protagonists. Thick with muscle, a bit of a social outcast, Esau is a true Howardian hero, and provides a relatable figure for the reader to experience the alien world of Almuric.

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Midnight – When evil triumphs…

Midnight – When evil triumphs…

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“Imagine if Frodo had died during his journey and the One Ring had returned to Sauron.”

That was how it was described to me the first time I picked up the Midnight Campaign Setting book, once again from Fantasy Flight Games. A very apt description, and if it doesn’t get your d20-shaped heart pumping, nothing will.

Midnight is a world where an evil god has triumphed in his war for power, and the characters are fighting a seemingly hopeless battle against the forces of darkness. The races of Eredane, the main continent, are besieged on all sides by orcs, demons and the Night Kings.

In flavor and description, Midnight borrows heavily from Tolkien’s Middle-Earth. But where his story is that of the light of hope sparking in the midst of descending darkness, Midnight is one of the fading glimmer of hope in the midst of near-total darkness. The rulebook does quite a good job of creating this sense of doom, and strife.

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Dragonstar: More than just D&D IN SPAAAACE!!!!

Dragonstar: More than just D&D IN SPAAAACE!!!!

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dragonstar3aD&D in space. It’s an idea that has been around for a long while in the form of TSR/WotC’s Spelljammer.

However, a few years ago, Fantasy Flight Games produced an OGL supplement for a new kind of science-fantasy game. Thus was born the Dragonstar universe.

In a nutshell, the known galaxy, which theoretically includes any and all fantasy game worlds, is ruled by a council of dragons. These are the standard dragons of D&D fame, the Chromatic and Metallic breeds, and they follow the same alignment guidelines. The chromatics are generally evil, and the metallics are generally good.

Each breed takes a turn at ruling the Dragon Empire, alternating between the two factions. At the time the game is set, the Red Dragon Emperor is assuming the throne, and a dark era is descending.

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