Not the Russian for "Handheld Anti-tank Grenade-launcher"

Hint: the clue is, "What does RPG stand for?"

Remember how I expended utterly otakuppoi—otakurashii, even—amounts of thought on the concept of tsundere? Well now I'm gonna do the same for RPGs.

• I may well be alone in this, but I prefer the first version of the 2nd Edition rulebooks for D&D more than any other version. I mainly like the look of it, the '80s fantasy Larry Elmore/Willow/Labyrinth/Legend/Clyde Caldwell aesthetic; there's a psychological atmosphere there that you also get from hair band and laundromats. It's one of the main things that attracts me to Dragonlance—I can only read the original editions of the Chronicles trilogy, I know, it's weird.


• The other thing I like better about 2nd Edition was what's known as the "fluff". The rules' tone hits a good balance between hardcore and non-threatening: the rules are explained gently, without Gygax's recourse to what Buckley called the Zoo section of the dictionary, yet at the same time there's no attempt to hide the fact this is a game for geeks—and "he" is a generic pronoun, which made my linguist heart happy. Sure, they changed demons and devils to tanar'ri and baatezu, but since they're emphatically not fallen angels and never were, it's all for the best, politically correct or no. Plus, 2nd Ed. had the best settings: they made Forgotten Realms the default instead of Greyhawk, which I like, and they had Spelljammer, Planescape, and Dark Sun, each a work of art in three very different ways.


• Still, 3rd Edition has a better rules system, nobody can deny that. It brought D&D out of the stone age by making it skill-based, and made it actually worthwhile to play clerics and druids—perhaps too worthwhile.


• Though D&D was my first love (well, no, Tolkien was, but as an RPG I mean, and we're not even getting into the LotR RPG from Iron Crown Enterprises, which sucked out loud), I admit to preferring games with a single mechanic, like Vampire and Alternity. I especially like Alternity because it's so light on setting, meaning you come up with your own; I have a (currently dormant) campaign set in my SF novels' universe, with homebrew psionics rules.


• Vampire—and Werewolf, which is vastly underrated—were the first games I played with non-relatives, and they're very solid, except for, well, the setting. Vampire's actually has some work in it, it's a serviceable world to play in if you don't mind Gnosticism As Understood By Tenth Graders being the only valid holy text, but the backstory of Werewolf is garbage, garbage undiluted. Also, there's not enough love for Shadow Lords, who are plainly the best tribe. For Vampires it's gotta be Malkaves and Tremere. I wish I'd known then what I know now about anxiety disorders, because I didn't really know how to pin down my Malkavian's insanity; he was mostly just "too nice to the point of Williams syndrome".


• All that I will say about 4th Edition D&D is, there is a D&D4E "For Dummies" book at Barnes & Noble. A needless redundancy! More seriously, I really do feel that each edition after 2 has jettisoned more of what made D&D unique, becoming closer to a generic fantasy game, as Alternity is essentially a generic SF game. It used to be as unique a fantasy game as Gamma World was unique among SF games. I think something inside of me died a little when they took Bigby, Tasha, and Mordenkainen's names out of the spell-lists.


• On the other hand, my trouble with the revised WoD is much simpler: did you guys actually try to make the World of Darkness Darker And Edgier?!


• Go read some Dragon Magazines from the late 80s and early 90s, when Roger E. Moore (he played Tasslehoff Burrfoot, not James Bond) was the editor. Now read the MST3K Amazing Colossal Episode Guide. Similar vibe, huh? Apparently geek-related groups in the upper Midwest are all awesome.


• Mention of Tas reminds me, kender cannot possibly be immune to fear; they must just have some kind of weird compulsion that suppresses all their flight response and inhibitions when they're near something they're curious about. See, if they were immune to fear they'd all be sociopaths who can't be tickled. I still like them better than D&D's halflings—hobbits with the serial numbers filed off—though I make an exception for Olive Ruskettle. Don't get me started on Athasian halflings, though, or how each edition after 2nd has been blending halfling and kender more than the previous one.