Chimerical Realm

This blog leans pretty heavy on the nostalgia. I'd call it an "old school" blog, but it's been aggressively pointed out to me that none of the games I dig are "old school," most emphatically Vampire . In any case, it doesn't matter. Most of the games that I'm passionate about are the games from my youth-- Vampire , yes, but also AD&D, West End Games version of Star Wars , Call of Cthulhu , etc. Maybe it's just a generic nostalgia for that time in my life, or maybe it's because these are the games that set my standards for what gaming SHOULD be. In order to draw even more ire from the "storytelling games suck" crowd, in  Forge  terms, I'm a Simulationist . I like my rules and mechanics to do a decent job reflecting the reality of the genre they're trying to emulate (fantasy adventurer, horror, etc.), and they get the heck out of the way. The "story" for me is what happens when the troupe (players and GM) int...

The Kickstarter campaign for Rifts for Savage Worlds has launched.  Since Requiem has completely turned me off Vampire for a while, my thoughts turn to this other odd love of mine. Like many, certain parts of the game always bugged me. One of the big ones is the economy of the damn setting. For example, I just don't see how Triax can afford to manufacturer and sell a suit of power armor in North America, and get 100 million credits for it. NO ONE has 100 Million Credits. Even for the CS, that's a term used for accounting in national budgets, not something available in hard currency. In fact, I don't buy much of the "mass manufacturing for credit" economy. Instead, land and people are the key to wealth, and most equipment is custom made by skilled artisans. Yes, even Power Armor. Now, from a macro-economic view, this is incredibly wasteful in time, labor, and material; but the economy of Rifts Earth doesn't really work well on the macro scale. So, ...