Dear readers - I am around 40 posts shy of reaching the 2000th post at this blog.
The celebrations can wait until the finishing line is reached, though I have a vague plan to write a post a day for 30 days once I reach the 1970 mark. For the time being, I thought I might enlist your help in a GREAT TASK of INTERNATIONAL IMPORTANCE.
Once the 2000 mark is reached I would like to release a book featuring the best 200 posts on the blog. I might even go crazy and release two versions, one containing the best 200, and one containing the whole thing.
This will be done POD, not via a Kickstarter.
I know that there are many, many thousands of people - possibly millions - who carefully pore over every word I have written here, commit it all to heart, and are able to recite entire posts from memory to impress people at parties. If there are any posts that you really, really liked or think ought really to be included, then please say so in the comments. I will be downloading the whole thing and reading through to make my selection, but it would be good to have my attention directed to any 'greatest hits' in particular that you would like included.
Personally, I’m still getting a lot of mileage out of “ants, spiders and bees” and “you can’t teach philosophy as opposed to showing philosophical thinking in action posts”. I hope they make the cut.
ReplyDeleteThanks! I think so.
DeleteI like these ones:
ReplyDelete- "Campaign Settings: Noble and Debased" (https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2023/06/campaign-settings-noble-and-debased.html). I very much like the phrase "[...] being a writer is among the most noble of human activities and that its nobility lies in its capacity to give other people the ability to imagine things that they could not themselves imagine".
- The Phenomenology of the Longing for Adventure: Belle (Reprise) and the Aesthetic of Rogueishness (https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-phenomenology-of-longing-for.html). I like the idea that "[...] in overemphasising this aesthetic, let's call it, of rogueishness, the feeling of wanderlust - of playing an RPG as a kind of vicarious exploration of the 'Great Wide Somewhere' - has I think been undersold by what movers and shakers remain in the OSR and its penumbra."
- Thoughts on the City-State of the Invincible Overlord (Revised) and the Low Regard for Human Capacities (https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2021/05/thoughts-on-city-state-of-invincible.html). The first paragraphs about the loss of our capabilities to read and even concentrate strike hard.
- Momentum Has a Quality All of Its Own (https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2021/05/momentum-has-quality-all-of-its-own.html). In which you give the secret to triumph in any field: "They say that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration; I think that roughly 99% of perspiration derives from the sheer momentum that comes from bloody-mindedly doing something repetitively and consistently over the course of weeks, months, years [...]"
- We Need Long Campaigns (https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2020/10/we-need-long-campaigns.html). Another vote for concentration and commitment: "We need to sit down with the same group of people on a regular basis over the course of years, telling the kind of stories which require concentration and thought and, above all, loyalty [...]"
- Charming Anachronism and the Historical Future Campaign (https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2020/07/charming-anachronism-and-historical.html). The idea of futures seen from the past: "A Demon Princes campaign would, in other words, be a historical future one - it is the far future as envisioned in the late 1960s."
I have a list of great blog entries with URL, to revisit now and then. These are the ones I've saved from your blog in the last five years.
Thanks mate. I really appreciate this comment - it warms the cockles of my heart.
Deletehttps://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2014/07/in-loving-memory-of-name.html
ReplyDeleteThat's almost 10 years ago.... crikey.
DeleteGoing over my blog, I linked to the following at some point. Which hopefully means they stuck in my memory for some good reason.
ReplyDeleteThose annotated with a star are ones I consider those that stand out.
*http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2023/02/against-tv.html
*http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2021/09/on-artpunk.html
*http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2021/10/magicpunk.html
*https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-seaside-town-that-they-forgot-to.html
https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2019/03/rustic-fantasy-with-hey-nonny-no.html
https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2019/02/revisiting-40k-warhammer-is.html
http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2020/02/alignment-embodiments.html
*https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2016/02/fantasy-aztecs-in-future-or-scorpion.html
https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2023/03/analysis-of-causes-of-pc-death-in-osr.html
http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/the-fantasy-rpg-in-group-and-out-group.html
https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-phenomenology-of-death-in-d.html
https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2021/10/on-emphyrio-and-vances-libertarianism.html
https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2021/08/new-release-fixed-world-volume-i-dawn.html
https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2019/09/occidental-fantasy-gaming-ofg-case-of.html
http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2023/01/on-great-chimpanzees-in-cambridge-divide.html
http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2022/01/list-of-party-assets.html
https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/search/label/there%20is%20therefore%20a%20strange%20land
http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2016/09/exploring-mind-of-crocodile.html
http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2016/05/port-keizerin-elisabeth-hireling-table.html
http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2022/05/so-what-is-behind-gently-smiling-jaws.html
https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2022/01/now-accepting-submissions-volume-1-in.html
http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-three-mile-tree-campaign-update-1.html
[Shouldn't really put any stars on this, but it is dear to me...]* http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2021/08/review-punth-primer.html
++++
Others I happened to recall:
https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2015/01/faerie-knights.html
https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2016/06/john-malkovich-as-widow-twankey.html
https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2019/08/monsters-and-manuals-1500th-anniversary.html
This is why this exercise is valuable. I couldn't remember even half of those.
DeleteOffhand, these are some posts I've appreciated:
ReplyDeletehttps://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2023/04/against-being-rules-lite-and-what.html
I think this represents a more nuanced perspective while maintaining your overall preference for maximalism, skepticism of shallowness in "lite" stuff, and stance that too many systems are being released instead of settings. Might be a nice foil for a collection of posts that'll be gloriously philosophical or have vibrant setting detail!
Thanks! Too many systems instead of settings - exactly my sentiments.
DeleteAs a newer reader I'm very interested in picking up the book(s), but can't make a recommendation because of my short time here.
ReplyDeleteThanks - it's nice to know there are new readers!
Deletehttps://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2008/10/rod-of-seven-parts-and-quintessential.html
ReplyDeleteI still think about this one from time to time. Sixteen years down the road you could run the quintessential OSR campaign using the best settings of the past 20 years.
Yeah, that would be cool. The question then becomes, which settings.
DeleteYoon-Suin
DeleteDolemwood
The Hill Cantons
Fomalhaut
Hyperborea
The Veins of the Earth
Not sure about the last one... maybe a TSR setting with a contemporary sandbox mini region dropped in? Or a megadungeon (really a setting in itself). Or the Anomalous Subsurface Environment setting? Or Raggi's wierdo 16th Europe?
Alternatively, wait for The Great North to come out and we could imagine the Quintessential Noisms Campaign: a quest for the Seven Parts across Eshnunna, The Great North, two Fixed World Regions, and three Yoon-Suin regions.
Well, I should probably come up with a sufficient number of settings to do it!
DeleteThe OSR as D&D Stuckists
ReplyDeleteRPGs and Storytelling Against the Nihilism of the Digital
I was pleased with the second of those.
DeleteI haven't been here long, but I must say I found this one really thought provoking:
ReplyDeletehttps://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2023/06/on-thinness-of-fantasy-thinking.html?m=1
Thanks, Jacob.
DeleteMan, this is a tough one! I suppose the posts where I -as an anonymous commenter- I engage you in intense Socratic questioning that strains your intellect to almost breaking, only then for you to stumble into flashes of brilliant insights you could never have achieved cloistered and alone, are the best ones. They should be easy to find. Joking aside, to me this blog is much greater than the sum of its parts, just like I remember all my best teachers I'm hard pressed to remember their best classes. Your ability as a teacher shines through this joint and I've learned a ton a great stuff here. You've expressed a willingness to bag this whole place up which I'm here for. Might I suggest a perhaps quixotic quest of organizing them by subject/project? The yellow city, Tolkien/Morcock, hiking/nature, etc. Anyway, just a thought. Thanks for doing this and thanks for teaching me a lot of cool stuff for gaming and life.
ReplyDeleteYou've made me blush now. Thanks.
DeleteCongrats on hitting 2K; I doubt I could even find 20 posts on MY blog worth publishing, let alone 200.
ReplyDeletei dont agree man, hahah. Your blog rocks
DeleteKind of you to say.
DeleteI'm with Anonymous in wanting hiking/nature, your posts about looking at the countryside and thinking about hex scale were huge for me. I also agree that part of what makes a blog interesting versus a book of essays is the way that ideas will expand in the comments and reflect the zeitgeist and the evolution of your thinking at a particular moment in time. Maybe for every 99 posts we remember, you pick one that stood out to you as an example of the benefits of not being cloistered and alone.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the thing about comments is important, but I'm not sure about the legality or ethics of republishing people's comments. Some threads are great.
DeleteI dont know your blog as much as to say entries, but the idea is very good and if you publish it I will probably pick one.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jack! I'll do my best.
DeleteI've only been reading your blog for the past couple of years, so dunno how useful this is, but heres the links I've saved as I wanted to be able to find them again later (admittedly most seem to be from the past few months):
ReplyDeletehttps://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2023/12/seven-deadly-sinful-alignments.html
https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2011/08/forge-some-monsters-you-do-it-now.html
https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2023/12/syncretic-d-or-shoe-that-does-not-drop.html
https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-clan-of-cain-ogres-elves-evil.html
https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2023/11/ground-up-campaign-setting-building-or.html
https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2023/11/rpgs-and-storytelling-against-nihilism.html
https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-time-travel-dungeon-and-competition.html
https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2023/10/elves-verbs-dwarfs-nouns-orcs-adjectives.html
https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2023/08/on-characteristics-of-demihuman-empires.html
https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2024/01/implied-magic-no-magic-low-magic-fake.html
https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2023/12/best-books-of-2023.html
https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2023/10/community-project-fantasy-inspiration.html
https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2023/04/against-being-rules-lite-and-what.html
Will look forwards to the collection!
Thanks mate! Glad that my recent output seems to be popular.
Delete