A Word From Our Sponsor

So; that’s the very long role-playing essay. Come back in six months and maybe we’ll do the second very long roleplaying essay, tentatively entitled Aslan #16: The Return.

Thank you to everyone who said nice things; and thank you to everyone who isn’t interested in RPGs for putting up with it.

So: what next?

I am likely to remain furloughed for at least another month and while there are an awful lot of superhero films on Netfux and an awful lot of Shakespeare plays on YouTube that still gives me quite a lot of time to write. I haz a lovely big new shiny computer and everything. 

 

Starting this week, there are going to be three different streams of Rilstonian Material for you to enjoy; and (you knew we were coming to this) new ways of supporting them.

THIS BLOG

I am going to start releasing the final sections of my ridiculously long and frankly rather hubristic walk-through the Gospel According to Saint Mark. We left Jesus shortly after Palm Sunday, so we’re coming to the hardest and most famous section of the story. The End Times. Judas. The Naked Fugitive. Son-of-His-Daddy. Mary "Who'd She?" Magdalene. The False Ending. Maybe even a word or two about the very mysterious lost chapter. There are probably about ten essays to come, of different lengths, and the whole thing should morph into a book almost immediately. I know some people find this kind of thing more interesting than others, so bare with me. 

PATREON PAGE: 

Once I've finished with the Bible (as it were!) I've got a ton of other material ready to roll out or in progress. So I am going to give my lovely, lovely Patreon followers early access to it. There should be one Patreons-only essay a week for the Foreseeable future: political comedy, Mr A, and Bob Dylan to start with.

To get access to this stuff you just need to sign up to Patreon for less than thirty altarian dollars a day. One English pound a month, actually. (You just have to pledge an amount of your choosing each time I publish an essay. Most people give $1 an essay.)

If you don’t want to join Patreon, then just sit tight; all this stuff will eventually show up on the blog. But if you like what I am doing then Patreon is kind of like standing on your doorstep and giving me a round of applause. Only with less moral pressure and political sub-text. 

ARTS/VIRUS BLOG

I started my Going Out In Bristol Blog at more or less exact moment that Going Out stopped being a thing that people could do. I am keeping it going for ad-hoc, off the top of my head kinds of reviews and comments: the sort of thing where I say “It was a nice movie, I liked it” rather than do a 4,000 word commentary of the opening credits. (Patreons are not charged for this, but people who make use of the tip jar create Happy Bloggers.) 

Ongoing series here; early access to miscellaneous pop culture stuff on Patreon Page; random arty stuff on arts page. Simples. 

Arts Diary

Patreon

Main Blog

Here is a story:

Is there such a thing as an RPG aesthetic? 

I now have to own up to a guilty secret.  I don't like comic books all that much. 

Has my entire life been a process of playing catch-up?

We used to go on holiday to Brighton, in the years before the oceans drank the West Pier.

I liked pirates before Pirates of the Caribbean made them briefly fashionable. 

I have a dream. Literally, I mean.

I have a dream.

Of course, we also read books.

I went to a Games Convention: it may have been Dragonmeet or Games Day. 

Andrew: you have just talked for ten pages about rules and mechanics...

Chivalry and Sorcery can go on the pile next to Traveller.  I read it fifty times but I never actually played the thing. 

The second game we played was called Melee. 

A First Level Dungeons and Dragons Magic User had, and for all I know still has, four hit points. 

I kind of remember the first time I was a Dungeon Master. 

A long time ago I wrote an article called All The Boys Are Marching Out of Step Except My Johnny¹.

Thank you again...

....for all the lovely feedback about the RPG essay. If you have the time or the inclination, do please tell your NPCs and plug it on soshal meejah. 

A bit of background...

I have told this story before: too often. You have heard it before: it is not always about me. 

I wake up too late but still tired.