Applied Phantasticality's 10th Anniversary

As of yesterday, 26 March 2022, Applied Phantasticality has been in existence for ten years. In its first entry (Welcome to Applied Phantasticality), I stated that it was "devoted to the 'Old School Renaissance' (or OSR) faction of the role-playing hobby." At a time when many of us were just discovering that we were not alone in our enthusiasm for past editions of role-playing games (or role-playing games that were long out of print in any edition), it was a suitable umbrella term that helped us find one another. Eventually, I discovered that the lines dividing players of different editions and different games were not as clear and immutable as I had been led to believe. When I started actively gaming again with a mixture of players ranging from total novices to those who primarily played games like Pathfinder, I discovered that they adapted to my GMing style easily and with no objections. There were no "Edition Wars" in my real life gaming circles. There was no need to define terms to describe our gaming philosophies. We just did what came naturally. We gamed as friends. We accomodated one another's interests. We enjoyed overcoming challenges and we enjoyed one another's company. It didn't matter if I was an Old School gamer and several of my players were Pathfinder or Numenara fans. We were all role-players first, and the role-playing always came first. That's still how it is. Labels inevitably become more of a hindrance than a help to understanding, which is why I no longer classify this blog as overtly Old School. It's just a blog about fantastical role-playing in a variety of genres via many different games.

Initially, Applied Phantasticality was intended to provide a "narrow focus" on early D&D and retro-clones in contrast to the more general content of my other gaming site, Fudgery.net. After I ended Fudgery.net, I decided to start several other blogs, each more narrowly devoted to a different aspect of my role-playing interests: Theoretical Swashbuckling (for all forms of swashbuckling as a genre) in January 2014, Creative Reckoning (for Fudge and Sherpa) in March 2014, Decidedly Six-Sided (for d6-centered games) in April 2015, and Savage Arts & Sciences (for Savage Worlds and/or Flash Gordon) in September 2020. Would it have been better to fold everything into Applied Phantasticality rather than maintain five separate gaming blogs? I just don't know. But I do know of two benefits to keeping them separate: 1) I can organize my thoughts better and 2) readers don't have to sift through subjects that don't interest them (I hope).

All in all, I think active role-players of every stripe are proving every day that we have more in common than not, and that's a wonderful thing.

Thank you for reading.

Game on.