someday you'll teach me to understand it, too

I've been running this blog for quite a while and while I would never claim to be knowledgeable of the entire variety of RPGs out there I do consider myself more knowledgeable than the median RPG enthusiast. Now, a lot of people who end up commenting on my posts have very narrow experiences with RPGs as a medium, sometimes having literally only ever played D&D and maybe another game. And when communicating with my audience I often find myself in a situation like. Oh hell, this person thinks that D&D is the default RPG, the template on which all RPGs are based on, and the concept I am trying to explain simply does not make sense to them because they think D&D is the default.

So in the very first post I made about gleeblor it acted as a shorthand for "RPG fact that is self-evident to me but sounds bizarre to someone with a narrow experience with RPGs" and for the alienation I felt with my audience having to explain the fact that. Not all RPGs are D&D. Literally, I described it as feeling like I was an alien explaining a concept that made no sense to humans.

Anyway, things that have been gleeblor to people in my notes:

The idea that an RPG does not necessarily need to have Encounters (this is what started it all and. The incredulity people expressed at the idea that things could even happen in a game if it didn't have Encounters.)

The fact that there are textually queer RPGs out there besides just Thirsty Sword Lesbians

That a game supporting romance is not just a table issue but can in fact be a factor in the actual rules and structure of a game

The idea of the GM not having sole ownership of the fictional world

The idea of not having a GM at all

Really any play stance aside from actor stance

Games with modes of engagement besides challenge

Like. I’ve always sorta understood that things grow moldy or stale or sour or such if left out, but I never really internalized it in a meaningful way.

But now I’m just like.

Yeah. The hungering dust. There exists omnivorous dust in the air that will eat my food if I don’t.

Those bagels have been sitting there for a week. Are we going to eat them soon or are we leaving them for the hungering dust?

Pizza’s been sitting out on the counter for an hour. Everyone’s enjoying the pizza, but if we don’t want “everyone” to include the hungering dust then we should probably put it away soon.

That’s just. That’s how food works to me now. There exists an invisible predator in the air that hungers for your yummies, and it will not hesitate to eat your food if you don’t make the effort to protect and preserve it. And eat what can’t be preserved before the dust can.

“go bad”, it just gets eaten

by something else first

I'm saying maybe you're not icky, you're just a badger, and you don't wanna buddy up with a badger like you. Maybe you're looking for your coyote. And that coyote? They're not hooking up with coyotes.

So like. Appreciate what you have, I guess. And kill a large prey animal some time

I have been fighting off the winter demons + extra work stress + private fandom stress and my creativity has been in the gutter so instead of making myself miserable staring at my writing WIPs and my zine responsibilities, I spent today doing the most recent James Julier tutorial instead because I knew at the end of it all, I'd have a finished piece and the sense of achievement could potentially help battle the demons so