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Daily Illuminator: The Reality Of Tariffs In Tabletop Gaming

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Over the next few weeks and months, you'll see social media posts discussing how companies cannot offer holiday bonuses or will have to cut employees due to Trump's tariffs (proposed or enacted).

Some of these stories may be fiction or cautionary tales that illustrate the price the average American pays for a politician's decision.

But I can 100% tell you this is a reality many business owners in the manufacturing sector now face.

If you aren't aware of how tariffs work, it's relatively simple. The company importing the goods from a foreign country pays the fee. If a company has to pay 20%, 60%, or 200% more to bring that item into the United States, who ultimately bears that cost? The American people.

Over the last few days, I have been talking at length with my factory representatives, figuring out how much of an item I need to order now to offset any expanded costs later. In addition, we are looking at where we can move manufacturing to outside of China (hard mode, not a lot of places outside of China or Europe produce boardgame components at the scale our industry uses).

I've been speaking with my shipping representatives about the increasing freight costs we expect to see with a rise in tariffs. We're already paying extreme freight prices, which will only go up as demand increases. The last time tariffs were levied on Chinese manufactured goods, freight costs went up.

Now I am in a position that forces me to examine how much we may need to raise prices if the most extreme of the proposed tariffs goes into effect.

I'm also trying to do right by my staff. But I can only do so much, you know? How long can business owners incur these costs, protect our staff, and not have consumers pay through the nose? Can I accept breaking even for the time being to keep my people employed and our games affordable? But what happens when the company starts losing money?

Many CEOs and business owners are staring down this reality right now. This isn't just a theoretical exercise. We have to plan for the worst.

So, what do I plan to do about this? I will be even more present in my local and state business associations that have direct links to policy makers in D.C. I will take every opportunity to speak directly to those who have a say in this new administration about why this isn't good for the economy. I'm just a tiny player in the world of manufacturing. But I do know the power of my voice. And more importantly, I know the power your voice holds as well.

You can start putting pressure on your elected (or newly elected) officials by writing, calling, or contacting them through their open channels (many of them love social media). Tell them you do not want these proposed tariffs, and let them know how these cost increases will impact you. Hold them to their promises. Make your voice heard. 

We are all in this together. 

-- Meredith Placko


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timmymac
9 days ago
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The Internet is Shrinking

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The Internet is Shrinking

The internet used to be limitless, open to anyone with an idea. Now, it’s a polished prison run by tech giants. Is this the future we signed up for? Here’s how Big Tech quietly turned freedom into captivity.


Remember when the internet felt infinite? When every click could lead to something wild, wonderful, and new? Those days are dying.

Today's internet is a cage. Sure, it's bigger than ever - but we're trapped in digital zoos built by tech giants. Google. Facebook. Amazon. Apple. Microsoft. They've carved up the web into their private empires, each one a glossy prison of convenience.

The untamed digital frontier where anyone could build the next big thing is all but gone. Instead, we shuffle between prescribed platforms, our choices funneled through corporate filters, our creativity confined to pre-approved templates. We traded freedom for comfort, exploration for ease-of-use.

This isn't just nostalgia talking. It's about power. While we scroll through sanitized feeds and click through curated content, a handful of companies are quietly reshaping humanity's digital destiny. The real question is: are we okay with letting them?​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

The Rise of Walled Gardens

Think about your last hour online. Odds are you bounced between platforms controlled by Google, TikTok, Amazon, and Microsoft like a pinball in their proprietary machine. These five tech behemoths now swallow up 43% of all web traffic - nearly half the internet's pulse flowing through their servers. A decade ago? They only controlled 17%. This isn't just market dominance. It's an empire-building speedrun, with your attention as the prize.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

As these companies have grown (and grown, and grown) they’ve actively encouraged users to remain within their digital walls, creating “sticky” ecosystems where everything a user needs—social connections, shopping, content—is available without ever leaving.

Software engineer André Staltz points out,

“People are increasingly moving from the open web into closed apps and services like Facebook, Google, and Amazon.”

And closed is exactly the right word.

It’s been a gradual digital migration: users are leaving the open, uncharted internet for highly managed, algorithmically optimized experiences.

(gag) Meta now provides a closed-but-connected platform not just for social networking but also for news, shopping, and even online dating. Amazon, starting as an online retailer, has evolved into an ecosystem where consumers can access streaming services, smart home management, cloud hosting and even medical consultations. These walled gardens have become destinations where users find comfort, convenience, and familiarity, but at a massive cost - the broader web’s diversity and openness.

The Decline of the Open Web

The open web has shrunk. It’s grown smaller and smaller.

In 2012, the open web still mattered, with only 31% of all web traffic directed toward the top 1 million sites. But by 2022, that number had risen to 57%, a figure that indicates a significant narrowing of our internet experiences. Fewer individuals and companies than ever invest in building independent websites or exploring beyond major platforms.

Staltz notes,

“The web is dying. Most of the top 1 million sites are run by a handful of companies.”

What Staltz and others are observing is a rapid concentration of power and influence, where a few companies dominate the majority of our online activity, limiting the broader ecosystem’s vitality. This trend doesn’t only affect users’ browsing habits; it impacts the core fabric of what the internet was designed to be. The web was intended to be an open, universally accessible platform that empowered users, innovators, and creators alike. And as it becomes more closed and controlled, the essence of the web as an expansive space of ideas and perspectives is fading away.

For the average internet user, the implications of this decline are more than theoretical. As platforms like Facebook and Google become the primary gateways to information, users unknowingly limit their worldview to what these platforms choose to prioritize, driven by algorithms focused on engagement over comprehensiveness.

Independent sites (cough, Westenberg, cough) who don’t have the resources to compete with major platforms in visibility and search rankings, lose traffic and, consequently, viability. As a result, entire categories of information and smaller communities become less accessible, hidden behind the algorithms of the dominant, bloated tech giants.

Implications for Innovation and Competition

And that’s the crux of it, isn’t it?

Competing with massive, data-rich platforms like Google and (gag) Meta is nearly impossible for smaller players who lack the financial resources to capture users’ attention and keep them engaged. As a result, innovation—the lifeblood of the early internet—faces a steady constriction.

Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, warned:

“The web was supposed to be an open platform that anybody could build on. But over time, it’s become controlled by a few big companies.”

His vision of an open platform was one where anyone, regardless of background or resources, could contribute to the web’s growth. In the current landscape, startups face higher barriers to entry, forced to rely on platforms they do not control, often with prohibitive costs or restrictions.

While walled gardens offer these smaller players a route to reach users, they also trap them in ecosystems where the terms of engagement are set by giant fucking corporations, limiting the freedom to innovate independently.

This concentrated power not only dampens creativity it clamps down on consumer choice. With fewer players in the market, users have less variety in services and products. Major platforms dictate what features are available, which content is promoted, and even how users interact with one another. They control every aspect of our speech.

The result is a standardized internet experience across these platforms, decimating the richness that once characterized the open web. Consumers may believe they are choosing freely within these ecosystems, but in reality, they are selecting from a narrow range of options preordained by the platform.

The Future of the Internet

The trajectory of the internet under walled gardens should make it obvious that we’re heading toward a future where the internet is entirely closed, where proprietary platforms dominate everything. That future would make the early internet dreamers bow their heads in shame. In this steadily approaching version of the internet, the diversity of content, viewpoints, and creators will be subjugated to the homogeneity of a handful of corporations, and the idea of an open, user-controlled internet will be nothing more than a memory.

Chris Dixon, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz (I know, I know), aptly described the shift:

“The web is being consumed by apps that use the internet for transport but not the browser for display.”

This trend underscores a shift from the open web, where websites were freely accessible via browsers, to an app-driven internet where access is controlled by platform owners. The platform mafia are creating closed circuits of information and interaction, limiting the use of the broader web. Users now interact with digital content through controlled environments that desperately want to look like open canvases but, in reality, are tightly regulated.

If this shit is left unchecked, the consolidation of internet power into the hands of a few companies will fundamentally reshape who we are online.

As Vint Cerf, often called one of the “fathers of the Internet,” warned,

“Walled gardens may seem attractive, but we must remember that walls are also used to keep people in, as well as out.”

Cerf’s words touch on the critical paradox of walled gardens: yes, they offer an immediate sense of security and convenience, but they also actively and poisonously fuck with our freedom and eradicate our spirit of exploration, trapping us in a limited, sterile, segregated version of the internet.

The fundamental values of openness, innovation, and user empowerment that made the web revolutionary are under threat.

Existential, deliberate threat.

As more of our digital interactions are funnelled through these walled gardens, we are creating an internet that is constrained, predictable, and monolithic.

Silicon Valley's chokehold isn't just reshaping our habits - it's gutting the internet's soul. The web was born as digital democracy: raw, open, infinite. A universe where anyone could build, create, and connect without permission.

Now we're all just tenants in Big Tech's digital dystopia. Every click, every creation, every conversation flows through their pipes. They're not just controlling traffic - they're rewriting the internet's DNA, turning a wild frontier of human potential into a corporate shopping mall.

This isn't evolution. It's extinction - the death of the free web by a thousand convenient clicks.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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timmymac
10 days ago
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And Yet It Moves

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During COVID, I walked a lot. As a consequence, I started listening to more podcasts. Since then the walking has dropped off dramatically, as my wife would tell you. The habit of listening to history podcasts has stuck. I’ve been binge-listening to two of my favorites recently, The Rest is History and Fall of Civilizations, and I couldn’t help but notice that for most of history everything usually sucked.

Wars! Banditry! Plagues! Famine! Nothing resembling justice! Oppression! Frequent cruelty and death! Brutality as the unquestioned norm! Great civilizations collapsing from without and within! Unfairness! History is fascinating but as a lifestyle it had very little to recommend it until quite recently. Things have only gotten better in fits and starts for a tiny slice of the time we’ve been recognizably human. It got a little better with the Renaissance, a little better with the Enlightenment, and in many ways somewhat better over the last century. Many things still suck, but there are fewer of them, and they suck a little less.

Modernity has spoiled us in thinking things won’t get dramatically and catastrophically worse, worse in a way that will last for generations. But things have gotten abruptly much worse before, and they can again. And yet people must persevere, even if their children and grandchildren who will see the benefits and not them.

Trump won yesterday, as I feared he would. I firmly believe America — and likely the world — will get significantly worse for at least a generation, probably more. I’ll spare you, for now, the why. Frankly, I think you either already accept it or will never accept it. The things I care about, like the rule of law and equality before it, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, free trade in service of free people, relative prosperity, protection of the weak from the strong, truth, and human dignity are all going to suffer. Bullies and their sycophants and apologists will thrive.

What should we do?

I have a few thoughts.

Ask Yourself if You’ve Earned The Right To Wallow: I’m a middle-aged, comfortable, straight white guy. I’m not going to take the brunt of what happens. So I have decided not to wallow or give in to hopelessness. I haven’t fucking earned it. Americans far less fortunate than I fought greater and even more entrenched injustice. Civil rights protestors, anti-war protestors, African-Americans, women, gays and lesbians, Jews and Jehovah’s Witnesses, all sorts of people have bravely faced death and penury and injustice without giving up and without the protections I enjoy. What right do I have to give up? None. Maybe you’re different. You may not be as fortunate. I’m not judging you. I’m only judging myself and inviting you to ask the question. Be patient and merciful with people less able to fight.

Reconsider Any Belief In Innate American Goodness: Are Americans inherently good, freedom-loving, devoted to free speech and free worship, committed to all people being created equal? That’s our founding myth, and isn’t it pretty to think so? But a glance at history shows it’s not true. Bodies in graves and jails across America disprove it. We’re freedom-loving when times are easy, devoted to speech and worship we like with lip service to the rest, and divided about our differences since our inception. That doesn’t make us worse than any other nation. It’s all very human. But faith in the inherent goodness of Americans has failed us. Too many people saw it as a self-evident truth that the despicable rhetoric and policy of Trump and his acolytes was un-American. But to win elections you still have to talk people out of evil things. You can’t just trust them to reject evil. You must persuade. You must work. You have to keep making the same arguments about the same values over and over again, defend the same ground every time. Sometimes, when people are afraid or suffering and more vulnerable to lies, it’s very hard. Trump came wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross (upside down, but still) and too many people assumed their fellow Americans would see how hollow that was. That assumption was fatal.

Start Out Making a Small Difference: A country that votes for Trump is broken in very complicated and daunting ways. Harris could have won in a landslide and 45% of the people voting for Trump would still have reflected a country broken in terrible ways. Moreover, any road out is long and rocky and painful. A Trumpist GOP has control of the entire government, the judiciary is dominated by judges who are Trumpist or willing to yield to Trumpism if it gets rid of Chevron deference, and state and local politics are increasingly dominated by extremists. The GOP is doing everything it can to rig the game to make it harder to vote our way out, and after four more years a stuffed judiciary will be even less inclined to stop them. The struggle to fight back is generational, not simple.

But nobody’s telling you that you have to fix everything. You can fix something. In Schindler’s List, Stern tells Schindler “whoever saves one life saves the world entire.” So save the world that way — one fellow American at a time. You can’t stand up alone against all the Trumpist bullies in America, but maybe you can stand up to a few local ones in defense of a neighbor. You can’t save everyone from mass deportation but maybe you can help one family. You can’t save all trans people from the terrible, cynical jihad against them, but you might be able to support one trans person. Start small. Make a difference for just one person. Use the gifts you have. Use your voice.

Believe Unapologetically: Nobody likes to lose. So when your side loses an election, there’s huge social and psychological pressure to change your stance, to moderate what you believe so you don’t feel like a loser. Don’t do it. Things are worth believing and fighting for. Did you ever see a Trumpist moderate or express doubt? No. Trump spewed loathsome bigotry and lies and ignorance and promoted terrible and cruel policies, many of which he may actually implement. The fact he won big doesn’t mean you were wrong to oppose those things and condemn them. Nor does it mean that you can’t win an election in the future by opposing those things and condemning them. Even if it did mean that — even if America as a country has gone so irretrievably wretched that ignorance and bigotry are essential to electability now — then it would be time for something new and different rather than the Republic we have now.

Trump won; opposition to Trump lost. People will want you to abandon your believes because of that. They want you to bend the knee. Screw them. Evil has won before and will win again, and it’s not an excuse to shrug and go with the flow. It’s going to get harder to stand up for decent values. You will face scorn, official suppression, even violence. That’s not enough reason to stop.

Not only is abandoning your values weak, it’s credulous. The Trumpist narrative will be that the electorate soundly rejected anti-Trump values. But did they? How much of the electorate acted from indifference, indifference that will be swayed the other way some day by different economic or cultural factors? Consume skeptically the “this shows you must abandon these goals” narratives.

Fuck Civility: Do you need to be screaming and waving your middle finger in the face of Trump voters? Only if you want to. Live your best life. But please don’t be conned by the cult of civility and discourse, the “now is the time to come together” folks. You are under no obligation to like, respect, or associate with people who countenance this. We’ve all heard that we shouldn’t let politics interfere with friendships. But do people really mean that, sincerely? Do people really think you shouldn’t cut ties with, say, someone who votes for an overt neo-Nazi, or an overt “overthrow the system and nationalize all assets” tankie? I don’t buy it. I think everyone has their own line about where support of — or subservience to — a doctrine is too contemptible to let a civil relationship survive. For most of my life no major party candidate was over that line for me. I have trusted, liked, and respected people who have voted the other way for decades. But whatever my feelings about Trump in 2016 or 2020, Trump in 2024 is definitely over my line.

Furthermore, no civility code or norm of discourse is worth being a dupe. Trump and his adherents absolutely don’t respect or support your right to oppose him. They have contempt for your disagreement. They despise your vote. They don’t think it’s legitimate. The people who voted for him, at a minimum, don’t see that as a deal-breaker. So Trump voters, to the extent they fault you for judging them, have a double standard you need not respect. Part of the way Trumpists win is when you announce “ah well, voting for Trumpists is just a normal difference of opinion, we all share the same basic American values,” while the Trumpists are saying “everyone who disagrees with us is cuck scum, they’re the enemy within.” Stop that nonsense.

I am invited to break bread with people who think my children, by virtue of being born elsewhere, poison the blood of America — or at least with people who think it’s no big deal for someone to say so. I decline. I decline even to pretend to accept or respect the suggestion that I should.

Don’t Let Regression Trick You Into Abandoning Progress: I know what Christ calls me to do — to turn the other cheek and love the Trumpists. I am not equal to the task, and I’m at peace with that and will accept the price. However, I must advocate for a similar concept: we can’t allow Trumpism to trick us into abandoning key values like due process of law, freedom of expression, and freedom of religion, just because they scorn them.

It would be tempting to throw up our hands and give up on those values. They have proven wholly inadequate to counter Trumpism and to protect themselves. Trump is a rampant criminal who will escape consequences because the system failed us. It remains to be seen if the system will protect us as he and his followers seek to use it to retaliate against their enemies. Maybe the Federalist Society can have a Chick-Fil-A sack lunch to talk about it. What good is freedom of speech if it elects someone whose overt agenda is to limit freedom of speech? What good is freedom of religion if it least to the triumph of foul Christian nationalism? What good is due process if it protects the rich and suppresses the poor?

The answer is not comforting: nobody promised you a featherbed. The promise has never been that due process and freedom will always prevail. The argument has never been if we have them we’ll never be vulnerable to tyranny again. That’s not how it works. The argument is that they are better than the alternatives, more righteous, better to promote human dignity, less likely to be abused by the powerful against the powerless than the alternatives. The premise is that the alternatives are more dangerous. Believing in due process, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion are a form of humility: it shows we know we are fallible and should be trusted with as little power as possible.

With Trumpism ascendant, there will be huge pressure to abandon these values that weren’t enough to protect us. For instance there will be wider calls for regulation of media - even as a Trump administration may retaliate against media enemies. But don’t let Trumpists turn you into a Trumpist. The existence of Trumpists — the existence of people who would, at a minimum, shrug and accept Trump’s abuses — shows why government power should be limited.

That means supporting due process and freedom of speech and religion, even for Trumpists who do not support extending the same values to you. That’s the way it works. That’s as close as I get to turning the other cheek.

Trumpism Is Not The Only Wrong: The essence of Trumpism is the Nixon-to-Frost proposition that “if my side does it, it’s not wrong.” Trump dominates American conservatives and putative people of faith even as he rejects the values they’ve previously claimed, because they’ve decided he’s their guy. He’s famously intolerant of dissent within his camp and that’s only going to get worse.

Don’t be like Trumpists. Keep criticizing people “on your side” when they are wrong. Criticize your side on Gaza. Criticize your side on criminal justice — God knows Biden’s and Harris’ records warrant criticism. “My side, right or wrong” is not a way to live. We are all in this together, but you can’t protect values by abandoning them to appease allies.

Stay Tuned For Violence: Violence is as American as cherry pie. America was founded on, by, and through violence, and maintained by violence on several occasions. Debate is preferable. Jaw, jaw is better than war, war. But most Americans would agree with what Thomas Jefferson said about the blood of patriots and tyrants. At some point violence is morally justified and even necessary. Americans will disagree on when. But I think Trumpism brings it closer than it has been in my lifetime — certainly the prospect of defensive violence, if (when?) the Trumpists use it first. When? I don’t know. Putting more than ten million people in camps with the military and a nationalized law enforcement is a very credible candidate, though. 

Resist. Do not go gently. Do not be cowed by the result. Resist. Agitate, agitate, agitate. The values you believe in, the ones that led you to despise Trumpism, are worth fighting for whether or not we are currently winning. Ignore the people who will, from indifference or complicity or cowardice, sneer at you for holding to those values. Speak out. Every time you act to defend your fellow people, even in small ways, you defy Trumpism. In the age of Trumpism, simple decency is revolutionary. Be revolutionaries.



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timmymac
11 days ago
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Needed to read this today.
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acdha
14 days ago
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“Trump came wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross (upside down, but still) and too many people assumed their fellow Americans would see how hollow that was. That assumption was fatal.”
Washington, DC

"Enemies within": Who are the Americans Trump wants to prosecute or punish

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Donald Trump has been radically transparent in his pledge to use — and abuse — the power of the presidency to seek retribution against Americans he believes have wronged him.

Why it matters: The final weeks of the election have been consumed by Trump's bellicose vows to crush "the enemy from within" — language that critics, including some of his own former advisers, say is fascist.


  • The former president's vague, haphazard speaking style has triggered fierce debate over who specifically falls into that "enemies" group, especially after he floated using the U.S. military against "radical left lunatics."
  • He may not keep an official list, but a review of Trump's public remarks reveals a vast catalog of perceived enemies whom he has marked for imprisonment, prosecution or other punishment.

Political opponents

President Biden: Shortly after his indictment by special counsel Jack Smith last year, Trump threatened to appoint a "real" special prosecutor to "go after" Biden and his family.

Vice President Harris: At a rally in Pennsylvania in September, Trump called for his opponent in the presidential race to be "impeached and prosecuted" for the Biden administration's handling of the border.

Former President Obama: On Truth Social, Trump has reposted multiple calls for Obama to be arrested and face "military tribunals."

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi: Trump has specifically labeled Pelosi and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) "enemies from within," and called last month for Pelosi and her husband to be prosecuted for alleged insider trading.

Former Rep. Liz Cheney: "She should go to Jail along with the rest of the Unselect Committee!" Trump posted in May, referring to Cheney's "treasonous" leadership of the House Jan. 6 select committee.

  • On Thursday, calling Cheney a "radical war hawk," Trump told Tucker Carlson: Let's put her with the rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let's see how she feels about it — you know, when the guns are trained on her face."

Retired Gen. Mark Milley: Trump suggested last year that the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — who has since called Trump "fascist to the core" — deserved to be executed for back-channeling with Chinese generals.

Media and Big Tech

ABC: After being repeatedly fact-checked in his September debate with Harris, Trump demanded that the Federal Communications Commission revoke ABC's broadcasting license.

CBS: Trump called for CBS to lose its license and for "60 Minutes" to be "immediately taken off the air" after accusing the program of deceptively editing an interview with Harris. He sued the network over this on Thursday.

NBC: Trump called last year for NBC parent company Comcast to be investigated for treason because of its coverage of his legal troubles. He promised that NBC would be "thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage" if he's elected.

Google: After baselessly accusing the search giant of "only revealing and displaying bad stories" about him, Trump declared on Truth Social: "I will request their prosecution, at the maximum levels, when I win the Election."

Mark Zuckerberg: In his new "Save America" coffee table book, Trump accuses the Meta CEO of meddling in the 2020 election and writes: "We are watching him closely, and if he does anything illegal this time he will spend the rest of his life in prison."

Private citizens

Election workers: As he lays the groundwork to again claim voter fraud if he loses, Trump recently delivered a wide-ranging threat to imprison "Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials" who engage in "unscrupulous behavior."

Election protesters: Trump has suggested deploying the National Guard or even the U.S. military against "radical left lunatics" who cause chaos around the election.

Pro-Palestinian protesters: Trump has told donors he will crush pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses and deport "pro-Hamas radicals," despite the fact that many protesters are U.S. citizens. He has consistently called for jail time for people who burn the American flag.

Supreme Court critics: "These people should be put in jail the way they talk about our judges and our justices, trying to get them to sway their vote, sway their decision," Trump said at a rally in September.

Prosecutors and bureaucrats

Trump's desire for revenge burns hot for anyone involved in his four criminal cases and the litany of investigations he has faced over the last eight years, which he paints as one continuous "witch hunt."

The big picture: The above list is not comprehensive. An NPR analysis found Trump has made more than 100 threats since 2022 to go after his perceived enemies.

  • His incendiary claims that domestic enemies pose a greater threat than foreign adversaries have become a central component of the Harris campaign's closing argument.
  • "Trump has an enemies list. I have a to-do list," Harris has repeated at rallies and on social media in recent days.

The bottom line: Trump's allies say his threats are largely bluster. His critics say the country can't afford not to believe him.



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timmymac
18 days ago
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The Roleplaying APAs: 1975-Present

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This article was originally written as part of my roleplaying periodical project, to support a history and index for “Dragons Past” and “Son of Sartar”, two short APAs produced by Chaosium’s Greg Stafford. The overall periodical project includes indexes and histories of many roleplaying magazines (primarily focused on Chaosium & Traveller periodicals at the moment).


The history of roleplaying periodicals begins with TSR’s The Strategic Review (1975-1976), a newsletter first published in January 1975, less than a year after the debut of Dungeons & Dragons (1974). It joined older Diplomacy and wargame-related fanzines that were also integral to roleplaying’s early evolution, among them El Conquistador (1973-1975), Great Plains Game Players Newsletter (1972-1986?), Liaisons Dangereuses (1969-1977), and Wargamer’s Newsletter (1962-1980).

Following the publication of The Strategic Review, a new assemblage of non-wargaming ‘zines appeared. That began a few months later with The Space Gamer (1975-1985), a fantasy & science-fiction focused gaming magazine from Metagaming Concepts. Then, in June 1976, TSR rebooted The Strategic Review as a proper magazine, The Dragon (1976-2007), and Jennell Jaquays debuted The Dungeoneer (1976-1981). Bob Bledsaw and Bill Owens followed with the Judges Guild Journal (1976-1980) after that year’s Gen Con IX (1976). Meanwhile, Hartley Patterson was converting his News from Bree (1970-1988) from a fanzine about the Tolkien Society to one about roleplaying. By the end of 1976, the era of roleplaying periodicals had truly begun.

But that history of early roleplaying periodicals omits one crucial element: the Amateur Press Association, or APA. APAs are discussion-focused publications where each contributor supplies their own ‘zine. The individual ‘zines are then printed, collated, and collected together as a singular publication that is sent to the members. The idea dated back to the advent of the British Amateur Press Association (1890-1976), which was meant for amateur printers (hence the name!). By the ’70s, Science-fiction and fantasy-focused APAs were growing increasingly popular, and that would offer another on-road for the periodical publication of roleplaying content.

The Worlds of roleplaying and APAs first came together in Mike Wood’s MINNEAPA (1972-2000?), a very successful Minneapolis-focused APA that would include 300 members at its height. It was a successor to Louis “Blue Petal” Fallert’s Blue’s APA (1968-?), and in fact Fallert would be a founding member of the new ‘zine. That was important because Fallert had also played in a Blackmoor game in the Twin Cities and then reinvented the game as “Castle Keep”, which Craig VanGrasstek eventually published in a short run as Rules to the Game of Dungeon (1974), arguably the second roleplaying game (and even the second based on Arneson’s Blackmoor). Fallert began talking about his efforts in MINNEAPA #38 (February 1974), opening up the first APA discussion of FRPGs.

However, it was southern California APAs that would truly mold the future of roleplaying, in particular APA-L (1964-Present), a rare weekly APA founded by members of the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society. In APA-L #493 (October 1974), a member named Mark Swanson, formerly of Los Angeles but now at MIT, briefly reviewed Dungeons & Dragons. Discussion followed as an increasing number of members acquired and played Dungeons & Dragons. Rules to the Game of Dungeon got discussed too, due to membership overlap with MINNEAPA.

By APA-L #521 (May 1975) even the cover was D&D-themed, so it was no surprise when APA-L #523 (June 1975) announced that Lee Gold was starting a new APA focused entirely on D&DAlarums & Excursions (1975-Present), which came out that same month, beating The Dragon and The Dungeoneer to print by exactly a year.

Alarums & Excursions was a hotbed for roleplaying discussion in the early industry. It contained descriptions of sessions, variant rules, and details of how to play. Though centered in Los Angeles, A&E included gamers such as Mark Swanson and Glenn Blacow in far away Boston and over the years would move beyond its geographic boundaries. Gary Gygax even published a few letters in early issues. Today, Alarums & Excursions is almost as old as the industry, and it’s included numerous designers among its members over the years, including Wilf K. Backhaus, Greg Costikyan, Dave Hargrave, Rob Heinsoo, Robin Laws, Jonathan Tweet, and many more, designers who have used A&E as somewhere to refine their design ideas and to meet other designers in the industry.

And, that wasn’t the industry’s only major APA. Three others of particular note.

The Wild Hunt (1976-1995). Glenn Blacow (who learned roleplaying from “Castle Keep”) and Mark Swanson (who introduced D&D to APA-L) soon founded their own East Coast RPG APA in Boston: The Wild Hunt. There were many other notable contributors, including Peter Aronson, who is most famous for the invention of the illusionist class, which was published in The Strategic Review #4 (Winter 1975). However, it was Blacow who wrote what might be the APA’s most famous article: in The Wild Hunt #50 (1980) he laid out one of the first taxonomies for RPGs, dividing them into role-playing, wargaming, ego-tripping, and story-telling. The Wild Hunt was quite long-lived, passing only when Blacow did. Peter Maranci’s Interregnum (1994-2001) succeeded it.

The Lords of Chaos (1977-1981). Another spin-off of A&E, the California-based Lords of Chaos was created by Niall Shapiro to focus on content for GMs (which was also the initial goal of The Wild Hunt, but Shapiro felt that it had failed and instead because a conversational forum, as was typical for APAs). Early contributors included Glenn Blacow, Lee Gold, and Mark Swanson, showing how intertwined the whole RPG APA scene was. Lords of Chaos ran just 13 issues on a quarterly basis; Shapiro himself later went on to design the Chaosium-influenced Other Suns (1983) RPG.

APA-DUD / Pandemonium (1977-1988). Although less well-known than the trio of A&ETWH, and TLOC, Robert Sacks’ New York-based APA-DuD was quite long-lived as well. It was typically collated at The Compleat Strategist, a game store that was another foundation of the New York RPG scene. After APA-DUD #41 (November, 1980), the APA changed its name to Pandemonium and continued under that title through Pandemonium #125 (July-August 1988).

APAs began to die in the 80s due to the advent of computer bulletin boards and USENET news groups (followed by AOL, Compuserve, GEnie, internet forums, and many other forms of online communications). These are all the same factors that have tended to kill off magazines and fanzines too, because they offer much more immediate forms of communication, APAs just took the hit first. With that said, some of RPG’s top APAs obviously continued into the 90s, the 00s, and even into the present.

Of these APAs, Alarums & Excursions is the only one to get much attention nowadays. That’s in part because it’s still going, in part because it’s had so many famous designers move through its membership, and in part because its entire archives remain available from Lee Gold. Nonetheless, all of these APAs (and likely many more, beginning with MINNEAPA and APA-L) remain crucial to the history of the roleplaying industry.

APA References

Argothald. 2023. “Opening the Trunks, Part 2 — APAs”. The Argothald Journal. https://argothald.com/2023/11/06/opening-the-trunks-part-2-apas/.

Bucklin, Nate. 1983. “Mike Wood: 1948-1983”. Rune #72. 

Gold, Lee. Date Unknown. “APA-L & Roleplaying”. Reprinted at https://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/temp/apa-l&roleplaying-lee_gold.doc.

Peterson, Jon. 2012. Playing at the World. 

Peterson, Jon. 2012. “Rules to the Game of Dungeon.” Playing at the World blog. Peterson, Jon. 2020. The Elusive Shift. https://playingattheworld.blogspot.com/2012/08/rules-to-game-of-dungeon-1974.html.

Peterson, Jon. 2020. The Elusive Shift.

Shapiro, Niall. 1977. “Notes from the Underground #18.” Alarums & Excursions #24.

Various. Retrieved 2024. “APA-L.” Fancyclopedia 3. https://fancyclopedia.org/APA-L.

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timmymac
21 days ago
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Honestly never even thought about this blurblog functionality, but it's actually sort of awesome.
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Happy 47th Birthday, Traveller!

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Today is the real Traveller Day: 47 years ago, on July 22, 1977, at the third Origins Game Fair, held on Staten Island, New York, Game Designers Workshop released its science fiction roleplaying game, Traveller and the rest is history. 

Though, like most people, Dungeons & Dragons was my introduction to the hobby, Traveller became (and remains) my favorite RPG and the Third Imperium my favorite imaginary setting. I didn't discover the game until around the time The Traveller Book was released in 1982 – the same year TSR released Star Frontiers and just a year before FASA released Star Trek. I played and enjoyed them all, but it was ultimately Traveller that won my heart for its simple, flexible rules and serious tone reminiscent of so many of the sci-fi books I loved. 

My first professional writing credits were for Traveller when I was still in college. Through Traveller fandom, I met some of my oldest and dearest friends. And of course some of my best gaming memories relate to playing Traveller. Consequently, I'm inordinately fond of this roleplaying game and think the day of its release is every bit as worthy of celebrating as that of D&D

Happy Birthday, Traveller! Just three more years till your golden anniversary ...

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timmymac
120 days ago
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