#ben riggs

[godzilla-reads]

Revisiting this book by Ben Riggs about the secret history of the game Dungeons & Dragons- and I’m finding myself even more enthralled by it than when I first picked it up about two-ish years ago.

Learning about the business decisions and how the creators started out, plus the treatment of creative figures is really interesting, especially if you play D&D.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

"From ego's point of view, thought supplies itself with content. This is inbred thinking, and it creates a stale and musty mind."

- Ben Riggs Web Of Enlightenment

[elliot-orion]

Character Introductions: Benji Riggs

Icon made with this pic crew created by Aloha Sushicore.

Fast Facts

Supers Name: Nightmare

SA Classification: Villain, on Watchlist

Pronouns: They/Them

Age: Just turned 19

Birthday: June 16th

Height: 5′2″

Powers: Can manipulate fear and nightmares; manifest common phobia things as long as someone nearby has a strong fear of that; knows everyone’s biggest fears; can induce sleep paralysis

Favorite Music: Bebop and classical

Favorite Food: Oreos

Bio

Ben’s parents died when they were three, although they never knew how or why. All they know is that when they were a toddler they went to live with their grandmother and older brother, Carter. Ben was super close with their grandma and loved her so much. But regrettably, she wasn’t a very good guardian, as she was often very ill and bedridden, and by the time Ben was eleven she was losing most of her memories to dementia. This meant that Ben was primarily raised by their brother, who was eight years older than them. Carter was... bad news. He is and always had been a manipulative, cruel psychopath. Carter has similar powers to Ben, but his domain is not fear, it is dreams and ‘daydreams,’ which are essentially hallucinations. He’d psychologically torture and terrorize Ben, to put it simply, all while tricking Ben into trusting and believing that he was good. He was also the one who instilled Ben’s phobia of making noise, as he worked from home and didn’t like being disturbed. Even after they’ve been out of Carter’s house for two years, Ben still won’t talk except in very rare circumstances. To Carter, Ben was his property, and he never let them go out, have friends, or attend school. Instead, Ben did online classes. They like to say that pushing them so hard in school is the only thing they are grateful to Carter for, because his insistence on pushing them to their limits meant that, by the time they left him, they had already gotten their associates degree from an online community college program. (It’s in website design and development, in case you were curious. They wanted something they could get a job easily with.)

Online school was also how they met Morty. They were both taking an elective course on Supers law and were paired for a project. The fact that they were both Supers came up, as well as their powers, and when neither was freaked out by the other’s powers, they became close friends. It was Morty who helped Ben eventually run away from Carter when they were seventeen. The two of them lived together for a short while, and it was the best time of Ben’s life. Until Carter had to ruin it. He wasn’t too happy with the idea of Ben leaving, considering he felt like he owned Ben, and when it was clear they weren’t coming back on their own, Carter started hunting them down. Both Ben and Morty went on the run from Carter, though it was incredibly difficult as Carter could find Ben any time they slept through their dreams. Everything was made doubly worse when the Supers Association started chasing Ben too. Because Ben is an empathetic type, whenever they are afraid, other people experience that fear too. When they have panic attacks or flashbacks, which is fairly frequently, there can be serious repercussions on anyone in the surrounding area. The SA decided they were a Villain doing this intentionally, which is the last thing they are doing. Morty eventually left Ben to go back to the SA, to try to convince One Eye that Ben is not a terrorist or Villain and that they deserve amnesty based on the very laws the two had been studying when they met, that work to not-demonize Supers with little control over their powers.

And that’s about where Nightmare at the Lily Pad Inn starts - with Ben on their own running from Carter as Morty tries to fix things with the SA.I’ll hopefully do another post on Morty and Oliver soon, as well as something detailing their relationships together because it’s complicated and i want to make things very clear.

Tag list: @merigreenleaf​ @albatris​ @knightedwriter​ @ageekyreader​ @shadow-maker​ @norawritess​ @simplesamples​ @mo-is-writing​ lmk if you want on or off the list at any point!!

[godzilla-reads]

The newest read I got from the Irreverent Bookworm as the end of the year gets closer and closer.

I’m 20-pages in and intrigued by the start-up history of D&D. There was so much going on that I had no clue about!

🎲 Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons & Dragons by Ben Riggs

[morgan--reads]

Slaying the Dragon - Ben Riggs

Summary: A history of Tactical Studies Rules (TSR), the company that created Dungeons & Dragons.

Quote: “TSR’s failure is a tale of misfortune and mistakes kept secret for decades, here given up to the light.” 

My rating: 2.5/5.0   Goodreads: 4.01/5.0 

Review: For a diehard D&D or fantasy RPG fan, there’s a lot here to enjoy. I learned a lot about the early years of the game and the industry and learned the origins of some of my favorite IPs. For casual fans, or people who aren’t fans at all, the story doesn’t have much to compel with. The story of TSR’s downfall is ultimately one of fairly standard corporate mismanagement and the constant flow of mistakes are more disheartening than interesting. It doesn’t help that Riggs’ prose is fairly mediocre and fails to raise the story above the simple facts. 

[pauljacobevans]

Seven Story Games By Women, For Everybody http://goo.gl/p5x7GC #geek

[geekandsundry]

What if the kids from Narnia grew up and were in therapy?

http://geekandsundry.com/seven-story-games-by-women-for-everybody/

Pelgrane Press recently released Seven Wonders, a collection of seven story games by red-hot, up and coming game designers. With innovative mechanics and fascinating settings, the book is a must-have for gamers who want to be on the cutting edge of the hobby. So what is a story game? In the ...

[geekandsundry]

Cut through the skies with fire in your mouth and man-flesh in your belly!

http://geekandsundry.com/in-this-rpg-you-are-the-dragon/

Everybody likes dragons, but have you ever played one in an RPG? No? Epyllion by Marissa Kelly, is for you. The land of Dragonia is one ruled by dragons. Young drakes and old wyrms alike plow its skies and stride through its halls. The dragons have ruled the land ever since the War of the Shadow ...