Lacking Natural Simplicity

Recent Reading

• The Intergral Trees, by Larry Niven; Del Rey/Ballantine, 1984.

• World of Ptavvs, by Larry Niven; Del Rey/Ballantine, 1966.

I've been on a Niven kick lately, instigated by listening to The Ringworld Throne a year or so ago (apparently prior to my establishing this weblog) in a Books-on-Tape edition. One of my local libraries has a few of his books on audio tape, and I've been working my way through them, and through the libraries copies of his books and through my copies when they turn up in random places in my pile of boxes of books. So far, I've been pleased by how well they all re- read.

Are Most Roleplaying Gamers Isolated?

On roleplaying forums on the Internet (such as rpg.net) there is an illusion that roleplaying gamers are part of a community or collection of communities, with a shared background and history. I'm not convinced that this is true for the vast majority of roleplaying gamers. In fact, I suspect that the vast majorigy of roleplaying gamers play with one group of friends or a small number of groups and have little or no connection to other roleplayers, and that people who read roleplaying magazines, go to roleplaying conventions, or follow roleplaying forums on the internet are a small minority. I wish I had some evidence about this one way or another, but I suspect that gathering the data would be beyond the abilities or will of almost everybody in the roleplaying game hobby.