Introduction
Hi. My name is Clint Staples.
The kind folks at d-Infinity magazine have offered me the chance to do a blog about things that I think are cool enough to blog about. Since d-infinity is a game related site, that is what I am going to focus on, but other things could creep in, especially tangentially related stuff – movies and books, weird news stories, technology, medieval martial arts, history, that sort of thing – as they might relate to gaming.
Why should you care what I write here, you ask? Well, maybe you shouldn’t. Here is a little about me. It may not make whether you should read my blog any clearer, but at least you’ll know who is writing it.
I am not a talking head by profession, nor am I a tech or internet guru [ask any of my friends and they can tell you how far away from that particular tree I fall]. I am not a professional game designer, TV personality, or ex-WOTC employee. I don’t say this to despoil any of those professions – I love gaming, and TV, and WOTC [and employees, I guess, since I am self-employed].
OK, here is what I am, or at least what I am interested in, and to an extent able to speak upon with some level of authority.
For over 10 years, I have sculpted miniatures professionally, selling my work to companies all over the western world. I follow the miniatures world pretty closely and have opinions on what I see. You might find some of those in this blog on occasion.
I have been gaming since 1977. I started out in a friend’s Viking campaign centred around the town of Hedeby, using The Fantasy Trip from Metagaming. I quickly decided I wanted to sit on the other side of the table occasionally and began GMing too. Over thirty years or so, I have run dozens of one-shots, shorts arcs and full-blown campaigns in a host of different genres and systems. My tastes are pretty wide ranging and I spend a certain amount of my day perusing new and soon-to-be-released game product from a number of companies. You will hear about some of them here, possibly in the form of reviews,but just as possibly as mentions of what is cool.
I have a strong interest in medieval history, especially that of the ‘Dark Ages’, especially-especially the Vendel culture of pre-viking Scandinavia. When I was much younger I did a Master’s degree in medieval history - back when we called medieval history ‘yesterday’. But it was still history. Although my thesis was on dark ages Byzantine history, I developed an abiding interest in the arts, culture, myth and history of the north of the world in the 5th through to the start of the 8th century or so. This is a time of tremendous change in the western world [the east too, but my knowledge there is far, far too limited to go into that] and I find it fascinating to try and sift through what is known and reputed to be known, trying to pull out something that might be truth. Failing that, as historians must inevitably do to some degree, I try to pull out game-able stuff. If you have an interest in the fall of Rome, the barbarians that had a hand in it, or the cultures that sprang up in its ruins, especially as it relates to gaming, stay tuned.
I have been doing Medieval Martial Arts since before it was cool. I started in 1977, and have done martial arts, primarily those of Western Europe over most of the time since. Combining this with an interest in medieval history and warfare, I have gleaned a certain level of competence on theses subjects. So if you have an interest in medieval combat, weapons, armour and how they have been and, perhaps, should be, portrayed in RPGs, don’t run away.
I am a writer of fantasy and science fiction. I have written one novel, a dozen or so short stories, and am working on my second novel during NaNoWriMo 2013. In fact, I am ignoring my word count on that to write this. As I write this I am about 10,000 words behind and getting further by the second. You may hear more about my NaNoWriMo experiences and my writing in general in my blog too.
My wife suggested that I give you a taste of the sort of thing I might blog about in this intro, but I ran too long. It’s OK though, because I am going to throw the first actual blog post up right on the heels of this thing. I hope you like it. If you do, or have questions or comments, fire away. I’ll try to keep current on them and answer back if that is warranted.
Cheers!
