Ancient Academy Games

I started Ancient Academy Games because I saw too many role-playing games that were finished, seamless, totally complete – rather than helping people realize their own imaginative ideas and expressions.  I wanted to design games and game products that actively engaged my customers, rather than assuming that everything needed to be finished and complete, with nothing added – or could be added, and tied up with a big, red bow.

There is also a Pre-Raphaelite element to what I am doing.  The Pre-Raphaelites took their position from the idea that art had gone in a wrong direction after Raphael, and that this needed to be corrected.  In tabletop role-playing games, there’s been an increasing emphasis on games feeling, looking, operating all in the same way.  The question that game masters get asked now is: “how much is your game like other games?” with the expected answer being, “it’s completely interchangeable with games run by other people.”  Before 1980, the question was: “how different is your game from other games?” with the expected answer being, “my game is different in these exciting ways!”  We’ve moved from individual creativity to rote uniformity, turning games away from imagination towards comfort food.

I believe it is also important for tabletop roleplaying games to make players think. That the choices as presented in each game are worth thinking about, and that there are consequences from the choices made as part of the game.  

I believe that while tabletop roleplaying games started within the very small wargames hobby, it is now much much more than that origin.  Wargaming was dominated in the past by mostly white, middle-class, cisgender men, but now there are people of all kinds of background enjoying roleplaying.  It is absolutely vital to actively engage the vast diversity of gamers today, because it is the only moral and ethical decision possible.