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A kid at the game store asked why we keep rulebooks in binders
I was at Game Haven in Portland last Saturday and this teenager pointed at my 3-ring binder full of printed FAQ pages and house rules for a 15 year old game. He asked why we don't just use the app or the wiki. I tried to explain that half the fun for me is flipping through paper, seeing my own margin notes from a 2012 campaign. He nodded but I could tell he didn't get it, and honestly I'm not sure I have a good answer. Has anyone else caught themselves defending an old habit that's probably just nostalgia? What's the oldest thing you still do at the table just because it feels right?
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smith.nancy1d ago
Is it really about the paper itself, or more about the ritual of marking up your own copy and making the game yours? I totally get the binder thing, because my 3-ring binder from our 2009 Shadowrun campaign has sticky notes with inside jokes and a coffee ring stain from a session where we nearly lost a player to a bad dice roll. The wiki has all the rules, sure, but it doesn't have the tiny drawing of a goblin I made in the margin next to the crit table. I think that's the part the kid missed, the physical history that comes with every flip and every worn page corner. Now I'm wondering if we're just curating memories instead of playing a game, but honestly, that's kind of beautiful too.
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