A Shout-Out to Dave Hargrave

It's no secret that, when it comes to RPGs, I have a fairly narrow range of interests. In my younger days, the Holy Trinity consisted of AD&D, Traveller, and Call of Cthulhu (in that order). I played other games, of course, but I played very few of them with the same level of frequency and enthusiasm as I played these three. During the late '80s and throughout much of the '90s, I expanded my interests somewhat, partially because I was trying my hand at professional RPG writing and it only made sense to cast my net as widely as possible, but those years were unusual.

Consequently, I haven't been paying much attention to the development of a fantasy RPG called 13th Age, written by Jonathan Tweet and Rob Heinsoo and published by Pelgrane Press. From what I had gathered, 13th Age is a kinda-sorta clone of D&D IV. Since I wasn't interested in 4e the first time around, I certainly had no interest in its clone version.

The reason I mention 13th Age at all is because of a blog post by Jonathan Tweet, pointed out to me by reader Greg Oakes. In it, Tweet heaps praises upon Dave Hargrave of Arduin Grimoire fame and notes the degree to which his latest game owes to him. It's really gratifying to see this, as I think Hargrave is under-appreciated outside the OSR. Heck, even within the OSR, I think there's less appreciation of him than there ought to be (says the man guilty of this very thing for years). 13th Age doesn't really sound like my kind of game, but knowing that its designers took a page or two from Dave Hargrave -- and aren't shy about saying so -- made me smile nonetheless.