Blog Policies: A Word From Ronald Reagan

Ronal Reagan had a policy now known as the Eleventh Commandment. Basically the policy is that as a Republican he would not speak ill of other Republicans.

The policy of this blog is similar except replace the term Republican with RPG blogger.

We are all playing Elf games. I do not believe there is any right or wrong way to play Elf games. There might be ways that we find more entertaining than other ways but in all likelihood someone else has the opposite opinion so there is no point arguing about it. Put out your version and hope to win in the arena of ideas, debate fine points, but don't make it personal.

There are toxic folk in the RPG blog world, there is no question of that, but you won't hear me bash them as I'd rather promote role playing than tear down others who also might be promoting role playing, even if they are flawed, nasty, use straw men to win debates or whatever. It's possible such folks might drive new gamers away, but that's not really my decision to make. I'm not the RPG gatekeeper so I'll step aside and let those potential new gamers figure things out on their own.

At least that's the policy, only time will tell if it lasts.

Blog Policies: A Word From Stan Lee

Haters. The words racism/sexism/homophobic/transphobic come up a lot lately. I have no tolerance for haters.

Politics. Pretty much nobody has changed their politics because of an argument online and I have the right to maintain civil discourse on my blog. So leave politics at the door. There are many places on the internet to go if you want to debate politics, this isn't one of them.

Spam. Spam will be deleted.

Trolls. I've never understood trolls. If you come here to be nasty you'll be warned. If you continue you'll probably be banned. I don't feel people should be telling others what is good fun and what is bad fun and I don't think anyone should have to tolerate outright attacks. It is my blog so I'll judge what is offensive and what is not and I'll delete anything I feel crosses the line (or create a hall of shame or something for these toxic sort of things).

Its about games. Even if you really, really love a game and dedicate your life to that game it is still a game and games are meant to be fun.

Initial Post

I'm calling the site Grindstonë because I intend to dig up a lot of public domain stuff (mostly maps) that are buried out there on the web and clean them up and make them useful for GMs that never have time or enough maps. I think of this is sharpening the GMs tools for them, much as using a grindstone to sharpen a sword or hoe.

I'm a one person operation based out of the West Coast of North America. San Diego to be exact. I expect eventually to bundle different bits and sell them. Hopefully publishing them online first won't cut into the sales too badly, that doesn't seem to be the case with other blogs so I'm willing to take the risk to build name recognition.

Long ago Colombia games stated that it as easier to add fantastic elements to a rather non-fantastic world than the reverse (or something similar, I'm paraphrasing). I think that's basically true since my own version of Harn replaced the Gargun (Harn Orcs) with the Greenskins from Warhammer among other things. To that end most of the stuff on this blog will probably be less than fantastic. I sharpen the blade, the GM will have to actually wield it in battle (simulated of course).

Having said that the word Grindstonë in the title contains an umlaut over the 'e'. This umlaut is silent, it is the Heavy Metal umlaut, a stylistic reminder to keep things fun, loud, and a bit over the top.

The little image comes from the utrecht-psalter, a Carolingian book of psalms from the 9th century, back when they were hopping with excitement to sharpen their swords.