The curse of the columnist is Time. Even the most brilliant monthly bit is, a month later, fish wrapping. The web has only lightened the curse with bookmarks and index pages, but time will eventually win out.

Oh, a few noteworthy bits might survive on pure notoriety. Mostly, you write, it's read, it fades. How gothic. Mind you, time and obsolescence can sometimes be a blessing. The more banal entries really should disappear, "those that must be forgotten". But much good material is lost to time as well.

The other aspect of time is unique to the web-- information overflow. Over time, there is just so much new material being generated, that a person cannot keep up with it all. Between this week's RPGnet columns, the forums I must read, the email lists I'm on, and the LJ posts friends email me as 'must read', I don't have time to go digging into old column archives in the hopes of hitting the non-banal.

Bloggers, I feel, suffer the curse of time even stronger. At least columns on sites like RPGnet have a permanent spot, a central index, a hierarchy of listings. Blogs, especially those ordered only by time, with no subject index, fade even quicker.

The enemy of Time, however, is books. Books freeze time, bind it, and put it on your own bookshelf for perusal over and over. A compilation of columns can endure time. And compilations also fight against information overload, because Time is also a filter.

Book editors can choose the better material-- that which, months or years later, still shows insight, wit, and relevance. For comic strips, compilations are just 'collections'. For columns, 'compilations'. For blogs, someone unfortunately dubbed them 'blooks'.

RPGnet is celebrating its 10th anniversary this month. So via my printing press buddies at Technomancer Press, we'll be putting out compilations of the best work from RPGnet. In part, this is because there's very little in print about RPG Theory, and gosh darn it, I like reading about RPGing.

First out in book form will be David Goodner's "The Play's the Thing", player (and GM) advice on making characters beyond their stats. This sucker is years old and it ended, but it's still a fun read.

Plus, a confession... when it came out, I never read it! Aeon was the editor, I was finishing my PhD, excuses excuses. And now, I don't want to slog through two dozen web pages. It's too much material for me to stare at on screen.

I want it the fun way: laying in my used overstuffed recliner chair with a beer in hand and a cat on my lap. Pet-read-sip. That's how I like to read RPG stuff.

So David is first, we have five others slotted up for fall print runs. Available at your friendly local game store or online. And if they do well, we'll be putting out others (and not just RPGnetters). There are a lot of good writers advancing the state of RPG playing.

And, there's always time for a good book.

Until next month,
Sandy

sandy@rpg.net