"Just game minis are fighting strong New game". Let's compare 2014 to 1996! Here is a pair of tag clouds based on the most common words in my first three columns way back in 1996, at the start of this all, and my most recent 3 columns (minus my retrospective last week, which would skew things). In case the 3 words each from my intro sentence is confusing, read on.

In 1996, the top words (in no particular order) for my early columns included RPG.Net, good, mechanics, seem, always, Web, still, companies, something, next, strong, though, games, people, really, game, GenCon. Read that as a sentence and you tend to see an industry focus, but still rooted in the games.

Compare now to 2014, where the top words read out as Roll, success, minis, die, systems, just, dice, game, number, 3-D, skill, result, printer, make, equals, good. This sounds like a shift to more of a game design focus, less of an industry behind-the-scenes look.

How is this relevant to gaming today? As discussions abound about whether game conventions are depreciating RPGs in favor of movies & media, at least this column is a guaranteed place to get your RPG goodness.

Until next month,
Sandy (sandy@rpg.net)