About

The Mule Abides is a blog inspired by our local gaming scene in New York City, where the authors all play together as part of the New York Red Box community. We’re glad that the things we’ve learned and shared through our blogging have been interesting and maybe even useful to people in other parts of the world, because “escena rolera” sounds so much cooler.

The name of the blog refers to Bill the Mule, the only consistent survivor of our Red Box games, and is also a reference to The Big Lebowski. It’s an in joke that doesn’t travel well, but it’s better than the other name we considered.

’70s and early-’80s Dungeons & Dragons  brought us together and continues to fascinate us, but we play and enjoy talking about a variety of RPGs, from classics like Runequest and Traveller to new-school games like 4E and With Great Power. When we started this blog back in October of 2009, we thought this particular mix of ongoing engagement with old-school actual play and intellectual sympathy for new ideas in roleplaying was relatively unique. We’re pleased to have been proven wrong!

Some of the things we’re particularly interested in are:

• making weird tables, generally derived from Eric’s Glantri campaign but potentially useful to fans of dice-based improv using any ruleset
• creating new classes for Moldvay (1981) Red Box D&D
• uncovering the history and pre-history of Dungeons & Dragons, including Arneson’s Twin Cities and Gygax’s Lake  Geneva campaigns as well as the literary sources that inspired them both
• reaching out to new gamers, whether that means playing in public spaces with adults or running a D&D afterschool program for kids
• exploring the intersection of RPGs and contemporary art
• developing techniques for mapping, populating, and running sandbox-style campaigns

If you’d like to get a hold of us by email, you can reach Tavis at tavis.allison@gmail.com; he’ll be happy to forward messages to his fellow Muleteers.