All posts by Adam

About Adam

Adam is a Digital Creation Specialist - Children who never has enough shelf space for his board game collection, wall space for his photographs, or stomach space for his baking. Once he’s got a book in his clutches (preferably a fantasy, or humorous non-fiction one) absolutely nothing else is getting done that day. Working in a library is a blessing and a curse to his free time.  |  Meet the team

Told, Retold, and Continued: Classics with Recent(ish) Follow-Ups

The Cover of Fast & Furious. I think it's movie 6? This franchise has a really confusing naming convention. This isn't one of the franchises I talk about, I just know it's been going on for a while.

Some stories just won’t die. Whether studios or publishers churn out sequel after sequel, or wait a few years to simply reboot the thing, some franchises have been going on for ages in our current media landscape. Then there’s archetypical stories and legends that are so old and well-known that they’ve been adapted into countless versions, sometimes only having a tertiary connection to the source material. And of course, there’s the nostalgia factor; reviving long-dead (or dormant, I suppose) media to serve it up to a new audience, or, more realistically, to recapture the old one and have them get their children into it.

Let’s start with an enduring tale: The Legend of King Arthur. Even if you’ve never read or watched any media that has its basis in this legend (however loosely), you’ve likely at least heard of the guy who pulled a sword out of a stone. Or was it given to him by some watery tart? Apparently, there are different versions of the legend, and even Excalibur wasn’t always Excalibur. Here though, I’d like to highlight a classic retelling of the tale, and a more modern follow-up that plays with the formula in an interesting way.

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Off the Tabletop and on to the Screen

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The cover of Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting by Matthew Mercer

So for my last post, I wrote about TTRPG-inspired books and linked to a few rulebooks to help burgeoning GMs or players get started. What I only did once, and didn’t point out, was a link to a System Reference Document, or SRD. That was the Pathfinder link; there’s also a Pathfinder 2nd edition SRD, a D&D 5th Edition SRD, a Gumshoe SRD, and many others. These documents exist so that companies and GMs can create new adventures for existing systems or branch off these systems to develop their own games, as Pathfinder did from D&D 3.5e. They’re also an excellent place for Players and GMs to learn the rules of a game, and if all you can get hold of is a campaign book from our collection or you want to create your own adventure, these are a great, free place to start. They don’t contain all of your options and won’t have trademarked creatures in them, but they have enough to run a campaign or create a character; I know this first-hand.

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Tabletop Worlds and the Books They Spawn

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The Cover of The Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned that I’m both a Game Master1 (GM) and a player of Tabletop Role Playing Games (TTRPG), specifically Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition (D&D) and Pathfinder 1st edition. But there’s a whole plethora of TTRPGs out there that aren’t D&D2, such as Shadowrun, Powered by the Apocalypse, Vampire the Masquerade, Deadlands, Honey Heist, Call of Cthulhu, and so so many more3.

I could go into excruciating detail on how each of these systems differs. I could wax poetic about how shared experiences at the table help form lasting friendships away from it. I could regale you with tales of the shenanigans that my library D&D group is getting up to trying to solve a murder mystery/stop a devilish pact4 while being entirely too chaotic for their own good5. Ask in the comments if you want some details, and I’ll see if the party is willing to share.

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