Author: Charlie Brooks

Award-winning author of "Fantasy as you Like It" and "Eight-Bit Heaven," Season 9 finalist in RPG Superstar, author of the young adult fantasy novel Greystone Valley, and super-opinionated nerd dad.

Opportunities Abound for the Fantasy 1%

On By Charlie BrooksIn Role-Playing GamesLeave a comment

Originally published on Sidekickcast.com January 26, 2016

While most fantasy fiction limits magic use to the main characters, fantasy RPGs have a whole economy built up around them. A default RPG setting assumes that the PCs are one of many heroes, which means towns are likely to hold retired spellcasters who might provide services or even sell magic items to younger heroes.

None of this magic economy really benefits the commonfolk, unfortunately. If a typical peasant makes only two silver pieces a day, he has to save up for a couple of months to even afford a simple cure light wounds spell, let alone something that could cure diseases or raise the dead.

The fantasy one-percenters, however, have a lot of fun options out there. Here are a few things somebody with lots of cash can accomplish in a typical fantasy RPG. I’m using Pathfinder 1st edition as the rules default here, but most of these options exist in similar games as well.

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The Business Rivalry that Wrecked Corporate America

On By Charlie BrooksIn HistoryLeave a comment

You see it all the time in the United States: a publicly-traded company has the option of thinking long-term and/or building goodwill with a loyal customer base, but instead squeezes the consumer with unfair business practices and price-gouging. Whether it’s gas distributors fixing prices, Netflix jacking its subscription fees up yet again, or a jackass raising the cost of life-saving medicine, corporate America seems bent on squeezing every penny out of the consumer, consequences be damned.

Why do they do it? If you think it’s just because they’re evil…well, you’re basically right. But even evil people pretend to have a justification for what they do, and when it comes to shady business practices it usually goes back to a 1919 case in the Michigan Supreme Court where Henry Ford failed to stop a revolt within his own company.

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Absent Parents, Fantasy Literature, and Conquest of Greystone Valley

On By Charlie BrooksIn Greystone Valley, NovelsLeave a comment

Spoilers for Greystone Valley follow.

Kid heroes are a staple of fantasy fiction. It’s part of the wish fulfillment of the genre – many of us fall into fantasy tales when we’re children, imagining ourselves taking on our greatest fears and earning the fame and fortune that are normally reserved only for adults. But where are those kids’ parents?

In most cases, a parent in a story about a kid hero is an obstacle that has to be removed. A responsible parent isn’t about to let their child run off into danger. As a result, parents in these stories are usually either absent, oblivious, or in danger themselves.

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How Two Kids and a 91-Year-Old Help Me Keep My Cool

On By Charlie BrooksIn ParentingLeave a comment

Originally published on BabyCenter.com December 11, 2015

My bus ride into work the other day featured somebody behind me who was very upset at the driver. Over and over, he kept muttering to the person next to him, “That f***ing foreigner.” It was one of the more depressing ways I could have started my day.

Effing foreigner…spoken as though the word foreigner was a slur. As though being a foreigner was a bad thing and as though the driver was less of a person because of the place he was born. The venom with which the person spat that word lingered in my head for the rest of the day.

Certainly, there are about a million worse words that could have been said, but sometimes the way somebody uses a word speaks louder than the word itself. And since America has seemingly lost its collective mind over the past couple of weeks, this extra dose of xenophobia was the straw that broke my back.

In addition to my wife, who is always an amazing sounding board for my thoughts, three people helped me get out of my shocked, depressed funk and move on with my week. Two of them are under five years old, and one of them is in his 90s.

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Things I Miss from Doctor Who’s Classic Era

On By Charlie BrooksIn FilmLeave a comment

As of 2026, Doctor Who is going through a bit of a tough stretch. For the first time since the show came back in 2005, fans don’t have a new season to look forward to. While 2026 promises a holiday special that will hopefully explain why Billie Piper showed up on the TARDIS, there have been no announcements of a new Doctor or even a hint of the series continuing in 2027 and beyond.

But the show’s been off the air before, and hope will always spring eternal that it regenerates again in the future. And while fans wait anxiously for news of the TARDIS’ next voyage, I can’t help but glance backward at the last time the series went off the air. Classic Doctor Who might be known mostly for its low budget effects and outlandish costumes, but it has many elements that I enjoyed and which I would love to see come back in the modern era.

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My Brain Hates the Idea of Giving My Kids a Tablet

On By Charlie BrooksIn ParentingLeave a comment

Originally published on BabyCenter.com December 2, 2015

Sooner or later, technology leaves us all feeling old. As my wife and I browse through Christmas gift ideas, the number of new gadgets out there is making me wistful for the days of Tandy Computers and the Sega Genesis. Now we’re faced with a new question: are our kids old enough for a tablet?

My gut says no, but the more I think about it, the less I have an actual argument beyond pure geezer instinct. I myself didn’t have any sort of real computer until I was in my senior year of high school, and that fact is probably the number one reason I said “No” at first.

This is definitely a first world problem. It’s also a case where I don’t feel like I’m doing harm if I just say “No” to giving my kids a portable screen to carry around. But the more I look into the subject, the more it becomes that my objections are more emotional than logical.

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The Future is Weird: Cyberpunk 2020’s Chromebook

On By Charlie BrooksIn Role-Playing GamesLeave a comment

Originally published on Sidekickcast.com December 1, 2015

I’ve spent a lot of time detailing fantasy RPG weirdness because that’s the genre I’m most familiar with. However, strange stuff in gaming isn’t relegated solely to D&D and Pathfinder. For example, there’s the Cyberpunk 2020 Chromebooks.

The Chromebooks were a group of four sourcebooks that detailed all sorts of new gear for use in a Cyberpunk 2020 game. In many ways, they were brilliant – they were written like real product catalogs, so every entry gave you not only something useful for the game but also a feel for the corporate-dominated setting. At the same time, these things did introduce plenty of stuff that is either hilariously weird or amusing in hindsight (remember that these things were written in the early 1990s without the benefit of a crystal ball to show what they year 2020 would really be like).

This time around, I’m going to focus on the original Chromebook. With new weapons, cybernetics, vehicles, and more, there’s a lot of interesting stuff in this 96-page accessory…and a lot of other stuff that reminds me that the future is pretty funny.

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5 Things I Learned as a New Hockey Dad

On By Charlie BrooksIn ParentingLeave a comment

Originally published on BabyCenter.com November 5, 2015

Hockey season has begun, and our son has taken to the ice for the first time. By default, he’s already better on skates than I am, since he’s able to move about ten feet before falling down. This season’s all about learning to skate, which means all the hitting and actual competition can wait.

Hockey is a realm where I have very little experience. I’m a big football fan, and I played soccer, basketball, and baseball at an intramural level in school. But hockey is an area where I’m only passingly familiar with the rules and the idea of hitting a puck around the ice is foreign to me.

Since this is such a new experience for me, and since this is only my second time dealing with the sports-dad scene, I’m learning quite a bit. Here are a few of the basic discoveries I’ve come across so far:

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Are Boys and Girls Really That Different at Sports?

On By Charlie BrooksIn ParentingLeave a comment

Originally published on BabyCenter.com September 23, 2015

I seem to have fallen over backwards into helping as a coach with my son’s soccer team. As it turns out, you only have to express an interest (or maybe, as in my case, have a brother-in-law who is also coaching) to do this. It’s quite fun, but really weird when parents say, “Hi, Coach.”

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