I leave you this week with a book I’ve not yet read in its entirety, but has been on my radar for a while – Arthur C. Clarke’s collection Tales from the White Hart.

I have a special fondness for club tales, which are modeled on the practice of swapping tall tales among members of English social clubs. This is probably epitomized by Lord Dunsany’s Jorkens stories, but the Baron Munchausen stories, the Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon books by Spider Robinson and the World’s End issues of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman are also good examples. Tales from the White Hart takes its cues directly from the Jorken’s stories, though with a distinctly sci-fi bent. The White Hart is modelled on the White Horse, a London pub frequented by sci-fi writers, and the stories reflect in some ways the discussions Clarke and his compatriots got up to over drinks. Above all, the stories, which are all told by the character Harry Purvis, are humorous – Clarke’s intention with the White Hart tales was to dispel the notion that sci-fi had to be stuffy and serious to be considered worth reading.

What’s this got to do with RPGs? Well, there’s a direct connection to Lee Garvin’s Tales from the Floating Vagabond RPG – a humorous sci-fi game that centers on a bar. I think there’s parallels to the RPG design notion of hubs – think about the way Planescape’s Sigil, the massive Spelljammer ship or even cities like Waterdeep and Nehwon that function as central locations were stories begin and loop back around to. Even in games without a formal hub, how many adventures start out with a story told in a tavern?