Bryan Reagan

I was a tenured associate professor, but was forced into early medical retirement by Generalized Myasthenia Gravis at age 55. I am almost four years post diagnosis, and have survived acute respiratory failure twice. I am trying to write and find some way to make a contribution.

During my career, I watched #AcademicFreedom die. Marketing consultants set the curriculum, instructional designers chose which problems we could assign, and expressing an opinion in the very field where I held a PhD was treated as #insubordination.

@TheArtfulDM I met Sutherland at a #GenCon back in the 1980s, when it was in Wisconsin. He was DMing an event in which I got to play, and he autographed my Monster Manual.

@BryanReagan That is a great story, and even greater that you are still playing! Nice photo. Love that Sutherland box art.

If RPGs were indeed an academic pursuit, Dr. Danno would be a Chaired Professor of Old School D&D. Check out his pedigree 👀 I am but a lowly D&D Acolyte, majoring in 1e, with minors in B/X and Miniatures.

Sunday, 24 May 2026, the ladies from #PeaceLutheran #LCMS in #Dunnellon sent these flowers from the altar home with my Dad and me, for my Mom, who is a shut in.

@OriginalGrogna1 #CallOfCthulhu is my second favorite #ttrpg. I confess that the fact that I become a professor in real life may have arisen from playing this game too much as a teen.

Who among you has delved into the mysteries of the Old Gods, and still has their sanity? #callofcthulhu #ttrpg #lovecraft #cosmichorror #rpg

How to pick a ripe, sweet #Watermelon 🍉: • Large yellow field spot = sweeter (picked ripe) • Dark, distinct green stripes = better quality • Deep hollow sound when thumped • Bonus: Heavy for size + dull (not shiny) rind.

@JoeTesoriero Once you try #KosherHotDogs there is no going back. They are the only ones that actually taste like beef.

In my house, we are eating the dogs!

@DayneShaul18324 I'm so old school I learned from the Holmes basic set and progressed to Advanced #DungeonsAndDragons when I was in middle school. #ttrpg #dnd

How many of you consider yourselves OLD SCHOOL GAMERS?

@Nerdcognito Natural 20!

Save versus death!

@OriginalGrogna1 This type of #PickAPath text adventure would be so easy to make as an #App. I'm kinda disappointed that no commercial developers seem to make text adventure games anymore. #ttrpg

Where are your adventures taking you this weekend? #ttrpg #endlessquest #1980s #nostalgia #books

Learn Data Analysis in the right order: 1️⃣ Excel / Sheets 2️⃣ SQL 3️⃣ Python 4️⃣ Pandas 5️⃣ Visualization 6️⃣ Projects Don’t learn everything. Learn what matters.

@1Nicdar In my #HighSchool, I fondly remember "Pizza" made on half of a hotdog bun, toasted in the oven with tomato sauce and cheese. Also, a 10 ounce carton of #ChocolateMilk.

What was your favorite school lunch?

GenX is tough.

@OriginalGrogna1 I would run #PalladiumFantasy, since I've run their system before, and it uses standard polyhedral dice most gamers have. I like the concept of #DungeonCrawlClassics, but I don't have the specialized extended dice set for it. #ttrpg

If you had to pick one? It’s game night, these are your options, what are going to run? #ttrpg #rpg #castlesandcrusades #dungeoncrawlclassics #palladium

@LawDogStrikes I have fond memories of #VillainsAndVigilantes. I seem to remember it had a roll under on a D20 mechanic that turned things upside down. Also the characters stats were assigned to match the player: not going to cause arguments there. LOL #ttrgp #FGU

# ttrpg #RPGstuffdaily The Many Faces of FGU Fantasy Games Unlimited (FGU — often pronounced “Fugu” by us old timers) wasn’t some monolithic game design studio with a single house style. It was a classic old-school publishing house — Scott Bizar and crew took solid submissions from all over, gave them a platform, and let a wild variety of voices loose on the hobby in the late ‘70s and ‘80s. If you wanted something different, FGU probably had a box for it. Villains & Vigilantes was my very first superhero RPG. I loved the sheer gonzo fun of rolling up random powers and then trying to theme a character around whatever weird combo the dice gave you. Broad power categories meant you got to flex your creativity hard… but man, once I found Champions and its full point-buy freedom? V&V never quite scratched that particular itch the same way again. Still have fond memories of those early campaigns, though. They published the first licensed IP RPG with Flash Gordon & the Warriors of Mongo (1977). Yeah, beat everyone else to the punch on turning a beloved property into a playable game. Gangster! dropped in 1979 and beat TSR’s Gangbusters to market by several years with its Prohibition-era crime action. Bunnies & Burrows let you play intelligent rabbits in a world full of adventure, danger, and very serious bunny politics — an absolute classic of quirky early RPG design. Then there was the pure gonzo energy of games like Psi World, a near-future setting where psionic powers defined society. You could play as powerful psi talents on the run, government hunters trying to control them, or normals caught in the middle of the genetic and sociological clash. It delivered tense, high-stakes play centered on those awesome mental abilities in a divided world. Freedom Fighters took guerrilla warfare in the present or near future and let the GM pick the invaders for maximum replayability. Want to run a straight-up Red Dawn “Wolverines!” scenario with Soviet (or other) forces occupying America? Easy. Crave something more alien? Play out a V-style invasion with humanoid lizard overlords or a War of the Worlds nightmare with deadly tripods and toxic red weed. The flexible system made it perfect for that “occupied homeland” resistance vibe. Year of the Phoenix was one of FGU’s wildest: American astronauts in 1997 launch on a mission, only to return to a devastated Earth after a mysterious accident flings them forward in time. They find a post-apocalyptic world ruled by feudal city-states, strange mutants, and the lingering scars of whatever catastrophe hit while they were gone. It mixed hard sci-fi astronaut origins with sword-and-sorcery survival in a way that felt fresh and unpredictable. FGU also put out Bushido — deep, flavorful feudal Japan with serious attention to honor, clans, and samurai drama — and Aftermath!, their gritty, deadly post-apocalypse survival game that was brutal, detailed, and not for the faint of heart. Throw in Chivalry & Sorcery, Daredevils, Flashing Blades, Space Opera, Merc, and more, and you’ve got one of the most eclectic libraries of the classic era. If you’ve never dipped into the FGU back catalog, you’re missing out. Some were janky, some were brilliant, and a lot of them were both at the same time.

@VoicesUnheard Who remembers?😌

@memeslich In Edition 5.5 #DungeonsAndDragons, level for spell effect and the proficiency bonus is computed as the total of levels in all classes, so you really don't seem to lose much by taking a level or two in a different class to get some different abilities. #DND #ttrpg

have you ever regretted multiclassing???

@laxmere Not yet. Zane Grey is great but new to me. I've read Heritage of the Desert, Rainbow Trail, and Riders of the Purple Sage. A lob of his stuff is free on Gutenberg.org and Librivox.org

@BryanReagan Ever read Rogue River Feud?

This Friday 15 May 2026 4:00 - 5:00 PM the #BookClub at the #Dunnellon Public Library will be discussing 1914 classic Western "Riders of the Purple Sage" by Zane Grey. Next month on 19 June 2026 we will be reading "Lessons in Chemistry" by Bonnie Garmus. library.marionfl.org/books-more/adu…

Florida’s #EducatorCodeOfEthics puts K-12 teachers’ primary duty to students first, then the public, then the profession. Most teachers do. College professors are expected to uphold their disciplines and the #WesternAcademicTradition of #OpenInquiry. Many seem to fall short.