I’m finally roleplaying! I’ve joined an existing group that was having trouble maintaining a regular schedule because of the life conflicts of a couple of players. Now with myself and one other new player, we hope to meet weekly on Tuesday nights.
The group gathers at the home of Joel, who is also a relatively new member of my neighborhood boardgaming group. And get this—the current GM, Eric, works at the same agency as I do, in my building!
Eric is running a D&D 3.5 campaign. The setting is original. Nothing particularly inspired, yet, but nevertheless, I’m already having a great time. The game as played is an interesting mix of adhering to the rules and ignoring the rules. But that’s good for me, as given the length of time since I’ve actually played, it may take me a little while to catch up and get in to my part. In the one session so far, we began investigating a series of brutal murders, only to discover the involvement of the party’s nemesis, who was previously thought dead.
Eric will continue running his campaign for the next few weeks. Then Joel has promised a 1920s pulp campaign using Savage Worlds. And since the group likes to have more than one campaign going on at the same time (to account for people not being able to attend on any particular week) I’ve been inspired to restart development on my science-fiction RPG system. More on that soon.
A tough few weeks at my job has kept me from posting for a while. Just as I began this blog, a huge project hit at work. Worse yet, the project has not gone smoothly, so I’ve been putting in long hours and have just not felt like sitting down at the computer to write more when I got home. I have continued to give the game ideas a lot of thought, though. Hopefully I can get things moving again.
The Name of the Game
One of the things I’ve been thinking about is a name for the science fiction roleplaying game. I think it would be a little awkward to keep calling it “that sci-fi game.” But a good name is not so easy to come up with. First, it should sound cool. But an ideal name should also convey a feel for the game’s theme, setting, or style. Read the rest of this entry »
This statement probably seems obvious, unoriginal, and of little value. Nevertheless, it needs to be the first and most important point of reference for every design decision, both large and small, because it is exactly what I’m trying to do. After years uninvolved in this part of the gaming hobby, I am interested in getting back into roleplaying but recognize that there are many hurdles to organizing a game among my friends. With a game custom designed for our interests, strengths, play styles, and outside lives, I’m hoping to maximize the odds of generating interest. I welcome the input of others and invite anyone else who might read these pages to make use of my work. But when it comes to final design decisions, I will always choose what will work best for my existing group. This philosophy leads to several design principles: Read the rest of this entry »