Personal History

I have about 6 years of roleplaying under my belt, including AD&D, D&D 3.0, 3.5 and 4.0, Shadowrun 3.0 and the New World of Darkness. I've experienced many phases of particular admiration for one system or another and examined various philosophies of roleplaying.

I have been playing WoW for about 5 years now, but seriously for only 2 years.

4th edition D&D has, for the most part, perfected the tactical combat element of the game. The math is precisely balanced and characters have meaningful choices nearly every round. Other than a few snafus in monster design, the DM can reliably build an encounter and know it's "safe." It is exactly what I have wanted from D&D combat all along.

But you know what they say, be careful what you wish for. The realization of my dream of balanced and engaging combat has made me realize that it's not what I enjoyed about D&D in the first place. When combats take an hour each (if you have a very disciplined table), you can't get much else done. Further, I feel that WoW serves my desire for tactical combat superbly.

So, this leads me to a conundrum in my table top roleplaying hobby--4e does not do what I want a system to do, but I (and moreso my players) are unwilling to return to the AD&D due to major issues in that system--first and foremost, the magic system, with other issues like save or die weighing heavily against it.

But I still want to be able to play games of psuedo-medieval (occasionally heroic) fantasy. The Storytelling system by WoD, as beautiful as it is, does not work well for this type of game. So I am embarking on a mission to waste countless hours lovingly crafting a homebrew system that may never be played.

In this blog, I intend to include bits of thought on this homebrew system. I intend in each article to discuss my philosophy of gaming and how it plays into a particular design element, and then propose a solution. I would love to hear people's thoughts and feedback. Ultimately, the blog will be compiled into a handbook to be used in play. I may also occasionally make random posts with funny pictures or thoughts on WoW or other gaming. Enjoy!