So that brings me to the role playing part. I am sure I had strong influences somewhere, but I seem to have come up with roleplaying games in a similar for to the way they exist, independently of actually knowing much about any of them. I simply got fed up of the adventure games I would play with my neighbors while we were running around in the woods. It was always "I hit you" "No you didnt" "Youre dead" "Nuh Uh" "Time Out!" "Theres no time out in a battle!?" So I come home from college, pla Star Wars a few times with David and
Eli. Eventually I come back into contact with Nick (my current roommate
whom I had played many of the earlier systems with and the only one who
has ever run me as a character through a game ((at that dungeons and
dragons game at the birthday party)), other than that I have always
been the GM and run everything). Nick was hired along with Eli to build
a deck behind my parents house. Eli and I were playing WoW a lot then
and Nick had recently stopped playing, so we talked a lot about goofy
things in games and roleplaying. Eventually we reminisced about some of
the old stuff and some of the goofy adventures and crazy improbable
saves in star wars (things like sticking a lightsabre into a fuel tank,
which we reference a lot as the ultimate amazing feat, as Eli survived
due to a one in a million roll). Then comes one year ago last night. I
meet up with a buddy who was a huge fan of the old castle game. He
tells me that I should resurrect it and put it up on the net as he has
friends that play on play-by-post and forums and things like that on
various roleplaying sites. My mother soon after tells me I should
collect all the stuff I have designed in making these "games" (now she
wishes she hadn't said that I think, believing it to be a huge waste of
my time and a bad influence). Soon Nick, Tom, David, and Eli are all
playing Star Wars again and my scenarios are getting more complex and I
realize how much I enjoy that aspect of it and how much I like to tell
stories (seventeen pages into this email can you tell that? lol)
Somewhere in late winter, I decided I would do it. I would make my
world into a roleplaying system. Flush with inspiration, I designed a
basic system similar to the one we used for star wars as designed by
west end, with lots of the house rules and modifications we had been
using and a few things from our castle games thrown in to boot. I drew
scores of characters, overhauled the culture, came up with the aygeemya
and the magic system, created the schools of adventurers and many of
their abilities, invented a few technologies that would fit within an
alien bronze age world and we began to play. Eli picked a quixotic
slightly amnesiac prophet who became quite quirky and the groups comic
relief as he was played out (Ombra, see
http://www.alatha.com/roleplayingcharacters ). David, always wanting a
character in the middle of too much danger, made a lithe deadly female
assassin, somehow not forseeing that he would not be able to act
seductive at all haha (Saykoo). Nick, preferring a character that gets
through on problem solving rather than brawn or battle, made an
illusionist with dreams of grandeur (Jarakeh). Tom, always playing
whatever character he is as conniving and scheming, using a combination
of intrigue and threat, made a self sufficient street rat type with
great marksman skills (Eenkho). The group quickly met up with Lucky who
has given them many assignments and a host of other "guest" players who
are friends that take up interest or are around for a session. |