Last year I started writing my own RPG. I had been toying with the idea for a while and had found myself with a lot of extra time on my hands. Since that time I have returned to school, added three additional game nights, and my wife gave birth to our second child. Because of those changes I haven't done a single thing with my RPG for a considerable amount of time. However, recently I have been listening to a new podcast called Master Plan. The podcast is centered on game design and its given me a new desire to start working on my game again.

I think part of the reason I stopped working on my game before was I really wanted to create a western RPG that dealt with the moral issue of actually killing a person. I had a lot of ideas that I had never seen used in prior western RPGs that I thought would be a really neat. Last June Kenzer and Co. released Aces and Eights. The game was a major blow to my desire to create a western and it took a lot of wind out of my sails. They had incorporated a lot of ideas that I thought were pretty original, yet my ideas were not original enough that someone else couldn't also think of them. Obviously many of the mechanics I had chosen were completely different from Aces and Eights and nothing was exactly the same idea, but a lot of ideas I wanted to put in my game were similar to game concepts in that game. No longer were my ideas novel and new, instead they were copies with a twist even though when I came up with them they were original ideas.

Fast forward a year; I find myself returning to the dice mechanics and core rules I was planning on using for my western now being transformed into another genre. Unfortunately my core theme of moral issues does not translate to the other settings/genres I'm interested in recreating in an RPG. In fact one of the settings I would like to create as an RPG doesn't even fit well with my core dice mechanic and would require a complete retooling from the ground up with absolutely nothing I used previously translating to the new setting.

Honestly I'm not sure any of these games are going to get made. I'm terribly busy as it is and creating a quality RPG is hardly an easy task. However it is a personal goal of mine and I plan on pursuing it this summer while I'm out of school.

I guess if anyone actually reads this blog they might wonder what my ideas are so at the risk of giving someone an "Aces and Eights" head start on my game and ruining my dream I will share those ideas with you. The first idea is a time travel game, I really like science fiction involving time travel. The paradoxes involved with time travel can be mind boggling but in all honesty thats what makes the whole time travel genre interesting. Its a perfect setting for amazing adventures and varied stories that can span huge arcs of situations. Plus its way easy to find campaign/adventure material for the game. There is oodles and oodles of history available to anyone willing to spend some time investigating our past. The biggest obstacle to the game can be summed up by Jeff Goldblum's character from Jurassic Park:

"Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."

I believe I will need to give the players incentive or empowerment to change the past, if I fail to do this one simple thing I fear that prudence will win out over curiosity with many gaming groups. They will be too afraid of causing the butterfly effect and will avoid confrontation or change. However maybe the game also needs some sort of mechanic to keep them from totally attempting the opposite which is complete change (ie going back and killing Hitler or saving Jesus from crucifixion). I will contemplate on this idea some more, obviously the rules need a framework that the players can freely adventure within.

My second idea is based on Under the Bed a small press game written by Joshua Newman. I absolutely love the idea/concept behind this game. I purchased the game and thought it was interesting. While I love the idea for the game, the execution used by Mr. Newman is a bit too abstract for me. Its very similar to a lot of story centered games that have become so chic in the independent/small press scene over the last few years. While some people enjoy this type of game I personally do not. I don't like GM-less* games, I don't like dice-less games. They are not my cup of tea.

But I love the concept of Under the Bed. So I would really like to put a more traditional set of rules and character creation to a similar setting. It would be a lot like playing Toy Story the RPG. This is the game I was referring to when I said none of the previous rules I had put to paper would fit the genre. I would have to start from scratch to make a game based on this concept. Again, I don't necessarily like rehashing a game that has already been done but with Under the Bed I feel more like I am expounding upon not competing against, and I don't think Joshua would mind me using his idea and running with it.

Anyway, I hope that some day these games might reach at least a playable state, but unless I put aside a lot of extra time, and find a lot more inner motivation then I currently have, I doubt these ideas will ever see the light of day.

(*GM-less games are roleplaying games in which all the players share equal authority over the fiction/story. With no central driving force or overarching plot but instead is a collaborative effort to create a story, plot, and conflicts.)