My role-playing past...

Okay, so I'm biased. I know that.

I've been a pen & paper role-player since I was 10. (Yes, I'm a geek, I mean, really geeky.  But I wave my geek card proudly.)

What I love about role-playing is the freedom of action and imagination. It quite simply is the most imaginative gaming you can do.

Like most roleplayers, I cut my teeth on Dungeons & Dragons (basic edition). After that I levelled up with D&D expert rules, quickly followed by Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Bear with me. There's a reason why I'm telling you this. (Although as no one is reading this, essentially I'm telling myself.)

I owe it all to D&D really. Though I no longer play it. Lord Gygax has a lot to answer for.

Anyway, after my foray into fantasy role-playing via D&D I branched out and flexed some sci-fi muscle with Traveller, MegaTraveller and (some comedic sci-fi muscle with) Paranoia. Which if anyone remembers it, had some great advice for GMs (mainly, make sure you kill the PCs as frequently and gratuitously as possible.

Pretty soon I graduated to MERP (Middle Earth Role-Playing) and ultimated did my post grad with Rolemaster - quite simply the most versatile all-encompassing rule-set ever to be created for role-playing.

Rolemaster is a great system... if you're an autistic savant. I have maybe just over half of the rules - and that stack of books alone consists of probably 1000 pages. Somewhat untenable to game with (unless you're the aforementioned Rain Man).

So some years ago I set about paring down the game system, using all its versatility, but only about 1% of the tables. The result was, IMHO, a slick, swift, flexible system that could be played from a pamphlet. I called it Richmaster, on the account of my name being Richard, and it being distilled from Rolemaster.

Stay with me, theres dick jokes coming.

Unlike some, maybe most, roleplayers, I rarely-to-never used purchased modules (adventures). Sure I played in a few (a lot): Keep on the Borderlands, Lost Tomb of Martek, something to do with Frost Giant Jaal -whatever the hell that is. But what I really love about roleplaying is the freedom it grants you to create your own adventures. I guess the closest gaming (i.e. on computers, consoles etc.) gets is with Never Winter Nights. Although my issue with this is: if you're going to spend that amount of time creating an adventure for your friends, why not go old-school and do it pen & paper style? The atmosphere is much better, the catharsis, second to none.

So historically, as a roleplayer, I have created dozens of worlds, hundreds of adventures, and schizophrenically, thousands of characters. This experience (I will try and avoid the rpg puns) has symptomatically made me somewhat critical when roleplaying is translated into computer gaming.

Sorry for that. You may love WoW or GuildWars or whatever. But really, they don't come close to sitting around a table with your mates, when one of them has just contracted lycanthropy and you're waiting for them to change, but you don't know which one of them it is.

More on this later.

pilch out.

26th level roleplayer
+50 magic item creation
+45 level design
+20 in amateur dramatics

(...and no, I don't wear a cape in RL!)