I'm big into table-top games! Yes, big! My sophomore year in college, a group of friends introduced me to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 2nd Edition by TSR, Inc. I was hooked! We spent many, many nights fighting Orcs, Trolls, and other odd, fantastical creatures. I spent my hard-earned money on Player's Handbooks, Dungeon Master's Guides, and Monster Manuals, dice, pencils, and three-ring binders. I still love it.
My tastes in gaming systems have changed over the years though. As much as I like playing D&D, I dislike the class and level-based system. I've come to appreciate the solid system that Steve Jackson Games publishes called GURPS - The Generic Universal Role Playing System. I'm also a fan of FUDGE and admit to really digging Mage: The Ascension by White Wolf Game Studio.
Current Games
There's not much going on right now. My friend Mark and I are players in a GURPS Traveller campaign run by my cousin Dwayne, which is an interesting change of pace. Mark and I know next to nothing about the setting, and Dwayne hasn't GM'ed in 16 years! This one started out as a home-cooked version of The Window RPG, another free role playing system, but we found that we needed a bit more structure - more "crunchy bits." I already had two source books for GURPS Traveller, so we went with that instead. Read the blog we started for this campaign.
Next on deck is a a GURPS Banestorm campaign; I'm really excited to get started on this! The setting book is rich with information any self-respecting GM would be dying to get their hands on for a fantasy-based campaign. Dwayne has been quite interested in playing a Rune Mage character, so a wizard from the Nomad Lands seems a perfect fit, using alternate Symbolic Magic rules from GURPS Thaumotology. Mark will likely play a Knight of some kind, but we haven't really sat down and discussed it yet.
An example of another setting I adapted to GURPS is our Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter setting. I'll see what I can do to post the GM notes, but the following link has a summary of the sessions. There were four more that followed that didn't make it into this document. (PDF)
Domino Avatars!
A few years ago, I had an itch to create a game out of dominos and a deck of poker playing cards. The first game was an attempt to mimic some of the gaming characteristics of Magic: The Gathering collectable card game called Domino Knights. I felt this version of the game was too slow, too exclusive, and hard to remember what was going on... Just like Magic! Success! Or not...
I decided to start over and created a new game called Domino Avatars! It could use some editorial help, but the game mechanics work well enough. It's a fun game, so give it a try. Obviously, it's free!
