Roleplaying & Me 2013: Resolutions

Alrighty, so, my first post in this two-parter encompassed some reflections on my current relationship with roleplaying. Now I want to go over what I'm planning on doing with regard to roleplaying over the course of the coming year.

I believe I've settled on Labyrinth Lord as the rules I want to use going forward. Based on what I know of my current self, I have come to the conclusion that I need to run a version of Classic D&D. It's what I  have the time to run; in other words, it's got the level of complexity I can deal with as a busy adult. In addition, it has the "characters as archetypes" feeling that I want. Ultimately, I believe it's the system that I can dedicate myself to "mastering." It is also available to players for free, or at a relatively small sum at the FLGS.

Just a note: I can't remember everything about what I liked as a kid, other than I was a RAW (rules-as-written) guy. The closest we came to rules tinkering in those days was a verbal agreement to ignore this or that rule in the book. We had so much time to memorize rules and ignored those that we didn't like, and we had time to remember the few-and-far-between unwritten house rules.

Speaking of house rules, I know that I like to keep them to a minimum, but there are some definite tweaks I want to incorporate. In particular, I'm really losing interest in Vancian magic as written. But I think I have a solution to that issue. I'll do a future post outlining said house rules.

 

Here's a list of other things I want to accomplish over the coming year:

• A series of posts outlining the style of my next campaign, and how I'm going to approach GMing going forward after my hiatus
• A purging of my assumptions about how much I know about RPGs, especially D&D. This will probably involve going back and reading the games with as much objectivity as I can muster...which could be a major undertaking. But it's a long time coming.
• I want to roleplay like a kid again...which will probably mean no detailed maps, no need to take tons of time to strategize and brood over detailed city diagrams, and other things I never worried about as a teenaged roleplayer.
• This is a big one: I am going to work on creating a campaign world. I've talked myself out of this in the last year or so, convincing myself I don't have the time. But I think this will help me get more of a creative outlet, as well as make me more invested in the campaign I will run. I've found myself easily losing interest in published settings (Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk) as I run them. I'm excited about the prospect of building a world, something I haven't done for a long time.
• I am also determined to start crafting "substantive posts." I want to offer some stuff for people to use when roleplaying, such as new creatures, adventure hooks, etc.

So, those are my goals for 2013! Wish me luck!