End-of-Week Elmore Musings/Navel Gazing (10/4/13)

Tika wields her +1 frying pan with skill!

 

Well, after a month of potentially inane and definitely self-serving meme posts, I'm back to End-of-Week Elmore! This time around, I'd like to inject a bit of what I've been thinking about of late, when it comes to me and roleplaying. I'm definitely going to elaborate next week on these subjects, but I wanted to at least give a taste of what's to come.

 

First of all, I love Dragonlance, and I don't care who knows! I love it so much that I'm thinking it's time I took the next logical step, and make my blog into something of an online bastion of Dragonlance support, positivity, etc.

 

I know the arguments put forth by the Dragonlance "haters," and I understand where they're coming from: Sure, the Dragonlance modules back in the day were railroady, some of the races (*cough*kender*cough*) are annoying (I believe my long-time hatred of gnomes stems from my exasperation with Krynn's tinker gnomes), etc. The novel series has been very soap-opera at times, and is a large and looming spectre that hangs over would-be Dragonlance DMs. On and on.

 

Sure, I understand all that. But those things mentioned above can be overcome. Like any other published campaign world, you can take Dragonlance and you can tweak it to your own version of the setting. Just do it, stop crying.

 

Don't like the whole "test" concept for wizards of High Sorcery? The mages in your version of Krynn abolished it. Boom, done. Don't like the proliferation of dragons in the setting? Uh, have dragons retreat back to the fringes of the world. Simple. So, ultimately, when you start that Dragonlance campaign, you let any players that are huge fans of the setting/novels know what changes you have made so as to temper expectations. 'Nuff said.

 

The other thing on my mind of late has to do with my desire to find a game system suitable for the needs of the busy adult roleplayer. I need to elaborate on this, but suffice to say that I know that, technically, any RPG can be tweaked/adjusted/house rules/otherwise utilized to suit the needs of a group that can't meet all that often, or sometimes goes through long spells of inability to meet.

 

However, what about a system actually created to facilitate play by a group that meets infrequently and/or also has a mix of players that can change from week to week? What about a system that allows some sort of progression by players so that they have milestones/goals for which to strive, but that doesn't have to be as "long" of a slog as wading through thousands upon thousands of XP points to advance? What about a system that gives characters access to abilities that they might have from their early adventuring careers right on through to when they become veterans, but just have degrees of danger at lower "levels" (if that even makes sense to you).

 

All of this makes me think of JB's urging that roleplayers create their own "D&D Mine." And it's also the reason I've been bugging him about the next game he's going to create ;-)

 

ANYway, I'll elaborate on all of this next week. Until then, happy gaming folks!