Gaming

I've been involved in roleplaying games for many years. My first exposure was from my cousin William who showed me how combat worked in the Warhammer RPG. Afterwards, I purchased Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness and the old Dungeons and Dragons introductory books. I started game mastering a group in elementary school, and some of that original group is still gaming with me more than a decade later.

During summer 2004, our group started to play a D20 D&D campaign. Although I have several reservations about the D20 game mechanics, my greater objection after the summer was that the campaign world just "didn't work." Although none of my objections were all that novel (see Dragon Magazine issue 160: "The Enemy at the Gates" and the uproar that article created), they were more annoying than before. Before the D20 game, we had played in an L5R game, which impressed me with the detail and logic of the world. It made sense.

I wanted a world that made sense. So, I started to design such a world. I ended up with a historical fantasy campaign called 1300 A.D.. The game is set in England at the beginning of the calamitous 14th century, during the waning years of Edward I. Roger Bacon, thirty years ago, discovered ancient magics in rediscovered Greek tomes. After winning papal approval, scholars and universities have begun studying magic again. The campaign starts as a basis for magic has been formed, although magic itself is largely unknown to the rest of the world. I decided to use the Hero system, because it is my favorite roleplaying system and is flexible enough to tailor specifically for the campaign.