Paul: Every year I make myself a new, sometimes private resolution and every year I do my best to see it through, but 2013 proved an exception. I told myself I’d try to design a tabletop roleplaying game and it wouldn’t matter if I was particularly successful or not, the point was to try and to learn from my mistakes. Then 2013 happened and I might as well have been Lear yelling at the storm. I was mostly wet and useless.

So I’m trying again and this time I’m going to write about it. Over the next few weeks I’m going to look back at games I’ve played and the systems I’ve played with, poke at mechanics that I have and haven’t liked and, most importantly, try and put some ideas together. Sometimes there will be some number crunching and design theory. Other times, there will be stories. Sometimes the two will meet and we’ll discover that dragons used to fly at five miles per hour.

So, let’s not delay. I want to start with a the story of how I was inspired to do this, over a year ago, then look at the sort of things I might want people doing in my game, then give a rough outline of what sort of game I’m going to fumble towards. Why not come with me and, I hope, not chuckle too much as I stumble my way through my thought process?