For an unedited piece from when you were 13, that's pretty sharp. My prose was awful when I was that young.

Oh mine's pretty bad all the same X3 my story's all disjointed and stuff. And it's just BAD. But it's better than some things I've written, even now.

I might try to mature it up at some point, see if i can make it work.

Holy shit..... I actually had a tear..... so fucking sad....*sniffle* Beautiful work, Vorel. I loved it.

Can you believe that she is embarrassed by this? I can already see her adult style coming out. I have to find some of the drek that I made at that age : /

Drek?

Sounds like a Dr. Who Villain.

ha ha! last night my texts with Chris went like this:

Chris: Who won at bball today? Did it go in? I couldn't tell.

Me: That's what SHE said. To you. Sniz-snap.

Chris: Who?

Me: It's just "The Doctor".

When I was 13 I hadn't even considered assembling a real story with a plot and the like. I didn't even write my first "serious" short story until I was 15, and it was really, truly bad. If I were to post it unedited, I'm not even sure it was be readable.

I started writing stories when I was in third grade but they were 75% plagarism. I didn't start ACTUALLY writing until much later. It wasn't until my twenties that I started writing REAL stories. Some of my stories from my childhood were fucking adorable, however.

I wrote my first novel when I was eighteen, but it was quite rough.

My first short story, which I wrote when I was fifteen, was about a serial killer who could kill with shadows. XD

My first story was about two frogs who go on adventures. It was based on Indiana Jones. I was working on a novel in my mid teens but I didn't get very far into it. I could probably clean it up into something better at this point. I also have a partial, unfinished novel based on a role playing game I was working on in high-school. It's pretty damned bad.

I actually gave your wife a copy of my first book... it's not exactly cleaned up, but it's readable.

I've got a role playing game called Marching Darkness I'd like to turn into a novel at some point, but I've been so slow with my work lately.

What kind of roleplaying game?

It was a custom game using a heavily modified D10 dice system.

The first session of the game itself was a horror genre game about a dark tide that was sweeping over a swords/sorcery style world, slowing crawling up the shore and spreading madness and evil wherever it passed. The players and characters were encouraged to keep their special abilities secret from each other, and all had a dark secret that somehow tied into the greater plot. The game pushed them all towards revealing their secrets, or going to greater and greater means to hide their various deceptions.

There were a lot of interesting plot points, but the first session (which actually took four days of play) ended when the characters fought a dark presence called the Wyrm and were devoured by it when one of their own decided to turn against them at the very end of the game.

The second sessions took place in a modern era world with the same encroaching darkness, but as the characters slipped into the darkened world, they began to see that it was not only creeping across the land, but across time itself. The older fantasy world appeared in places, rising up from the city-scape of the second story, and occasionally players would come across areas that looked like space-station hallways and the like, in the middle of an office building. Though the players had a different cast of characters, the themes were similair. Individual strengths were granted to players who fought on their own, but there were bonuses for players who worked together, and their was a dark subplot tying the characters together in the world outside of the darkness. This session ended with the players finding what they thought was an escape route from the darkness, a road of light that they reached, but upon following that rode, they found themselves back in another place of darkness.

The third sessions, which we didn't get around to (had an unrelated complication with some of the players, and the group broke up), took place aboard an "Ark" that was escaping from earth after it was swallowed up by the Marching Darkness, and the vile Cult of the Wyrm.

I wrote hundreds of insanity cards that the players would get as they did things that broke their minds. It ranged from seeing weird things, hearing weird noises, to getting "powers" that they didn't actually have. The players wouldn't know whether an insanity effect was an ACTUAL event or not, because I also had several hundred cards that were legitimate strange events the players would encounter, so they would have to act on the information like it was legitimate.

...and sorry for writing such a long, and probably boring, reply. XD

Not boring :)

Modified D10... Cult of the Wyrm... Built from The World of Darkness with a modified Storyteller System engine?

I took the World of Darkness D10 dice system and completely rehashed it for my own use. I've always preferred the simplified rolling systems, and it cuts down on the math a lot, but I've added quite a bit to the "engine" of the system, to make spell management and weapons and armor more intriguing and variable. I always felt that World of Darkness, while great for story telling, was a little lacking in combat, and really making players feel like they could create a character what was uniquely their own.

I've made three or four D10 games, and two HUGE D20 based games, but when implementing an entire world, I feel like the D10 system is the way to go. My D20 games were so loosely based on the D&D system that it would take multiple sessions to get new players up to speed and running. What I like about D10, is that even someone who hasn't played at all before, can usually pick it up by watching others for a half hour or so.

My last group was a great bunch of players, but this one guy was really, really mean to his girlfriend all the time, and she was such a sweet girl. I finally just got upset and didn't want to deal with it anymore. They were great fun as players, but their constant fighting, and his constant belittling of his fiance finally just reached a point where it made me sick to watch it. ...so, I did that which no friend should ever do, I guess, and told him I thought he was being an ass.

So, that ended those play sessions... and since I"m a recluse and don't have any other friends, no more pen and paper for me. :(

I always like the storyteller system and WW had a lot of awesome games. The new ST system is actually a lot better. It's feels like its going to be more complicated but once you read into it a bit, it's actually a hell of a lot smoother, simpler, and more efficient than the original system. A lot of my friends violently disagree with me but that is how I feel.

As for D20: It's an amazing system...

For Dungeon's and Dragons.

The most advanced setting that I've ever seen it actually work for is Iron Kingdoms. I have a more tech savvy Steampunk game that I'm getting ready to delve into called "Etherscope" but I don't know how well that will turn out. It looks interesting.

I have a deep love of the STS still. Werewolf: The Apocalypse 2nd edition was the first roleplaying book that I ever bought with my very own money. I was actually looking for the first edition (as that is what I started playing in) but by the time I was shopping for my own books it had passed. I still have a soft spot for The Apocalypse, but I have to admit that The Forsaken is an all around better game. Right now we're working on a review of Rifts that we'll begin filming in June.

I played Werewolf, Vampire, Trinity, and two others whose names I can't recall... Though I still have the source books in my collection.

I always felt that White Wolf's system lent itself to story architecture better then others. It seemed there was alot less rule bickering than with other play engines.

That being said, i've yet to meet a pen and paper system that wasn't fun once you get into it. I wish we lived closer together. I'd love to game with you and vorel.

Heh. You've yet to meet anything produced by West End Games then. Still one of the worst things I've ever had the displeasure of trying to deal with. Or F.A.T.A.L. Hoooooly shit... FATAL. Mother of fucking crap that game is horrible. It might be fun in a joking kind of way (like Hackmaster) but it takes itself so fucking seriously... It's like World of Synnabar if it were written by fifteen year old Beavis and Butthead fanatics.

I'm always looking for new troupes and players. Perhaps sometime we could arrange something over skype or some kind of voice chat. There are add ons for most chat services that have real-time displays of dice rollers and such. I'd love to introduce you to Sanguine LLC games. If you think that STS is a good system then you'll ruin your underwear over Ironclaw's system. Their game engine is AMAZING. I almost hate to admit it but their engine is better than D20, Storyteller System, Palladium Books, and Guardian's of Order. The closest thing to the smoothness of Sanguine's engine is the new STS.

But I agree. Rein*Hagen's system was really quite good. Especially towards the end. They let the power creep in Vampire get WAY out of hand, and the balance issues with Hunter: The Reckoning, Demon: The Fallen, and Changeling: The Dreaming made them unplayable but Vampire, Werewolf, and Mage were great games. The new set up is even better. I enver really like The Masquerade, but The Requiem is really quite cool. I'm loathe to admit it but Forsaken is over all better than The Apocalypse, and some of the other game improvements are incredible. The new Changeling game is god damn awesome.

It's true, I haven't played anything by West End Games. After my D10 and D20 system experience I spiralled off into my own stuff because I like making up worlds and rule systems almost more then I like playing the damn games. XD

Sanguine LLC? ...you have peeked my interest. I shall investigate myself. I love a nice smooth system that lets the stories get told without constant instructions reference. You've also really peeked my curiosity about the new STS games. I haven't played ANY of the second generation games.

I did, however, play Hunter and Changeling, which I'll agree, were awful. I think I actually have a Changeling source book, which was full of interesting ideas, but really flawed execution.

Somewhere I have a torrent with hundreds of source books... I should look through it again and see what all I have in that. I downloaded it a year ago but never actually looked at it. XD

Sanguine LLC makes the games Ironclaw, Jadeclaw, Albedo: Platinum Catlyst and Usagi Yojimbo. They have another game but it isn't any good. At all. I can't even remember what it was called. Here is a torrent of all of their second edition stuff. Ironclaw just put out a new addition but I haven't been able to check it out just yet.

http://www.demonoid.me/files/detail.....9999/68187861/

To be honest, I fucking loved Changeling but the way that they wrote it was just... bleg. The second edition was really cleaned up but the banality rules made the game unplayable. I understand that it was supposed to be a bleak world of hopelessness and all that but it just didn't fit with the rest of the World of Darkness. You could make a party composed of almost anything but if someone wanted to play a changeling then you'd either better be prepared to JUST ROLEPLAY and contribute damn near nothing to the competent monsters or be disappointed by how much they suck. How much they suck slash how much the ambient banality their vampire buddy is bringing in is destroying their ability to exist. Hunter was even worse.

Oh man... check out the game "...In Spaaace!" http://www.gregstolze.com/downloads.html (it's down near the bottom, by Meatbot Massacre) It has a really interesting and unique system. Totally diceless. It revolves around a bid war that allows the players to interject things into the story as well as the game master. it's kind of Beer and Pretzels but it's a lot of fun.

I have a game that I've been working for a bit over 12 years. It is technically the first RPG I ever played as I invented this AMAZING NEW KIND OF GAME out of a board game I had been designing, only to find out a year later that my AMAZING NEW GAME design had been around since the goddamned seventies. I was pretty crushed to learn that pen and paper RPGs were already a thing X3 It's currently in pieces because I recently went on a massive revision spree. I'm rewriting everything from the ground up as it was too... unwieldy before.

I'm snagging the torrent now! Thanks for the link.

I grew up being told that D&D and pen and paper games were for satanists. XD The first time I ever played, when I was like 13, I thought I was doing something foul and evil, and I wouldn't tell anyone about it. I'd have been quicker to admit to spying on the neighbor girl in the shower (but maybe not the neighbor boy).

I started design work on a Hungering Saga board game a while back, but I was really depressed at my inability to build nice graphics for it. I do want to finish it though. It's a multi-path, quest based game with resource management, and three or four different ways to "win."

My mom got rid of my first Magic the Gathering deck and my first Dungeons and Dragons book because she caught wind of that whole Ed Meese, Moral Majority RPG attack bullshit. For some reason White Wolf was ok (I guess the church-o's never mentioned it by name) but DND was an evil mechanism for Satan. Of course my mom attends a church that gives its parishioners lists of companies that they should not do business with because they have ties to sinful behavior. For instance we have a phone company called "Clay County Rural Telephone" (which by the way is a horribly shitty, fucking AWFUL service that, on top of sucking balls, cheats its customers blazenly) because they are a phone service that "does not contribute to the Homosexual Agenda by donating moneys to gay organizations". To explain this further: One of the elders of her church is related to the fuck-barons who run that company, and they can say AT&T gives money for "Gay Organizations" because they donate money to AIDS research. I pointed this out to mom and she met me with total shut-out. My guess is that she can't let herself realize that her church, The Pentacostals she's trusted her entire life, are scheming, republican thieves and that they've betrayed her trust. For fucks sake, we're talking about people who protested the Dalai Lama when when he spoke in Indianapolis. There is still one guy left who fights roleplaying games and he's a laughing stock. Each year I try to get the Chick company to sponsor my way into Gencon on the grounds that I will hand out their tracts about how RPGs are evil. Have you read that?

Anyway, if you'd like you can see some of the stuff I've done on my game. The newest updates are published on a private FB page. I can send you a friend thingy if you'd like.

I'd love to take a look at anything you've worked on, Winter. Your work is terrific. :)

My dad's agnostic, and my mom is lax catholic, but they still believed the "it's satanism!" propaganda regarding D&D that was so popular in the 80's and 90's. Which was hilarious anyway, because if they knew anything about Satanism, they would have been aware that it has very little to do with worshiping the devil, which seems to be what is normally associated with Satanism. In that manner, I suppose I made out much better than you did, though my parents consider themselves republican, though they think gay people should have equal rights, and that stem cell research is important, and that marijuana should be legalized, and that women have right to have an abortion if they want, and that the rich should be taxed in equal portion to everyone else... but they're still staunch republicans. :/

Bah, anyway.

Good luck on getting to Gencon! You can hand out pamphlets between checking out all the awesome stuff. XD

I've never successfully lobbied. I think they can see through my thin veneer of almost but not quite genuine fanaticism. I can usually convince people on forums of genuine intent (like say, when some schlub asks for a "christian" roleplaying game and I point them towards Racial Holy War ) but I'm pretty sure the chick company is on to me. This makes me sad as I collect their product. Few things are as insane Hilarious or Blatantly
racially
offensive
as a Chick brand Christian learning tract. Gosh golly, they sure are informative.

Oops. The last two links should be

http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts.....61/1061_01.asp

and

http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts.....08/1108_01.asp

Wow, that shit is heavy. I know I'll never look at role playing the same way again. I can't believe I haven't committed suicide yet.

...and as for the other comics. They are amazing moments of WTF.

You know, the very first time I read Dark Dungeons an that one chick's character dies I instinctively thought "Oh! That sucks. Wait... She's kicked out? ...Why doesn't she just re-roll?"

NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERDS!

:O What are you implying?!

NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERDS!

i still can't write. but i can eat strawberries, when i was told to go ahead and help myself, where i'm house sitting, that has a couple of strawberry plants in the back yard.

Sound like a damn good deal =]