My Role-Playing Qualifications

So, to qualifications:

What qualifications do I have to talk about Role-playing?

On paper? I'm a credited playtester for two different publishers. That's ... yep. That's it. I have a playtest credit for Paranoia XP, and a playtest credit for Bloode Island XPG, where I was a playtest GM.

I've also run RPG demos at game stores and conventions.

Yep. That's it. On paper.

That doesn't take into account my 23 years of role-playing experience or my 17 years of game-mastering experience.

It doesn't include the fact that I've played everything from Rolemaster to Toon. I've done diceless and free-form games. I've played LARPs. I've also played Shadowrun, and I had almost enough dice for myself¹. I could just make a list of games I've played (or run), but I honestly don't have time to type it up, and I'm guessing you wouldn't want to read a long list of games.

It doesn't consider the various books I've read on both playing and game-mastering. I have a large collection of games – but that's not important. What is important is that I've read them all, and could run nearly any of them with only a few minutes of review.

Even in 2002, when I made my transition from role-player to boardgamer, I continued buying and reading RPG's. That's not to say I no longer self-identify as a role-player, either – I just recognize that I'm more boardgame focused than RPG focused these days.

I have preferences. I won't deny this. In fact, that's what I plan to spend the next few weeks talking about – what I like and why I like it. I'm going to talk about systems, mechanisms, settings, and how they interact.




¹ This is meant to be funny. But it only works if you're familiar with the First and Second Editions of Shadowrun. Third Edition toned it down, and the Fourth Edition is a completely different animal.