There’s a time you just have to say fuck it.

Nothing is safe, and nothing is for certain.

I’ve spent way too much of my life not being authentic—hiding in jobs that I hate because they seem to be “secure.”

But experience has shown me that nothing is really secure.

We just got told this morning that my boss no longer works for the company.

I’m not sure, but the evidence points to her being let go.

It came out of left field for everybody.

Nothing is secure.

If there’s risk and uncertainty no matter what, why not go for what I want?

Even when I’m not exactly sure what that is.

I just know that it’s not what I’m doing—working for somebody else in a job that I hate or that doesn’t mean anything to me.

Even if I fail or it takes a long time to succeed, it doesn’t really matter.

There’s a renewed hope in just saying “fuck it” and making the decision to try anyway.

It’s definitely frightening.

I can’t lie and say that I’m full of confidence.

But I am certain about where I don’t want to be and the kind of life that I don’t want.

I’m pretty certain about where I want to be and the kind of life I do want.

But even though that’s not 100% crystal clear, I definitely know what I’m moving away from.

Sometimes, you just have to say fuck it.

As a kid, I often felt like I didn’t quite fit in—like I was doing something wrong without even knowing what it was.

It seemed like I was constantly disappointing my parents or teachers, and the other kids rarely accepted or liked me.

It was confusing—deeply confusing.

I could never figure out what I’d said or done wrong.

Most of the time, it made me want to try harder, to crack the code of what it took to get people’s approval.

But no matter what I tried, it often backfired.

To make things worse, the adults around me were unpredictable. What worked one day might fail the next. Sometimes, they’d just get upset—seemingly out of nowhere, for reasons I couldn’t understand.

Looking back, I can see they had their own issues, and most of it really had nothing to do with me.

But back then, it was impossible to see that.

Somewhere along the way, I became obsessed with being perfect—with getting things right.

It hurt the most when I did something I thought was clever or correct, only to be met with rejection by the adults or kids around me.

Failure quickly became something I feared—something to avoid at all costs.

I learned fast not to do things I wasn’t already good at, because the pain of failure was just too much.

Even when no one else was watching.

Somewhere in that childhood, I also slipped into a lot of magical thinking—which is ironic, because it’s something I’ve always claimed to dislike.

I developed a strong need to be right, to have the kind of knowledge that would make me right.

That need made me vulnerable to believing all kinds of things. I’d cling to ideas, unconsciously avoiding any real examination of them—afraid that if I looked too closely, I’d find out I was wrong.

It’s surprising to look back on now because I value the scientific method and seeking the truth above all else.

But somehow, that mindset followed me into adulthood.

Combined with my deep fear of failure and of looking foolish, it left me stuck in so many areas of life.

Stuck in relationships and jobs long past their expiration date.

Stuck avoiding anything that felt like it might be hard.

The perfect game would be well written. Written in a way that anybody can pick it up and understand it. I understand what they were supposed to do, what the game was about, and what the rules and procedures were. It should be very clear about what you should do and shouldn’t do and what you should expect.

The perfect game would be well designed. It would have a particular genre or feel in mind and should communicate that. The system and mechanics should help reinforce producing that genre and feel. The game should explain that’s what they were designed to do And how they do it. The probabilities should be exposed so you can understand what it will be like. The game should be play tested.

All of that is very objective but what about my subjective requirements for the perfect game?

For me, the perfect game would have a somewhat narrow range of competency. Maybe that’s the wrong way to put it, but you should be able to create the sort of characters that you would like and that fit the genre. You shouldn’t have to create a character and then wait a long time to improve them to the point where they became what the game experience promised or demands.

The perfect game for me would be designed to facilitate an in character as character experience. The game master would have the responsibility of running the world, and the other players would be responsible for their characters and their decisions. That said, the perfect game would allow for player narration and description, especially when they were successful.

Finally, the perfect game would encourage interaction between all the players.

You’ll notice that none of this talked about what genre or what mechanics what system what probabilities… There are lots of perfect games out there. They are all different and they are supposed to be!

This is an easy one. One person in my group has not ran games for us. Well, that’s not true. There are some people in our group that have not run for us either but they are willing to.

You can usually see him playing a Ranger or a facsimile thereof. Sometimes the strong silent type, the cowboy, the person with a strong moral compass who talks softly and carries a big stick. The quiet hero.

When playing with him you notice that he has read the game and has remembered a great deal of it. When you have a rules question you talk to him and he has the answer. He has an intuitive grasp of systems and how they work.

Yes, we are talking about Jose’, and it’s time for him to run a game!

Zyborg Commando Resurrection Overdrive!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/337532

Try it if you dare!

I would have continued to play basic dungeons and dragons alongside advanced dungeons and dragons. I would not have given basic up

I would have played and purchased as many games as possible. It was really hard to get new games and essentially the closest we got the game stores were the music store & the head shop which sometimes carried role-playing materials. I probably would’ve had to buy many of them by mail order sending in a self addressed stamped envelope and money orders.

I would have been more aggressive about joining groups and creating stable game groups. I would have had more people live near me that were willing to play. Not just people my age, but people who had been in the hobby in the seven or so years before I started playing.

I would not have taken a break like I did. I would have continued to play.

When I was younger I fell in love with reading. My parents introduced me to the Lord of the rings and the chronicles of Narnia at a very young age. I also discovered other fantasy and lots of science fiction. Stories like Robinson Crusoe and the Swiss family Robinson also captured my imagination as well as the Greek myths. besides reading there was no shortage of interesting fiction on television and in movies for me to gravitate towards.

Very often when a story was over I would wish that it continued. I wanted to see what happened next. It seemed like there should be more.

Just as often I wondered about the decisions that the characters made in the stories. Why did they do that? Would I have done something different? Why didn’t they do it this way? It was not uncommon for me to imagine myself in those same situations, or imagined myself as some other person with different qualities in those imagined situations. I thought about the decisions I might make and what might have happened as a result.

Like all children I did not have a lot of power or autonomy in my own life. My own childhood was not spectacular, and this only magnified the feeling of powerlessness. It was nice to be able to imagine some ability to make decisions and affect the world around me.

Role-playing games were instantly appealing because in essence they allowed me to do just that. Together my friends and I could share imagined situations and take on the role of characters within them who were able to make their own decisions. No longer would it be a passive experience, we would be able to be active participants in these scenarios.

I don’t believe I had the experience or language to really express why they were so appealing back in the day, but an honest look through time reinforces my belief that this is what made the role-playing experience so appealing to my younger self.

I can’t lie, I like creature comforts. My two favorite inventions are air conditioning and indoor plumbing. i’m a fan of all of our modern conveniences and knowledge. Furthermore, I really prefer a calm and peaceful life. Adventures! Makes one late for breakfast.

It’s interesting, because this question does not ask us what kind of character we would like to be, just what setting. It’s easy to get carried away thinking that it would be awesome to be a circle knight taking matters into one’s own hands. I just don’t want to live In the brutal iron age.

I’m very fond of dystopian future and settings like hollow earth expedition, but these might not be my first choice to actually live in. Then again, if the physics generated by the system of hollow earth expedition were part of the setting then that might be kind of cool.

I think I would like to live in a setting that is essentially the modern world but with a twist. It would be hard to pick. Maybe broken rooms? Of course I would want to be one of the people who experience the emergence of unusual powers. Maybe quantum black or delta green? I like Delta green better, but if I have to live there I might choose the much happier world of quantum black where the shotguns can kill the Shoggoths and we can sleep at night knowing that we protected humanity once again.

And of course we would be sleeping in our air-conditioned homes with indoor plumbing and Wi-Fi.

1981. I ran my first game. I couldn’t tell you played. It’s not that important. What is important is that I read the book and figured that not only was I going to have to run the game, but that it would be fun and rewarding to do so.

Too many of us are serial players and never run games, or are perpetual game masters and never play. I greatly prefer to do both. You really get to experience the total… experience that way.

If you’re hesitant about running your first game ever or in a system new to you, I understand. However this is not a competition, and the other players are there to help you. If they aren’t, then you need new people to game with!

This is the scenario, what do you do?

I am cheating a little bit as I did not really buy my first RPG. However I didn’t buy anything after my second RPG for a very long time.

After I get the basic D&D set, some of my friends at school told me that I really wanted to be cool I had to play advanced dungeons and dragons. So, I bought my own copies of those books and other materials related to them. So my second RPG was AD&D, now referred to as first edition.

Funny thing is, later on in life I discovered that I like basic so much better.