Last weekend we released the “Going Over The Edge” episode, a podcast that I improvised based on some loose notes I’d scribbled into my Daybook. It was my starting point as I push out into the unknown, over the edge, seeking the Promised Land of my own fantastic roleplaying experience. My thought today was to share those notes.

I think that, for me, I have arrived at the point where it’s either time to design the RPG system for me – and to simply go ahead and play it – or to get off and settle for something that’s almost the fit. For a while now, I’ve been adapting to GURPS and – as far as rules systems go – this has been a good fit in a lot of ways.

But GURPS isn’t prescriptive: it doesn’t tell you how to play. In other words, GURPS doesn’t provide a methodology or a world… and RPGs need more than rules – RPGS are built to be played with characters who inhabit a living imaginary world, and they are enhanced when the GM and players have a working methodology.

Back in the earliest days of the hobby the basic game structures and methodologies were developed and shared. In more recent years, published games generally leave a lot of this stuff out of the rulebooks.

What’s left is often a confusing and contradictory mess of half-understood bits and pieces. Thanks to the past three years or so of podcasting, I think I’ve managed to sort out a lot of the puzzle pieces and even re-arranged some of them into tools that I can use at the table.

The real trick is to discover the bigger picture, to put the pieces together in a coherent and complete manner. In my mind, this game that I am wanting to play is a blended entity, a mash-up between many different elements of play that I think can be assembled into something greater than the sum of its whole.

Game on!