“What the world needs now is another geeky blog...”

“...like I need a hole in my head.”

That said, it's hardly a perfect world, and hey, no one's forcing you to read this, right?

Like most people, I usually make one or more New Year's resolutions at the beginning of the year. Like many people, I often fail to carry through on those resolutions. However, last year I made one that I actually followed through on, paying off all of my credit card debt, and starting 2011 debt-free (of course, I still have to work with my wife to help her to become debt-free in the years to come, but that's another story).

Actually having followed through for once, I figured I would see if I could manage that once again. One of my resolutions is to lost some weight (specifically, to lose 30 pounds by Labor Day), but that's not the point of this blog. My other two resolutions are to start gaming again in 2011, and to work up a playtest document of a RPG that I want to write (tentatively titled Trollslayers), having at least a beta version available to give to others no later than the year's end.

I've been gaming since I was thirteen, ever since one of my older brothers gave me a copy of the D&D box set (the one with the Holmes 'blue book' in it) back in the summer of '81. RPG gaming has been one of those things that has permeated my life, in ways large and small. However, for various reasons, 2010 was the year I didn't get to do any gaming, for various and sundry real-life reasons (no face-to-face gaming, at least; I have been doing some online gaming, which has helped me from going into total withdrawal). So the simpler of my two gaming-resolutions should be fairly easy to accomplish; get the dice rolling again, either to finish up my Castles & Crusades campaign that I had been running, to start up an Unknown Armies campaign, or to at least play in someone else's game.

The other resolution will no doubt be more difficult to follow through on; I am by nature a rather lazy person. That said, I believe that most gamers are tempted at one point or another to try to create their own ruleset; not for publication, necessarily, but simply to see if they can do it. It's pretty much a natural extension of the creative drive that gamers feel, to try to devise the 'perfect' rule-system (perfect for them, of course... it's when one assumes that their system would be perfect for others that the tears start). In this, I am not so different from all the other gamers who have put their thoughts down on paper, trying to come up with something new, or failing that, something workable and usable in a manner that other games for whatever reasons fail to satisfy. My attempts to do so will (hopefully) form no small amount of the content for this blog.

I have also been an avid comic book reader for as long as I can remember; I truly believe that reading comics helped my reading skills as a child when learning to read prose, fiction or otherwise (it may not have helped my ability to write, but if you choose to suffer through my wretched prose, it's nobody's fault but your own). My tastes have changed a lot over the years, but I still like to pick up a few new comics every Wednesday or so, and what I like (and dislike) will also be fodder for the blog.

Of course, anything else geek-related that strikes my fancy may also find it's way here. I'm going to try to post at least three times a week, all told. I suppose that's another resolution to try to follow through on.

Will I actually make good on these promises to myself? I guess the only way for you to find out is to keep reading...