"Pencil and paper" roleplaying has been one of my interests for the last 18 years or so. If you want a definition of roleplaying I suggest Mark Grundy's excellent Introduction to Recreational Roleplaying (this link is broken but I'm working on obtaining a copy of the article).
Hanging off this page you'll find various things I've written for roleplaying. The two most significant of these are probably my Atari Isev fantasy campaign and the Tarot Magic System, though there are other odds and ends, including some In Nomine material from a game in which I play.
Atari Isev is a fantasy campaign using the FUDGE mechanics that I've recently begun running for my wife and a small circle of friends. I made up some handouts for the players detailing world background and how the rules work, so I've added them to this page.
The rules for magic in most roleplaying games are very formulaic - here is the spell you can cast and if you make the appropriate roll thats the spell you'll get every time.
I wanted something different with an element of creativity on the player's behalf together with a certain maliability and mystery in the mechanics themselves. I decided upon using tarot cards as the basic mechanical system--the symbolism on each card determines the type of spell it can be used for and players can use cards in combinations to create an endless variety of unique and interesting spells.
Tamasys (TArot MAgical SYStem...yes, I'm looking for another name) is my first draft at this approach. The system is designed to "add onto" any existing set of rules (e.g., could use with AD&D, Pendragon, Runequest, Vampire etc.) and here is an example of how it works with FUDGE.
I'm very keen to receive thoughts on this.
Tarot are excellent general tools for a GM in running or planning a game. You can generate NPCs, construct storylines and use them in-game to determine NPC reactions.
The great advantage of tarot over dice is they provide a qualitative measure rather than simply a quantitative. The images and symbolism on the cards spark associations in the mind of the viewer that are far more useful in guiding the story than a simple numeric result.
In Nomine is a game from Steve Jackson Games (based on an original French concept) in which players take on the persona of Angels or Demons working (undercover) on Earth to sway the destiny of humankind towards good (heaven) or evil (hell).
I have the good fortune to play in Mark Grundy's In Nomine campaign, which has run on an intermittent basis since late 1997. Two campaigns run in parallel: an Angels game set in contemporary Berlin, and L.A.D. (L.A. Diabolical), an infernal (demons) game set in contempary Los Angeles.
Below are some resources of the game that have been created and which may be of interest to others. We do not employ SJG's mechanics for resolving actions but rather employ a hybrid system which keeps the original statistics of the game and employs Feng Shui's action resolution system. We have found this to be very successful. There are also two short stories involving the characters I play in the two games. These stories were created interactively via email (i.e. we played via email) to support in-game developments and as an experiment with the medium.
Many schemes have been proposed. I've written an applet for the visualisation and comparison of the resulting distributions. I felt this would give people a more intuitive feel ("...a picture is worth a thousand words...") for the different distributions while also allowing me to exercise my applet writing abilities.
A miscellaneous collection of articles relating to various aspects of roleplaying. Some I've written, others I've saved from the internet (in which case acknowledgement is given to the original author). One day I might get around to "marking them up" into html, but I doubt it.
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