The Next Big Thing

As the latest playtesting stage of Beat to Quarters trundles along, my mind has wandered to what I will do after it is finished. Its certainly not a secret amongst my closest friends that I am pretty Napoleonic'd out - I feel almost physically sick at the thought of reading another book about the era! I'm still full steam ahead with BtQ but thats it! No more! Three years of working on one topic has taken its toll.

However, I am not someone who just sits there and does nothing. In fact even a few moments of inactivity makes me nervous and shifty. Its like a sort of perpetual intellectual motion addiction. I've been like this since I was a kid - which was horrific for an only child. My catchphrase when I was a bairn was 'I'm booooooored!'

Anyway, what comes next? Well, what it isn't going to be is another roleplaying game. Not writing it anyway. Its been an amazing experience but I am determined not to become a serial games designer. I am, however, considering some roleplaying venture. As Andrew keeps reminding me, the genre I love but I don't feel that I have conquered is Urban Fantasy and it acts as a tantalus for me. However, if I do it, its going to have to be done right, with a reasonably long campaign and my full weight behind not only the GMing, but also the production and peripherals around the game. More than just a game, I would want to deliver an experience. Its been some time since I actually ran a campaign (rather than one-shots and playtests) and I'm not getting any younger! As to what I would run, thats a wonderful question. If and when the Dresden Files RPG comes out, that would seem to be the obvious vehicle. However I'm not holding my breath for that. I'm about to come into possession of the old Underworld rpg which might give me a basis. I have considered even using Hot War as thats a system that I have enjoyed in the past.

I'm going to have to consider what I do with my education as well. If I do (finally) get settled in as a proper lecturer at the college, I will have to upgrade by PTLLS to a CTLLS or DTLLS sooner rather than later. I can't say it would be a hardship but in the end it wouldn't be too much fun either. I've also had the yearnings to do some formal learning, either in history or (bizarrely) french! I was stunned by how much I enjoyed my journeys in France this summer and I was disappointed that my lack of linguistic skills meant I missed some of the details of what was going on. It would be a tough sell for me to do something with an exam at the end, but it might be what I need to get over this silly aversion I have to them.

I also have my standing promise to myself that I will finally learn how to do the database+website thing, so that I can restart my web design interest. I'd have to learn to do the database thing first, of course, but thats a given.

Its strange - the world is my oyster but I'm at a bit of a short end as to what to do. I only really know that doing nothing is not an option!