Way back in the 80's when I had far too much free time, I wrote a bunch of notes for an rpg call Kung-fu Fighter. The game was meant to emulate action from classic kung-fu movies.

I had recently gotten a d30 so I made the game d30 based. Critical hits were defined as echo strikes and had a chance to leave a purple bruise.

It was fun and silly but I never got around to finishing it. Perhaps when I retire.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;825760And just like that I'm suddenly really interested.

PM, Shipyard Locked.

If we're talking about first non-professional games, it was when I was 12 or 13, and wrote a 50-page long RPG as part of a school project.   It was basically a super-house-ruled D&D (B/X mostly, though it had some stuff from AD&D 1e stuff in it, plus some original stuff), with a ridiculous mix of classes and races and such.

Sadly, it is lost to the ages now.

I put together a heavily VD&D homebrew in the late 70s, which turned out to be popular enough -- god knows why, because looking back it was a clunky sonuvabitch -- for at least three other GMs to run it, using photocopies.  I ditched it for TFT (having contemplated doing so for a couple years) in 1982, when I had the opportunity to write TFT products for Gamelords.

I've never had the hankering to write one since, others with more talent than I having done a pretty good job of it.

I've had a number of scenario and gamebooks published, but never an out-and-out RPG.

I've never authored an entire game. Though I almost became a developer on a couple of games but had to drop out due to financial concerns.

I have the framework for a system that is my generic heartbreaker... I figure I'll get around to it at some point.

I've authored a bunch of features for Dragon, did some work with Mike Mearls, did some stuff with Goodman Games and Paizo then I dropped out gaming design work and writing because of an illness.

At one time in the prehistoric past I almost started a magazine for World of Darkness specifically (circa Vampire 1e) but eventually they decided to take it in-house and do their features in White Wolf magazine. Just as well, as my partner at the time ended up blitzing out on heroin and died...

Currently - in what little spare time I have, I'm working on a project that shall remain nameless, as the publisher posts here and I've not been given any leave to speak about it. /shrug. It'll happen when it happens. We're slow cooking it due to our other professional demands.

From a purely writing perspective - I'm working on my own fiction and I moonlight doing developmental editing for new novelists with my wife who is one of the best editors in this half of the galaxy.

After writing this... I've come to realize how weird this hobby is. What other hobby drives people to do this?

If we're talking my first "pro" game (in a very loose sense), it would be "Forward... to Adventure!".


Interestingly enough, I don't think I did any actual writing of a full RPG between that school assignment and this product.  Lots of campaign-design, homebrew settings, house rules, etc. but not an actual full-blown RPG.