Soon after I started playing D&D, I was already eagerly homebrewing. When running games, I particularly enjoy designing special items, monsters and minigames.
Over the course of the last few years, and especially during my sabbatical, I’ve come to realize that this is more than a means to an end; game mechanics are a language I enjoy speaking. I think I want to be a poet of balancing as much as I want to be a writer of prose. And it makes sense; I already have an affinity for storytelling as well as for algorithmics.
So, going forth, I expect to not only continue my creative writing efforts, but also invest more time into game design projects. For example, I plan on completing the D&D Wild Magic add-on I started last summer. I also have a concept for an original Sci-Fi TTRPG system intended for West-Marches-style play, though that one may still be a tad ambitious.
I have about a thousand more ideas, one more vague than the other. I don’t yet know what I’ll focus on next, now that The Horrors of Frostbite Isle is done. I don’t expect all of my ideas to make it into the real world, and not all of them are probably great, but I’ll most certainly put some points in rulomancy to give the good ones a chance.
As a consequence, besides working on my own games, I’ll educate myself by trying out some more existing systems (I’ve only played four so far; Shadowrun 5e, D&D 5e, How To Be A Hero, and Die Laughing). Which, in turn, could make for interesting reading for you. Everyone wins!