Member introductions
Hello, I'm L.P.
ROOM: Hello, L.P.
My gaming history? I got started in '84 with the Moldvay Basic D&D boxed set. In junior high I made friends with a group of dedicated gamers -- my best friend's dad got started with the original Chainmail (and, I believe, actually played a few sessions with Gygax and Arneson), playtested the original Paranoia game, and wrote the very first character-creation software.
I've played more RPG systems than I can remember. Just off the top of my head: every edition of D&D (including Basic/Expert/Etc.), Pathfinder, Rolemaster, Spacemaster, MERP, Top Secret/SI, Paranoia, GURPS, Deadlands, MechWarrior/BattleTech, various Palladium games, Immortal: Invisible War*, Champions/HERO System, Shadowrun (EVERY edition), d20 Modern, Star Wars (WEG, d20, Saga, and FFG's new one). If I dig through my memory, I can probably recall a dozen more.
I've helped people write RPG systems, and recently had a few low-impact jobs editing RPG sourcebooks. Can't really devote enough time to that, unfortunately, thanks to my kids.
I'm also the guy who created HeroForge, a character-creation spreadsheet for 3E. It got expanded into Star Wars, Call of Cthulhu, Pathfinder, and a couple other offshoots. When 4E came out, I told the brand manager that I intended on making a HeroForge for it too -- and their next move was to put everything else on the back burner and devote all their coding energy toward the Character Builder.
Remember that? The first one? You could use it offline, it was pretty thorough, held to the rules but gave you the option to devitate, made a useable character sheet, and was pretty easy to use. Unlike their second version, which was none of that. Anyway, they never admitted it, but I like to think that the first one came out as good as it did because they didn't want me upstaging them again.
Pity my own attempt was hamstrung at every step. But that's neither here nor there.
So, in a nutshell, I'm one of those graybeard RPG players that has seen literally everything out there, and played systems that most people have never heard of. I've been running games for over thirty years, so I'm full of anecdotes and advice (as long as you keep a saltshaker on hand).
* Ho boy is this one the oddball of the group. PM me if you want to know just how weird an RPG can be.