Welcome to Adventures Chosen!
I love roleplaying games. It started for me like it starts for every kid: Playing pretend. I played army, and I played house. I loved the Book Fair at school where I first discovered Choose Your Own Adventure books, and tried to get as many as a kid without a job could get. This was followed up by books from other series that I don't even remember the names to. Which Way Books, Wizards Warriors & You, Zork, so many others. Later, I found books with more rules, books that more closely resembled Dungeons & Dragons, like Fighting Fantasy, Grey Star and Lone Wolf. In the comics I was reading I'd see advertisments for Dungeons & Dragons, Robotech or Star Frontiers, games I had no idea about but nonetheless intrigued me. Then I bought Darksword Adventures, a book from a fantasy series I had not read, but the book basically contained a roleplaying game in the back. In 7th grade, I saw a kid with the original Dragonlance book for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and we talked. That was the final gateway, leading me to playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness, Marvel Super Heroes (Advanced Set), then Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.
I was in.
About
This is a site where I plan to journal and document TTRPG characters and campaigns I'm involved in. I might even talk about old Choose Your Own Adventure style game books or just role playing in general as well. If I'm really lucky, maybe I can convice a friend or two to also make journals, to document our adventures from different perspectives. That'd be pretty cool. In addition to this, I've also archived an old blog of mine on here that I used to keep on Blogspot that I called "Uzis, Capes & Katanas: A Weblog of Modern Action Role-Playing." Anything you see here written before 2024 will have been from that old site. You can check out what I wrote for it back in the posts archive
What's Here?
- Traveller - Journey of the Etana: A journal of Bryson Tarn, character in my current Mongoose Traveller 2022 campaign. There are also maps, ship plans and character profiles. For those interested in Traveller more generally I've coded up a number of utilities you can find in the Data section here related to trade and travel in Traveller.
- RPG Design: Everyone wants to make RPGs.
- The Blog Archive: Contains all of my various blog posts. The pre-2024 posts are imported from an old blog of mine called "Uzis, Capes & Katanas: A Weblog of Modern Action Role-Playing", but I continue to create new posts here that you can read from the front page, or see the list of every entry by clicking here.
- Street Fighter Paradise: Not exactly here, but this is a link to my site dedicated to the White Wolf "Street Fighter: The Storytelling Game" RPG. In addition to being a fan site, it is also the home of my 20th Anniversary edition of the game and provides links to all of the notable fan supplements and magazines created for it over the years, including translated magazines from the Brazilian scene!
Future Plans?
What other campaigns might I consider adding stuff for here? Here is a list of ideas that come to mind. We'll see if I do 'em up.
- Empire City: A DC Heroes Campaign
- The Rainy City: I have a lot of characters here... Separate by campaign?
- Hissatsuwaza: Fighting with Style - A Street Fighter Campaign
- The Port Authority: DC Heroes in Eastport
- Jason DC Heroes Game
- War in the North: A Mythras Campaign
- Project Long Stair: A Modern Dungeons and Dragons 5e thing.
- The Six Kings of Hong Kong: A Feng Shui 2 Campaign
- Project Apollo: A Stars Without Number Campaign
- Who knows?!?!? I've played so many things!!!
Want a Rules Chassis?
RPG-dom has always had people creating tons of house rules and remixes of games over the years. Starting with the publication of Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition and their releasing of the game under the OGL (Open Gaming License), people releasing their RPGs in an open manner exploded across the hobby. Sometimes these games can be used as a platform upon which others can build their own games, as has been seen often in the "Powered by the Apocalypse" scene (games inspired by Apocalypse World) and the "Forged in the Dark" scene (inspired by Blades in the Dark). Below are some links to some open games that could possibly be inspiring or useful to you in the creation of your own material.
- Ars Magica: Atlas Games' RPG of Medieval Magic.
- BRP: Chaosium's Basic Role-Playing d100 system.
- Blades in the Dark: Origin and inspiration of so many "Forged in the Dark" RPGs
- Cepheus: Based on Mongoose Traveller 1e.
- Cities Without Number: Kevin Crawford's OSR Cyberpunk RPG.
- DramaSystem: A more narrative system created by Robin Laws, used in Hillfolk.
- Dungeons and Dragons: This is the latest WotC Dungeons and Dragons 5e (2024) material, though previous material exists as well.
- FATE: There are a lot of FATE based RPGs. FATE itself evolved from Fudge.
- GUMSHOE: Almost the house system for Pelgrane Press, used in Nights Black Agents and tons more.
- Legend: From Mongoose, an earlier version of what would eventually become Runequest 6/Mythras. A BRP-like d100 system.
- Lucky 13: From Solarian, the rules system used by Top Secret: New World Order.
- Moonshine: A 20s/30s Noir RPG.
- Pathfinder 2e: It's Pathfinder, an evolution from Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 e and Pathifinder 1e.
- Worlds Without Number: Kevin Crawford's take on an OSR Fantasy RPG.
- Year Zero Engine: The system used by many Free League Publishing RPGs.
- An RPGnet Thread of More: I'm sure there are many more examples of open rules chassis, and this RPGnet thread lists some of them.