What’s this Site About?
Steve Myers made the Creative-Role-Playing.com web site to help inject new life into your role playing campaigns.
You’ll learn to build stories that hook your readers. You’ll discover ways to create characters that come to life as living, breathing people in the minds of those who play in your campaigns.
Learn how to create memorable combat encounters that consist of more than just dice, miniatures, and character sheets.
Above all, I’ll give you tools and approaches that I have found the most effective in running campaigns that engage, those your players will be talking about years in the future.
Why Did I Create this Site?
With the advent of Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, a lot has changed. Some of it’s for the better. The game is streamlined, easier to learn, and has grown to include fans that never would have played even a few years ago. My regular game consists of 45% to 55% female gamers, something we geeks could only dream about when I started playing. I probably would have dated more as a kid if that were the case.
That’s the good news. Here’s the bad. With the simplification of D&D as it enters it’s 4th Edition, many feel it has been simplified, dumbed-down, and made into a tabletop version of World of Warcraft. Earlier editions of D&D made it more difficult to learn, so often, only the gamer geeks put the time into learning to play. Who plays the game changed.
How the game is presented has changed. Optional miniatures became core to the game. I’m a huge miniatures fan, as you’ll learn at my Miniatures Painting Site. However, the game is so much more than that. I want to bring back the feeling of “old school” D&D that many claim is gone. If you know what I’m talking about, please participate in the forums to help others get there. If you haven’t seen an epic D&D campaign you’re talking about years later, we’re working to help change that here.
Who is Steve Myers, anyway?
I began playing Dungeons & Dragons in 1978, where you could play D&D or AD&D (Advanced D&D). Only a couple of the first books had been published for AD&D, so sometimes you had to wing it… a lot. My first campaigns were the typical newbie adventures where I got some graph paper, created a maze of rooms, and threw my players into the fray.
Over time, I learned that Dungeons & Dragons is much more. I grew up poor, so there was no money for miniatures or much of anything beyond the core books. I carried these books everywhere with me, devouring them whenever I got the chance. My parents thought the game was evil, and this was the first time in my young life that I got away with defying their wishes.
Geeks didn’t occupy the “exalted” status they do now… among other geeks, anyway. We were those who didn’t fit in with the jocks, stoners, and popular people. We tended to care less about fashion (or couldn’t afford to care) and being popular just wasn’t in the cards for us. However, D&D brought us together. We fought dragons, saved princesses, and delved the deepest pits of our imagination… and we had the time of our lives.
Besides, before computer games came within the budget of the masses, what else was a poor geek to do to entertain themselves? Some of my fondest memories involved dice, pen, paper, and a group of good friends. Maybe some of yours share these elements.
Let’s help build those kind of memories for the A.D.D.-sticken (I’m riddled with it) kids of the video game generation. I played World of Warcraft to spend time with my son (REALLY!) for 4 years. While it’s fun, it just doesn’t compare with a well-run D&D campaign. Help me to prove that technology doesn’t make a good game… interesting people with great imaginations do.
Happy Gaming!
Steve Myers (aka Cajur)