game madness

The past few months, I have been trying to do something other than fiction. But I find that nonfiction just bugs me -- I feel like whatever I'm saying is readily available elsewhere. It's an odd sort of dissatisfaction.

So I've been going for the middle ground: trying (again) to do some writing for the gaming markets. But the typical role playing game has so many rules, and I've finally come to the conclusion that there isn't a system I'd actually want to run a game in. Every system has some crazy problem, either too much detail or not enough, so I'm stuck again. The open calls for writers almost always require buying some new book, even though I already have a zillion of them, and they're not cheap. Likewise, a guy would have to be insane to try and introduce a new system at this point in time. A gaming book needs about a thousand killer illustrations before anyone will look at it.

I did send a bunch of work in to a project using the Savage Worlds ruleset, but the project itself seems to have fizzled.

It seems like it would take a computer to keep track of all the tiny little rules now. But when I start to sketch out code, it grinds up against needing thousands of little graphics ... or being a text-based adventure thing, which is old, old, old. Personally, I'd like an online game that allows a huge range of actions, instead of ones that are all pretty but only let you fight.

So, my endless quest continues. Madness for the holidays.