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"What is that THING you're using as an avatar now?"

Silly question.

It's one of these:

Participating in Jim Raggi's forum about his new game brought up some other random game design thoughts. Here is as good a place as any.

FATE

Dispense with fixed stunts. Instead, I'd adopt a house rule (which I can't find a reference for now) that allowed players to "lock" an aspect to behave like a stunt: substitute one skill for another, grant a "permanent" circumstance bonus, a new function for an existing skill, etc.

Add experience ...

Novels and games always show wise graceful elves and grim greedy dwarfs. Does that seem right to you?

For a while now I've been claiming I'll start a new game Real Soon Now ... as I have been for years. Partly I'm worried that it will be Orc Lands all over again. (Or the V:tR campaign I joined last year.) Partly I just can't decide on a concept.

At the end of the final CompCharGen article I listed 26 concepts for a next game. The list changed somewhat: "Elysium" is on the backburner, "Where No Man Has Gone Before" has a pilot, and Stars Without Number joined ...

After watching the Doctor's recent regeneration for the Nth time, I realized how to solve a persistent problem in Doctor Who RPGs: Time Lords rock, companions suck.

A traditional solution is to make all players Junior Time Lords. The Buffy game gives non-Slayers more Drama Points, and I'm sure some Doctor Who game has tried a similar equalizing factor. Another suggestion I've heard is that the Time Lord is an NPC Patron, who makes the Companions do all the work.

But ...