A Convergence of Dragons

During the late 1990's, when I needed to re-invent myself, a got into role-playing games.  Specifically, White Wolf's World of Darkness game lines.  There was something about their ascetic and technique that intrigued me, where other games had not.  While I never was able to join a group, per se, I still collected supplements whenever I could.  After about a year, I got a book that had a rules for creating dragon characters and I ran with it.  I knew that I could use the information provided to develop something that would work within the WOD universe.  It was just a flicker of an idea, but it began to grow.  In fact, I was almost ready to try out for the company in 2003, as a possible job, just before a flood hit.  Most of the collection was damaged so badly, but I managed to save it, in a fashion, for years until I was able to transfer the most pertinent information out of the books before finally getting rid of them.  Barely two months after the flood, while I was still trying to replace as many of the books as I could, White Wolf  announced that they would be ending all their current game lines and replacing them with an updated system.  This floored me.  Here I was, still recovering, and a possible dream of me was changing.  It would be another year before the new  games came out, but I initially liked what I saw. Much was similar, but many of the new rules made things easier.  It was also going to be easy to  develop my game along the same path.  The new games took longer to come out, but one came out (Mage:  the Awakening) that gave me the metaplot hook that I could found my game on.  Over the next few years, I would sporadically work on my dragons, adapting each new game line hook so mine would fit in seamlessly.  I would research books, both fiction and folklore, for anything new I could add.  Then, I finally started to actually write things down.  I created mechanics and rules, developed back stories, coined new terms, and drew icons and logos.  Everything was going great, but I was chicken.  I felt that something else could do better.  So, in 2007,  I began adapting one of the older game lines into the new universe, instead.  I thought that this might suit me better than trying something entirely new.   Even with only my memories and limited resources to go on, I started on a second game.  Since there was much less to adapt, things were going faster.  In only a few months, I felt that I had enough material to start writing.  This took up much of my free time, as I wrote almost nonstop.  When I finished the last page, in August 2008, I had an eerie feeling that something was up.  The next day, I found out that White Wolf would be coming out with a new game that would render mine moot.  After a respite, I would go back to my dragon game, develop some more, strengthen some weak points, but it wasn't the same.  White Wolf would soon change its business model, going to print-on-demand/digital download, meaning I would no longer be able to easily get their titles.  Then, they spun the actual book creation to a new company, Onyx Path Publishing, after a few corporate buy-outs.  Finally, they even started to publish new material for the original game lines, with the newer system renamed as Chronicles of Darkness, with one of their products using some terms similar to mine.  It overwhelmed me, knowing I was 'ahead of the game,' as it were. I still have my material, and it could still be adapted to both lines, but my heart really isn't into it as much.  Although it is still a favorite of mine, game design isn't something I am that passionate for.  Next week, I will go into the game for you, detailing the high points and see how other like my idea.