I have been playing RPGs for over 30 years now, and during that time I have collected a lot of different systems, some of which I haven’t even played. They have just been sitting there collecting dust. Others I have played a lot, mostly Cyberpunk 2020 and various editions of D&D, of which 2nd Edition is the best, obviously.

I enjoy studying the mechanics of the systems, to steal ideas for various homebrews that I have come up with, as well as just making characters. I prefer to make interesting characters, rather than over-optimised ones.

That isn’t to say that I can’t make highly optimised characters. I have, on occasion, done that. But I prefer interesting, unusual and even unique characters. A lot of my characters take cooking as a skill, if it is available. Partially that is because I enjoy cooking, but also it can be a fun thing to play around with in game, even if it serves no real purpose or gives no real benefits. It is something that just makes the characters come to life more.

I had one character, a half-orc barbarian/druid, who collected ingredients from various defeated monsters and cooked them up for the party. It was a change of pace from iron rations, having things like shrieker mushroom and dragon steak stew.

So I plan on starting up a new segment here, specifically looking at looking at these various systems, some well known, others more obscure, and creating examples from them. Not just characters, for some have other things you can create, like the Worldbuilding Guide I have previous started looking at.

I have a half dozen systems already in mind to start with, and more will follow that. So stay tuned as we start an at times wild ride.