I have a long history of being the Dungeon Master for my friends D&D games and other pen and paper role playing games. A role playing game is like acting improve combine with math and gambling, as to give the actors rules to guide their performance and random chance to keep them on their toes. I have been craving to a high fantasy story like that of Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones, but the genre of high fantasy has some cliches that annoy me. One of them is an evil race or civilization, for example how all orcs in Lord of the Rings are evil and are just born evil. I don't know about you, but I would be very crabby if I were born into Morder. Maybe the orces are just being oppressed into living in hell-hole of Morder by the humans, anybody think of that! So in this world I am creating for this game with friends, this is cliche I am throwing out the window. I hate the idea of absolute evil, I simply don't believe things are that simple. So I have civilizations of creatures that are far from human, very different but are not evil. For exampling I am re-visioning Gnolls, humanoid hyenas which are often slavers in conventional fiction as a matriarchal nature-devout traditionalist with a very deep respect for the cattle they farm.
This world I am making though has turned into a weird melting pot of all the fictional universe I love. I would say my two biggest inspirations are Terry Pratchett's Discworld and Warhammer Fantasy. Now anyone who is familiar to these universes will think, "How in hell is that going to work, those two are as close opposite as they get!" I hear your concern I respond they both have dry sly humor sprinkled throughout their stories. Discworld prefers to use more silly humor by bring modern concepts such work unions and patent law in a fantasy universe of elves and dragons, where heroes are more likely to win with wit then strength and violence. Warhammer uses a lot dark or gallows humor while going to ridicules levels of violence. Both these kinds humor appeal to me and I like give my players a choice of being solving problems cleverly and without violence, or they can use violence to solve their problems. I love have puzzles and political intrigue in my games, but some players don't care for puzzles and social drama and will just smash through. I respect whatever my players wishes, as this is first rule of improv is to always say yes and go with it.
This will be my first time doing a fantasy game. I have got five years being a DM. I have done games of Sci-Fi or modern Vampires as Dungeon Master, but I never was dungeon master of fantasy game.
Anyways, if anyone sees this and wonders "Hey I wonder if Rorschach would be Dungeon Master for our game?" the answer is maybe. I love to be part of your game, but I live on west coast of the U.S so keep time zones in mind. Feel free ask about my games or whatever. I am kinda surprise nobody has brought up Vampire the Masquerade as that seem like a game that popular with the kind people on this site, but that is for another blog post topic.