GM Notes: That One Game...

We all have it...that "One Game."

The game that inspires us to creativity, the game that we grabs a hold of us and just will not let go.
That game that reshapes our imaginations, gets our creative juices flowing.

For some, that game is Dungeons and Dragons, for others it is Kult, or Star Wars, or Shadowrun, or Cyberpunk.  For me, that game is SLA Industries.

Throughout my game materials, notebooks, supplements, miniatures, props, etc, I have materials relating to my SLA Industries games.  Most of the content I have written for games, was written for SLA Industries.

Pages of NPCs, new weapons, new skill packages (classes), equipment lists, fashion styles, new races, pages upon pages, digital and physical, the ideas just keep flowing.

Just searching the internet, looking through the newspaper or merely even talking to people will get me thinking of a new idea, or how to work something into my game.

Back in 1993, I met a fellow gamer at the local shop in a town of around 3k people, in a rural area of Missouri.  I forget why we went out to his house, which was in an even more rural area, but while he was gathering his RPG stuff and tuning his paintball marker I found a book on his floor.

I sat there in his room, flipping through the book, entranced by the artwork.  Yes, just the ARTWORK.

It was all black, white and grey, some line art, some charcoal, some inked, but it captured me.

When we returned to the gaming store, I immediately put in an order for the book.  A week later it was in my hands.  I devoured it.  Within two weeks I started running the game.  Remember, this was 1993, almost 20 years ago.

To put this in perspective, I purchased my first SLA Industries book before Magic: the Gathering was sold at the local shop (granted, only a few weeks before), before the ill-fated Maztica for AD&D 2nd edition was released, before 2nd edition Vampire: The Masquerade came out.

And I am still running the game, still seeing elements of our world that can be used or exploited for my role-playing endeavor.

There have been moments during this time that I have taken a short break and ran AD&D, Talislanta, Star Wars and a couple one-shot games, but I always return to SLA Industries.

The game where a massive company owns almost all of the 'Known Universe,' were if you do not work for the company, you work for a Soft Company (small company with no backing or a direct competitor), a terrorist trying to bring down SLA Industries, or one of the unemployed masses.

The game where serial killers are so prolific they are not even acknowledged until their 13th kill, where violence and sex on the TV are the norm, not the exception.

Maybe the space in my heart for this game is because it is so far fetched, maybe it is the artwork, or maybe it is because of the ease with which I can setup and run a mission.

Maybe it is because, if you think about it, the game is so close to our own world...

Just some thoughts, enjoy your game.