Happy Third Anniversary, HeroPress!!!

Three years! Who'd have thought it? Not me, for one. After my first two aborted attempts at a HeroPress blog (the first cruelly assassinated by its service provider and the second exploding from its own internal angst), I decided to concentrate more on the positive and less on the ranting and misanthropic bile (there are already plenty of sites devoted to that on the Interwebs).

Now, 36 months down the line, the site continues to go from strength-to-strength and I simply can't believe I've attracted over 100,000 more hits since this time last year, when I was pleased to have reached 45,000 in two years!

Recently the site has been averaging just over 400 hits a day - which I'm rather proud of as well.

Admittedly, a large percentage of those hits are just drawn to the site by the monthly Geek Pin-Ups (particularly last year's Amanda Tapping pictures), but I always hope that maybe I can turn some of those visitors into regular followers if something else on the site catches their eye.

I'd, of course, like to take this opportunity to once more thank all my Google Followers, feed subscribers and Facebook readers and I'd be delighted to welcome many more to the HeroPress fold in the next 12 months. If anyone has any concrete ideas on how to turn 'visitors' into loyal Followers, I'm all ears...

It's been an odd year for HeroPress; at times I've worried about its lack of focus and at others I've reveled in it, but just as I begin to wonder "is it all worth the time and effort?" (I must confess I have been on the verge of knocking this on the head a few times of late) up pop unsolicited comments like these from two regular HeroPress readers:

"HeroPress is a great blog, it has been my "go to" source for all sorts of geeky news," - Tim Brannan, author of Ghosts Of Albion RPG

"I read [Mortal Engines] purely on your recommendation, and loved it," - Kelvin Green, writer and artist.

Kelvin's comment, in particular, made me grin from ear-to-ear because I don't consider myself a particularly competent reviewer of books (I tend to just gush and coo about 'how great they are', without being able to explain my emotional outpourings particularly well) and so when someone else has enjoyed a book I like - on my recommendation - it means an awful lot to me.

I am far more 'protective' of books I love than films, TV and comics where I know I have eccentric tastes and expect others not to agree sometimes.

So, you may ask, what happened to the HeroPress review of Doctor Who: Adventures In Time And Space?

First I have to say, as many others have also said by now, it's an incredibly attractive and well-written game and hopefully - with its smart, box set design - a sign of the direction roleplaying games will be heading in this year.

However, for various reasons which I will try to explain, I've realised (at least at the moment), it's not a game I have any interest in running (although I shall continue to support it, champion it and buy everything that's brought out for it).

On one level it dawned on me that I was putting all my hobby eggs in one basket - you only have to look back over the last 12 months of HeroPress to see I was reading Doctor Who novels and comics, collecting Doctor Who action figures and wargames miniatures, and now I was considering diverting all my roleplaying energies into a Doctor Who roleplaying game.

The thing is, although I adore everything about the wonderful, eccentric, Britishness of the Whoniverse and its eclectic fandom, it's not my exclusive interest - I still have room in my heart for Star Wars and other realms of sci-fi and fantasy as well as superhero comics, fantasy RPGs and steampunky books. It seemed almost a shame to shut off those other avenues (although all could have potentially fed into my Doctor Who games).

However, I also felt - because I hold the show in such high esteem - that I probably wouldn't be able to do it justice. I look back to my years at university and the time when I had to decide a topic for my dissertation. The truth was I probably knew as much as, if not more than, anyone else on my course about Star Wars (at the time), but had no desire to dissect it and critically analysis any particular aspect of it - because I liked it just the way it was.

And the same goes for Doctor Who - I enjoy it too much on TV, in books and in comics to feel that anything I could do would measure up in a satisfactory way. I'm sure there are hordes of smarter, more creative Whovians out there who would make incredible gamesmasters... and I hope, one day, to play in some of their games. But I simply don't think I would be able to run this game to a standard that would satisfy my own love of the programme.

Mechanics-wise, my only real problem with Doctor Who: Adventures In Time And Space is that it's another game prone to giant stat block syndrome.

Given the systems' many similarities to the Cinematic Unisystem, I'd hoped that it would share a similar approach of condensing statistics for antagonists, and therefore really emphasising the central role of the player-character "heroes". But as far as I can tell this is an area where the Unisystem has forged a winning formula on its own.

The "giant stat block syndrome" goes against the way I imagine games to be run, where the gamesmaster doesn't need to have every single villain or monster statted out in as much detail as the player-characters.

This is ultimately what put me off 4e Dungeons & Dragons, Savage Worlds, Mutants & Masterminds and Hollow Earth Expedition, the systems I was considering back in 2007 as a launch platform for The Tuesday Knights.

For instance, I really enjoyed playing in Nick's short-lived Hollow Earth Expedition game, but the moment I tried to write up an adventure of my own for a magazine submission I just threw my hands up in despair. Behind-the-scenes it wasn't the fast, slick system it had appeared to be from a player's perspective.

But all that aside, those are very personal reasons as to why I won't be running the Doctor Who RPG any time soon, but I'd still recommend it, without hesitation, to any newcomer (especially a Doctor Who fan) looking for an entry into this amazing hobby of ours.

It's just different enough from the games I grew up with to not instantly gel with my fuddy-duddy, grognard brain the way I'd hoped it would. This is no reflection on Adventures In Time And Space, just my own stick-in-the-mudness.

However, the end result of all this deliberation is a return, once more, to the system - and genre - that first drew me into the magical world of roleplaying: that is the old school charm (and pithy stat lines) of the original Dungeons & Dragons (or some reasonable facsimile thereof).

It's where it all began for me back in 1977/78 and it's where I see my future - at least for the next 12 months - in gaming being.

Yet, hopefully, bringing in some of the sensibilities and story ideas that I admire from Doctor Who and the Whoniverse. I'm even toying with the idea of making the current sword-and-planet setting I'm kicking around be a primitive Gallifrey of sorts... although there's no guarantee that will be make it to the final edit!

I'm also thinking of lifting some of Star Wars' thinly veiled planetary romance as well and maybe a bit of Buffyesque plot twisting for good measure.

As part of my new year's resolution to become more involved with the online gaming community (and the fact that last year's most discussed topic on HeroPress was entitled The Problem With 'Old School') I'm planning to blog more about games in 2010, and even (maybe) get in a few more actual tabletop gaming adventures this year.