Gaming, my fascination

I play computer games, tabletop games, some board games, you get the idea. I rarely ever play sports, the most I ever did was a few years of soccer, or playing ultimate frisbee in college. I enjoy being active, but I tend to get bored of it rather quickly, especially most sports. In fact, the driving motivation behind most of my activities is an effort to stave off boredom.

Thus, I game.
Because in a game I can experience things that I could never reasonably expect to do myself, and a goodly number of things that I would't actually want to do myself. (The thing about adventuring is that it has this unfortunate tendency to get one stabbed by pointy things repeatedly, which is not a very pleasant experience.) A game is an opportunity for a different life, in a different time, place, or world. I game for much the same reason I write really, because the stories in my head must come out.
There tends to be a lot of overlap between the two actually. I write things down which turn into game ideas, or I game and come up with ideas for tangential stories, or variations on that. Recently I've had two distinct fascinations, the first is the world of Besetting Shadows that I've mentioned before, and the other is what I'm calling Kung Fu University. I've recently gotten my hands on a copy of the excellent Legends of the Wulin system, and immediately started thinking about a game that I could run or play with it. After a week or so of minor puzzling on one of the back burners of my brain, I came up with this. In the middle of a modern metropolis, there is a very special school. To anyone not otherwise aware, it is a highly exclusive private college that is very particular about its applicants. But to the enlightened, it is the great refuge of true Kung Fu. The students develop their Chi and martial arts more than they study literature, but they still have to do that to keep up appearances. The great rule of the school is never to let an unenlightened individual see true martial arts. Within the walls of school grounds, high-powered martial arts duels fly, but outside, students must be careful who sees them doing what.

Whereas Besetting Shadows is a very distinctly dark fantasy setting, this setting will have a tendency towards a lighter tone. And while it certainly will have it's share of fantasy elements, the greater part of the setting--i.e. anywhere off campus--will be whatever modern day city the GM feels like setting the city in (I chose L.A. because it's easy to see one more college slipped in there.) So instead of having to invent everything that would be there, well, just pull up google maps and look at what is actually there.

So I'm going to start running this on Saturdays once I have enough players, and I'll probably post occasional updates about it as I go along. Also, I'll come up with a better name.