I remember a friend of mine, that I used to play with, once said: “Every GM sooner or later would like to create their own system.” Now, is he right?

In the moment that I am writing this, this friend has created his own system: both mechanics and setting, based on Roman Empire. He has written a 40-pages long book, converted it to .pdf format and distributed to me and other friends. We are going to play it soon.

Now, I must admit that I had times that I thought about creating my own RPG engine. Well, I thought about this many times, never really got to do any writing, but I am pretty sure that I will, one day.

But the question we have to as ourselves is: Does every GM want to create a system? And if so, than why?

The answer is simple: All GMs that are not satisfied with the setting and engine they are using right now. If you don’t like something, you start thinking that it could have been done better. And from this place, there is only one step to creating a system yourself.

Moreover, another question is: is it good, that there are more and more people creating their own engines and so on? Well, if you ask me, the question is once again “Yes”.
And once more, my reasoning is really simple: More systems (that suit the gamers’ needs) means more fun, more fun means more players, more players means more clients, more clients means more publishers, systems, settings, gadgets, whatever. And this again equals more fun.

I think I am going to create a system myself. I am pretty sure I would post about it here. But I don’t think this is going to be soon, DnD 4E is coming, so I know what I am going to play.

And how about you, have you ever created your own engine? Are you going to try?