“080921 bourbon (2)” CC Dan4th via Flickr

I like bourbon. I have 3 bottles in my liquor cabinet right now–two different bottles that are over 10 years old and can be sipped neat without cringing, and a huge jug of white-label Jim Beam. Conventional wisdom might state that I drink the Beam when I can’t taste the difference any more, but with a 2 year old at home, that state isn’t achieved often. As it happens, I drink roughly equally from all three. I’ve simply learned to decide what kind of whiskey mood I’m in at a given time before I decide what to drink.

Sadly, it took me many years to apply the lesson behind my drinking habits to my gaming life. For decades, I believed that any game can be played in a single system. This post is the first in a series on the value of systems. While this one is more personal and editorial in nature, the posts in this series will provide practical advice on when to use a specific system, what the strengths of that system are, and suggestions for house-rules/adaptations of the system to allow for special circumstances.[more]

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