Earlier this week, I was asked what I would advise my younger self to do differently, if I had the chance to go back and make changes. Of course, the problem with this is the Butterfly Effect - change one thing, and everything else changes around it, and you can't know what would result.
But, as a thought experiment, and in the field of RPGs only...
#1: Books
Right, you see all these books? These are the wrong books - not only will they not improve your game, they'll actually make it worse. What's even worse, you won't recognise that - you'll think they're making it better for a long, long time. And the effect is that they'll warp your thinking about what makes for a good or a bad game.
Instead, you might want to consider some of these books instead: one setting (not little bits of six), some few adventures from across the level range, and maybe those lovely "Green Cover" historical books. Oh, and get a subscription to Dungeon magazine and read it cover to cover... even if you never run even a single adventure from the magazine.
(And while we're at it, don't buy lots of little bits of several different games, either. If you're going to run it, fine, and if you're going to play in a campaign buy the Core Rulebook(s). But if you don't have immediate plans to do one or the other, let it pass you by.)
#2: About the Rules
While I'm at it, read the damn rules of the game you're playing, and actually use those rules in play. Seriously, kid, you got away with soooo much crap that it's not funny. But when you get to university, you're going to have your eyes opened.
Besides, the game is better if people don't have to play variants on the same three character types because none of the others can actually use their powers because you don't know how they work.
#3: Wasted Time
Every time you've ever sat down to write your own game system, or some heavily-modified version of an existing system, you've been wasting your time. Every. Time. (Yes, including the work I did on "Nutshell" on this blog.) Either you get bogged down in the work, lose interest, and abandon the project or, in the one case you actually finished it, you promptly abandoned it and went back to the 'real thing'. Just stop.
Likewise, you don't need a dozen settings all doing much the same thing. There actually is a place for having multiple settings - but only if they're significantly distinct. There's a place for Ravenloft and Dark Sun and Spelljammer and Planescape, but Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance are too similar for all to be worthwhile. (NB: those weren't my settings, but if I named those then the names wouldn't mean anything to anyone who reads this!)
What you should be spending time on is adventures, and characters, and storylines. Those serve the dual purpose of being things you'll probably actually use and also making you better at writing adventures, characters, and stories.
#4: Reading Material
You're going to hate me for saying this, but your English teacher is right - the fantasy books you're reading are crap. It's not even that they're fantasy that's the problem. There's some good fantasy out there; it's just that you've somehow missed all of those and picked out some of the worst of the worst.
For fantasy, go read some David Gemmell, the first few Lankhmar books by Frizt Lieber (but only the first few!), RE Howard's Conan novels, and the first few Elric stories (again, only the first few). Plus, you can stick with the Terry Pratchett and Tolkien books - those are good stuff. (But when you're in Smiths in Glasgow and there's a signing by Terry Pratchett, go and buy the new book and get it signed. You damn fool.)
Oh, yes, and skip "Wheel of Time" completely... and don't bother with "A Song of Ice and Fire" either - thanks to some interminable waits, you'll be better off just watching the TV series.
But you really should branch out beyond fantasy. Get and read some good horror, some better sci-fi... and you'll want to be tackling other genres too. Something to watch out for, though: you'll want to start small, because trying to dive straight to a thousand-page novel is a real quick way to avoid the classics for a decade or more.
#5: Got That? Good. Now...
Forget everything I've just told you. Because here's the thing: there's no one true way to have fun. And just as what seemed good at twelve no longer seems appropriate at forty, so too does the advice of forty-year-old me have little bearing on what twelve-year-old me should do. We're so separated in time as to be, essentially, completely different people.
Besides, it's not like I won't have time to fix some of the mistakes you'll make. When I'm not busy making plenty of mistakes of my own...
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