The urge to play...

Okay, 4th edition is by far my least favorite version of Dungeons and Dragons. However, that still doesn't mean I hate it. Heck I've had a lot of fun playing Living Forgotten Realms. My preference might be for more old school games, but I still think 4th edition isn't completely bad. Once in a while I get the urge to play it. With my discovery of roll20.net this is completely feasible and I'm getting the urge...
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However, if I do play it I'm likely to make a few rule changes. These include:

• Alignments are the nine traditional ones. However, you need not choose one of these and may choose to be unaligned.
• Races might get some tweaks. For instance I like Hobbit halflings.
• Hit points will be lower. I might even use hit dice.
• There may be some changes to the rules for rests. Perhaps a third category of rests will be introduced, with this one restoring all hp and the lesser rests restoring hp at a lower rate.

The "Core Assumptions" will also be altered:
 The World is Mysterious, But Not All Of It: Much of the world is covered with "swathes of light" with hundreds of villages that are relatively safe, with the occasional "point of darkness". However, the campaign will focus on the borderlands between these swathes of light, where it is much more mysterious and there are only the occasional "point of light"
Monsters are Everywhere on the Borderlands: Again, there are large swathes of light, where it is mostly safe. It's mostly on the edges of civilization that you have to worry about villages being wiped out.
Adventurers are Not Exceptional: The PCs might be special, but only if they overcome many difficulties to earn it. Just anybody could potentially be an adventurer.
The Common Races Sometimes Band Together: Alliances of men, elves and dwarves have stood against hordes of goblins, trolls and giants in the past, yes, but just as often have quarreled against each other. In human kingdoms civil wars are common, with feuding lords levying their people to march against their enemies just about every springtime after they have finished their planting.
Magic is Not Everyday: Peasants will often see magic, but they do not understand it very well. The common folk tend towards superstition.
Primordals Don't Exist: I'm not using the concept of primordals.
Gods Are Active: Gods regularly walk the world, and often interact with mortals.

Generally I will be using more story elements from pre-4e. Archons are lawful good immortals, Eladrins are chaotic good immortals. Succubi are demons. The planes hew closer to the Great Wheel model. Etc.

So, what do you think? Is it even worth bothering with 4e? Should I just stick with versions of D&D that are closer to my ideal? Will I even be able to find players willin to use these house rules?

The Legacy of the Titans

The concept for this campaign is very much the opposite of the previous one I described. Unlike the previous campaign there is a plot, and it's very much routed in the Gygaxian tropes, though I am also mixing things in from my favorite fantasy worlds and taking things in my own direction. It's like an adventure path, but of my own creation.

The basic plot is taken from the first Final Fantasy game. However I'm putting in my own ideas. For instance, though I'm taking the idea of having four elemental crystals, which are the primary objective of the campaign, from Final Fantasy. However these crystals are in fact the power sources for four regulatory stations, ensuring that the forces of chaos cannot corrupt the world. These regulatory stations are magi-tech, built by the ancient Titans during the age when they colonized the world. However they have been compromised by the minions of a renegade Titan that wants to throw the world into chaos.

I've taken inspiration from this post by James Maliszewski about the Masks of Nyaralothep scenario. So I have come up with an initial scenario (though I've yet to write it out completely) leading them into the overall campaign, which will lead to the other scenarios. However, as with Masks of Nyaralothep the exact order in which these scenarios take place will not be predefined. So they might choose to go after the Water Crystal first. However, it may prove difficult to overcome the obstacles of certain scenarios if they aren't of a certain level. We'll see how this experiment works. There is also, of course, no expectation that the PCs will survive the challenges that they face. They may fail. I'll have to consider how I'll deal with that. If the PCs all die what happens? I am considering allowing them to choose PCs based on who they have encountered and what they have done. So if they befriended the King and he hasn't heard from them in a while, maybe he'll have his court wizard cast a divination. Then once he's learned the original PCs have died, he'll send a new party. Perhaps they'll even be able to retrieve the bodies of the original party and have them raised!

I have to admit, I have some doubts about this. This is far from the sandbox scenarios advocated by the OSR, though I am approaching it from a position that railroads are bad and that many of the attempts at doing plot-based gaming have been flawed. But I love epic stories like those in the Final Fantasy series and the Dragonlance novels. I want to run stories like those, I even want to run the Dragonlance modules, though they represent a lot of what is wrong with the story-based playstyle. But ultimately I think this campaign will be fun and isn't that what really counts?

Rules Systems

Not sure what rules system I want to use. I'm most familiar with 3rd Edition, but I'd like to give an earlier edition or retro-clone a shot. I've also considered designing my own rpg, but I haven't gotten very far and it'd likely be so similar to D&D anyway it might not be worth it. I've also been working on a modification of 3e which is a lot more likely to get done. I also want to DM 4e, but if I do it'll likely be in the second campaign I have yet to describe.