#RPGaDay 2023, Final Week

The final week! I had fun thinking over my responses to these questions. It gave me an opportunity to look at RPGs from a different direction.

August 28

SCARIEST game you've played

I have a couple of difficulties coming up with an answer here. As a Forever GM, I run far more games than I play. Worse, I've yet to find a GM who can run horror well and has a slot open for a new player. This puts a limit on my ability to play a "scariest game" or pick up the skills to run one.


August 29

Most memorable ENCOUNTER

Likely the "hunt down and kill the traitor" session I described in response to an earlier question. It wasn't the encounter the GM planned on running, but it was the one we wanted to play. Which brings up a point - the best encounters sometimes emerge from a place other than the GM's imagination.


August 30

OBSCURE RPG you've played

I could mention any number of homebrews, but that seems against the spirit of the question.

The majority of RPGs I have experience with are well-known for a good reason. If they weren't commercially successful, they would never have shown up on my radar. Now, I have acquired a few interesting RPGs from smaller companies and places like itch.io, so my response to such a question will likely change moving forward.


August 31

FAVORITE RPG of all time

"All time" is my sticking point with this question. I don't have the kind of nostalgia that some have with older games. I had a good time with them, but that doesn't keep me from seeing how newer RPGs solve issues that I ran into back in the day. My "all time favorite RPG" might end up being one that hasn't been published yet.

My current favorite is Star Trek Adventures, simply because it lets me run a Trek RPG without getting in the way.

#RPGaDay 2023, Week Four

Part three of #RPGaDay2023 questions and my complied answers. Additional commentary in italics.

August 21

Favorite LICENSED RPG

First a couple of honorable mentions. Modiphius' Robert E Howard's Conan for the care taken with the material. West End Games' Star Wars out of nostalgia. Both are solid examples of what can be done with a license.

My current favorite is Star Trek Adventures. It does a good job of supporting the "hyper-competent science nerds solving problems IN SPACE" game I want when running Star Trek.

I like it when I don't have to fight or perform surgery on a game to get it to do what I want.


August 22

Best SECONDHAND RPG purchase

I'll avoid going into my nostalgia-fueled quest to rebuild my childhood D&D/AD&D module collection. Instead, I'll make a selection from my stack of secondhand GURPS books - GURPS Traveller Far Trader. It's a weird choice for a weird reason. It breaks down economic concepts like comparative advantage in a way that's applicable to RPGs. Sure, I could just make stuff up. But I prefer to pretend to model these things.

August 23

COOLEST looking RPG product/book

I favor understatement in RPG materials. Weird fonts and cluttered layouts hamper my ability to read the book. Many things that might make a book look "cool" may turn me off it.

My current favorite is the Star Trek Adventures Gamemaster's Guide. Textured cover. Simple black text on white pages. Enough art to navigate around it. Even has a bookmark!

August 24

COMPLEX/SIMPLE RPG you play

Of the RPGs I keep in rotation?

Let's face it, AD&D is a kludge of unrelated mechanics with a kitchen sink setting thrown in for good measure.

2d20 is a pile of moving parts that somehow runs smoothly once it gets rolling.

Many iterations of GUMSHOE are on the simpler end by design.


August 25

UNPLAYED RPG you own

I haven't gotten around to giving FATE a try. The book's been on my shelf for awhile, but hasn't made the cut so far. There's also the Planet Mercenary RPG. That was a Kickstarter backer reward that didn't appeal as much as I hoped when I got my hands on it.


August 26

Favorite CHARACTER SHEET

I like these D&D character sheets for players with dyslexia. A relatively simple layout with enough going on to be interesting without devolving into visual chaos.

Found out about them in this article:
https://www.geeknative.com/70088/dd-character-sheets-for-players-with-dyslexia/

August 27

Game you'd like a new EDITION of...

Pie in the sky response? D6 Star Wars.

There's no chance of this seeing the light of day.

#RPGaDay 2023, Week Three

Part three of #RPGaDay2023 questions and my answers compiled on this little blog. Additional commentary in italics.

August 14

Favorite CONVENTION purchase: I try to stick to a budget at conventions by not buying things I can source elsewhere. Most of my convention purchases are for out of print products. It warms my heart when my collection of early D&D and AD&D adventure modules gets that much closer to matching the one I had in my youth.

The amount of weight that "try" carries in the statement about budget varies a bit.

August 15

Favorite Con MODULE / ONE-SHOT: In my experience, convention modules and one shots tend to be made with time constraints in mind. They generally follow a linear structure and focus on problem solving and tactical play. I do enjoy this style - going to a convention is a rare opportunity for me to play rather than run - but those experiences don't tend to stick in my memory.

As much as I enjoy getting to actually play, convention adventures are rarely deeply moving emotional events.


August 16

Game you WISH you owned: There are a number of games with limited print runs, are out of print, or are only available in a digital format that I'd like to own in a dead tree edition. The Lancer Core Book hardcover and certain D&D/AD&D adventure modules are examples. For some reason, reading from a book "sticks" better when I'm trying to learn the material.

I did read an article about why some people retain information better from reading a physical book vs the same material off a screen, but I can't recall the website it was on.

August 17

FUNNIEST game you've played: As a Forever GM, I'll be stretching "played" into "participated" for this one. The first game of Toon I ran for a couple of friends. It was over a decade ago on a slow night and I ran it on the fly. We all jumped into an improvised humor vibe perfect for the game and it was a flawless laugh riot.

I need to dig out my copy of Toon sometime.

August 18

Favorite game SYSTEM: Toss up between Modiphius' 2d20 and Pelgrane Press' GUMSHOE.

2d20 is a pile of moving parts, but it runs nicely and builds up speed through a session. 2d20 adapts well to a variety of settings from Starfleet officers doing space stuff in Star Trek Adventures to the savage violence of Robert E Howard's Conan. There are some tricky bits - spaceship combat is a hurdle for any system - but I enjoy it.

GUMSHOE taught me how to manage a procedural adventure. Information might give the PCs an advantage, add flavor, or be nice to know. And there are things that don't make sense to gate behind a dice roll - what the players need to know to get through the adventure.

I respond to these questions as I see fit. Sometimes that means not feeling the need to make up my mind.

August 19

Favorite PUBLISHED adventure: Kelsey Dionne's The Secrets of Skyhorn Lighthouse and the other adventures in The Arcane Library. Not just for the content - which is solid - but for formatting that content in a way that's easy to access while running it. No flowery descriptions or burying key details in walls of prose - just what the GM needs at a glance.

I don't need to know about the big bad guy's hobbies or dating history, I need to know what the player characters need to do to put him down.

August 20

Will still play in TWENTY years time: Given my age and current health issues, I find myself admiring this question's optimism.

Did I take my pills this morning?

#RPGaDay 2023, Week Two

More compiled #RPGaDay 2023 questions and my responses. Additional commentary in italics.

August 7

Smartest RPG you've played: I'm not sure what the question is asking, so I'll just list some clever bits from various games that I've come to appreciate over the years.

13th Age: The Escalation Die. A simple solution for reducing the grind in D&D combat.

Ashen Stars: The realization that the typical "sci-fi space show" is procedural in structure. The space/time ship/station / portal exploration team runs into a problem. The plot revolves around learning more about the situation in stages and implementing a solution. It's something I was dimly aware of, but had never seen made so explicitly clear. I've carried this structure forward to running other sci-fi games.

GURPS Horror (3rd & 4th Editions): Analyzing monsters by the specific fears they embody.

Star Trek Adventures: Rather than present supplemental rules and source material by legacy series or era, sourcebooks were initially focused on area (the Quadrant books) or what role a player character was filling (the Division books). Later campaign books published material for the newer series (DIS and LD), but falls under "a nice problem to have".

TimeWatch: Building dirty time travel tricks into the system rather than leaving them out for simplicity.

This is what happens when I can't make up my mind.


August 8

Favorite CHARACTER: Being a Forever GM, I don't really get to have one of those

Although I am fond of the brief time I played Commander Soval (no relation) in somebody else's Star Trek game awhile back. Think all the snark from Richard Dean Anderson's Colonel O'Neill from SG-1, but wrapped up in a Vulcan package.


August 9

Favorite DICE: There's different ways to interpret this one: type of die, dice mechanic, or picking out the best in a collection.

Type: d8. I like the shape.

Mechanic: 13th Age's Escalation Die. An elegant way to reduce the grind in D&D combat.

Favorite in my collection: Not my favorite set, but a handy tool - the mood die. Lacks the detail of character notes or the utility of a reaction chart, but works fast in a pinch.

August 10

Favorite tie-in FICTION: I have mixed feelings about this sort of thing. Individual works can be poorly written cash grabs, ways to push metaplots, or contributions to creeping, messy snarls of continuity. There's nothing less welcoming than a GM saying "please peruse this stack of sourcebooks and that stack of novels to catch all the references I'll be throwing out during the campaign."

That said, I remain fond of the Battletech novels by Robert N Charrette and Micheal Stackpole for averting much of what I don't like about tie-ins.


August 11

WEIRDEST game you've played: Honestly? AD&D 1e. It was basically Gygax houseruling early D&D to heck and back.

Let's face it, AD&D as published was a kitchen sink setting. Gygax was bolting on every idea, mechanic, and chart he could think of to the game.


August 12

Old game you STILL play: "Oldest in rotation" is the interpretation I'm using here. There's older in my collection that have seen relatively recent play, but I'm unlikely to take them down from the shelf again.

D6 Star Wars. It's like a well maintained classic car - it lacks features that I've come to expect, but the way it handles is still a fun ride.

D6 Star Wars isn't the fastest or most responsive. And the Wild Die causes a dice explosion every now and then. Still a fun for a quick drive down a country road, though.


August 13

Most memorable character DEMISE: A rare time when I played in somebody else's game. Final session of a long running campaign. No loose ends. Nothing left unresolved other than the finale. Every faction gathered for an epic throw down. No more plot armor for the PCs.

But there had been collusion between a player and the GM. Months of secret communications. The PC announcing his betrayal was the first we learned of it. He went to join our enemies.

We completely ignored the battle raging around us to track down the traitorous PC. So focused were we on our betrayer that what was meant to be the campaign's climax failed to register on us. After the faithless PC was dead, the GM tossed his notes and wrapped things up as best he could.

It wasn't the way the player or the GM planned it to go, but I remember that character's death well.

We really wanted that character dead. Names not given to protect the reputations of those involved.

#RPGaDAY 2023, Week One

#RPGaDay poses a question for each day of August. It was launched by David F. Chapman on his AutoCratik blog. The challenge looked interesting, so I decided to participate this year. I'll be answering the questions daily on Mastodon. And I'll be compiling those responses each week on this blog and expounding on them a bit. Additional commentary is in italics.

1 August

First RPG played (this year): Star Trek Adventures by Modiphius Entertainment.

This response shouldn't be a shock, given how often I discuss the game on this blog.


2 August

First RPG Gamemaster: Oh, that would be decades back. Scott. He ran a hybrid of Moldvay Basic and AD&D out of a cream colored hard sided briefcase that he got from who knows where.

Scott was the kind of nerd who would've been sporting a long trench coat if it were the '90s. And not as tropical where we lived.


3 August

First RPG Bought (This Year): I'm going to interpret this as "RPG product" since I've been completing collections rather than getting into new games this year.

That makes it a tie since I ordered both of these at the same time:

• The "everything that I didn't already have before Modiphius drops the license" bundle for Robert Howard's Conan from DTRPG.
• The Lower Decks preorder for Star Trek Adventures.

I wanted to make my Conan collection as complete as possible before it went away. Now I have years worth of material for the game. I preordered Lower Decks because I enjoy the show and thought that running a game for junior Starfleet officers might make for a change of pace sometime.


4 August

Most recent game bought: I've focused on completing RPG collections lately, but I did get a few free downloads while looking for a fantasy game that's not D&D or Pathfinder. Necrotic Gnome's Old School Essentials is the current front runner.

I burned out on the specific kind of fantasy RPG system represented by D&D and Pathfinder awhile back.


5 August

Oldest game you've played: Holmes Basic D&D. I've never owned it, but my earliest gamemasters ran it before switching to Moldvay D&D and/or AD&D.

Some of my early gamemasters used Holmes, others used Moldvay. The differences were difficult to discern, given how loosely they ran their games. Incorporating elements of AD&D didn't help with that.


6 August

Favorite game you never get to play: As a Forever GM, I almost never get to play any RPG on the tabletop.

Now, there's those TimeWatch and Night's Black Agents mini-campaigns that I keep threatening my players with, but those are more "fun concepts to play around with" at this point.

I'll get to those games. Someday...