August 13

#RPGaDAY2015 – Day Eleven: Favourite RPG Writer

As the month has progressed I’m finding it harder and harder to answer these questions which is a good thing.  I find there is no challenge to be had  writing about something if it is easy when you can write about something that makes you think.

I am tempted to name one of my friends here but I believe that is cheating and so I won’t stoop so low.  There is one writer who really got me interested in the whole conspiracy genre and he was a prolific writer so I have many of his books; I say late because he died in 1995 aged 35.  I am referring to Nigel D Findley.

I wish Nigel was still here beavering away at his keyboard writing some new project or game supplement.   I only regret not buying the Shadowrun supplement Universal Brotherhood as that was one hell of a sourcebook and it is a shame that I don’t have it as I never got around to finish reading it.

Gurps Illuminati really opened my eyes to the whole conspiracy genre which had me seek out Conspiracy X  and eventually do some freelancing work for Eden Studios on one of their unreleased supplements for Conspiracy X.

 

Category: Modern, RPG | LEAVE A COMMENT
August 12

#RPGaDAY2015 – Day 10: Favourite RPG Publisher

Well this is probably going to be a very tricky question to answer as I’ve met a few of the UK publishers and know a couple of them as friends, I’ve also play-tested for Eden studios so this is going to be a tough question to answer.  Now if this was favourite game designer I may be on shaky ground.

My favourite publisher is no longer in business which makes things somewhat easier as I can’t be accused of favouritism in any way shape or form.

So without further ado my all time favourite is the long lamented Hogshead Publishing. Partly because the reprints of The Enemy Within campaign gave me years of play and was a real joy to referee, I’m more enamoured with the New Style of games that they put out especially The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen.  A wonderful story game with subtle humour and a very light mechanic can give you an evening of raucous laughter as you try and out do each other.

Oh and just to be clear about one thing; James is one of the aforementioned friends I talked about in the opening paragraph.

Now did I ever tell about the time we decided to invade the hollow earth armed only with an egg whisk, spatula and the band of the Coldstream guards……….

Category: fantasy, Modern, RPG | LEAVE A COMMENT
August 11

#RPGaDAY2015 – Day 9: Favourite Media You Wish Was an RPG

In some ways I regard myself as lucky, many of the shows and books I like are popular enough to spawn licensed editions.

With the exception of one show:  Blakes 7 RPG.  I have a home-brewed black and white comb bound edition I’d love a decent version of it.

Blakes 7 is a classic British SF programme, it ran for four years and centred around a group of prisoners on the run from the Federation.   Each prisoner had his own character flaws and it was probably the first show I saw where a flaw came to the fore.

Perhaps I shall see about doing my own version of it using Fate or something similar.

Category: sf | LEAVE A COMMENT
August 10

#RPGaDAY2015 – Day 8: Favourite RPG in the Media

One of the points I find while doing this challenge is trying to come up with some interesting answers to the questions.

I remember years ago seeing Mazes and Monsters the film loosely based upon the disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III.  So while it is an appearance in the media the game system is entirely fictitious.

My answer to this question would have to be the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons cartoon, I remember watching this when I got home and being enthralled by it.

I should also point out that while this park takes you to the land of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons none of the riders suffered any sort of injury or dismemberment; which is more than can be said about most modern parks 🙂

 

Category: fantasy, RPG | LEAVE A COMMENT
August 9

#RPGaDAY2015 – Day 7: Favourite Free RPG

I’ll confess to being something of a system hoarder, if I come across a game that is marked as free then I tend to download it so that I can read it or at least be inspired by it.

There are lots of games to download, I would list them all but someone already has a compendium of Free rpgs which can be found here: The Compendium of Free Role Playing Games

My favourite free game would have to be FATE published by Evil Hat , I know it is technically a game system but you can still do a lot with it and it is very easy to build your own game world using this wonderful toolkit.

I did something similar with my Star Trek game, details can be found here and here.

 

Category: FATE, pulp, RPG | LEAVE A COMMENT
August 6

#RPGaDAY2015 – Day 4: Most Surprising Game

Normally when it comes to writing I have a rough idea of what I’m going to pick, this question has given me lots to think abut; like what does it mean by surprising game?  So I scratched my head and thought long and hard about this question; what game has surprised me?

Does he mean a game that surprises that shock or horror; blood and gore; or something that makes you laugh?

After giving it a lot of thought it occurred to me that the game that has most surprised me of late is Fluxx and specifically Star Fluxx.  Two games that play differently because the players can change the rules of the game while it plays and being able to change the victory conditions makes a change; for now you can win through nothing more than luck if a player isn’t concentrating on the game at hand.

The game is cheap, simple to understand and above all a great way to kill an afternoon with beer and pretzels; although being English that is more likely to be tea and hob nobs 🙂

Category: Cardgame | LEAVE A COMMENT
August 5

#RPGaDAY2015 – Day 3: Favourite New Game of the Last 12 Months

Thanks to the deals offered by Bundle of Holding I’ve bought several games in the last twelve months, so trying to pick a favourite is going to be tricky and the whole point of this challenge is to select one game from my collection.

Recently I’ve been toying with the idea of playing a 60s campaign after the fun I had with the supers game I did a few years back.

One of the bundles yielded me this gem

THE AGENCY
A roleplaying game of sixties spies
and the supernatural
by Matt Machell

It’s a wonderful example of design, simple and keeps the action flowing which is the sort of thing I’m favouring these days.

There was another game I wanted to pick but it falls outside the remit of the challenge, perhaps another day?

Link to Matt’s homepage: http://eclecticdreams.com/

Category: Modern, RPG, spy | LEAVE A COMMENT