March 7

#RPGaDAY2015 – Day 22: Perfect Gaming Environment

For some reason this post was scheduled to appear last year but it appears to have been stuck in my queue after it missed the publishing date.

When I started gaming, I always wanted a gaming room of my own with; dice, miniatures and a library of gaming books all within easy reach of me and the players.

As technology progressed and after seeing the gaming room with an overhead LCD projector I wanted one so I could display maps and combats in much better 3d environment.

I have also done some gaming with Roll 20 and this is getting close to my idea of a perfect gaming environment.  I have my battlemaps, books and custom macros to make things run that much smoother 🙂

 

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March 5

#RPGaDAY2015 – Day 21: Favourite RPG Setting

For some reason this post was scheduled to appear last year but it appears to have been stuck in my queue after it missed the publishing date.

Out of all the gaming settings I have access to, I have always been partial to the Forgotten Realms.

I know it’s a bit clichéd in places but I really liked the detail that went into the setting, so many interesting places to send the characters and lots to explore.

The only bits I didn’t seem to like is when they started to alter the world maps as the editions were published and even the previous parts of the world that were designed as a sandbox became defined.

 

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October 3

#RPGaDAY2015 – Day 19: Favourite Supers RPG

Since I first dipped my toes into the waters of superhero gaming I’ve loved the idea of playing someone with special powers.

I did compile a list of games that I was aware of at the time that were still available to purchase and you can find the list by following this link.

There have been a few more to appear, the Valiant RPG being one of them, this still fails to knock my favourite game off the top spot; BASH.  I blogged about this game in my top 10 and you can find the original article here.

Once I get my act together, I’ll have another superhero round-up and have another poll to see what your favourite game is and this time I’ll be sure to include Supers RED 🙂

 

 

October 2

#RPGaDAY2015 – Day 18: Favourite SF RPG

I’m using the same sort of criteria I did yesterday for my Favourite SF RPG, but I have fewer sf games that I like to mention.  I must have bought lots of sf games trying to find one to equal or better than my current favourite.

In the end it just boils down to one sf RPG, Traveller.  The background that eventually became  the Traveller milieu is sprawling and took inspiration from a great number of sf works, including Isaac Asmiov’s Foundation series and if you don’t believe me consult the library data and look up “psychohistory” 🙂  The game has had several editions and it was mentioned in my top ten rpg list such was the drawing power of this game.

Now I see Mongoose is working on another version of Traveller, I hope they are able to present something refreshing but still somewhat familiar to the classic game.

Runner up:

Star Wars.  Still for me a classic game of good vs evil and being able to watch the film to get an insight into what the game is all about is still a big draw for me.

 

 

 

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October 1

#RPGaDAY2015 – Day 17: Favourite Fantasy RPG

In my twenty-five something years of gaming I’ve read, run and played in a fair few number of fantasy RPGs,  so trying to decide my favourite is a bit tricky.  In the end I think I can boil into down into two distinct types; favourite system and favourite background.

How many times have you cracked open a game to find that it is indeed just another western style D&D clone or Middle Earth facsimile? I think when it boils down to it, most of the times it’s someone’s house-rules masquerading as The Next Big Thing TM.

Favourite Background:

Legend of the Five Rings wins for me here, this game just oozes style and atmosphere especially since the whole background draws upon a number of Eastern mythologies to give you something that is very different to what you may be used to.

Runner up:

King Arthur Pendragon.  A classic retelling of the Arthurian legend, where the players can partake in a campaign that spans three or so generations of play.

Favourite System:

Dungeon Quest.  I haven’t had a chance to play this yet but I love the whole idea of how it works, the simplified combat adds another dimension to it and the character bonds are a really good way of connecting the group together.

Runner up:

Runequest.  Another one of those games I looked at when I was getting in to gaming, the Games Workshop editions were released as a set of hardbacks and owing to licensing rights Glorantha couldn’t be used so a fantasy Europe was used instead.  I loved the percentile mechanics but not the really deadly combat, later on the system would be used in a modified form for King Arthur Pendragon.

Favourite overall:

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.  I bet you didn’t see that coming 😛 .  This for me was a real alternative to xD&D.  You had career based progression, deadly combat, some really odd creatures to battle and a wonderfully dark humorously horrific background; in short is was everything that xD&D wasn’t at the time.  Oh and it was completely British so it had some really oddities.

Runner up:

I have to tip my hat to the often forgotten Middle Earth Roleplaying Game.  While the system was a bit overwhelming and there could have been more in the way of examples it did justice to Middle Earth and the background was very well presented.

 

 

 

 

 

September 29

#RPGaDAY2015 – Day 16: Longest Game Session

When I first started gaming and I had an almost unquenchable thirst for gaming I would think nothing of gaming for seven nights a week but even that wasn’t long enough for me as occasionally we’d game Saturday and into Sunday or Sunday into a bank holiday Monday.  One time we even played right into the new year so we could all wish ourselves a happy new year!

Looking back on it now, I realise it may have been a mistake to try and play longer and longer without much rest,  I recall arguments over trivial things when we were all sleep deprived. Stupid things like can someone with super-leaping drop down a height they can leap?

I know, daft things that seemed really important at the time.

These days I tend to game responsibly and try to not game for too long as I don’t appear to have the endurance for it these days.  Call of Cthulhu isn’t much fun when you’re unable to process the clues but tend to connect you to the great green giant itself 🙂

 

 

 

September 28

#RPGaDAY2015 – Day 15: Longest Campaign Played

In all my years of gaming I have only really participated in one long campaign; Games Workshop’s The Enemy Within for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

With the exception of the final chapter I was using the Hogshead reprints of the classic adventure and with the additions of the Doomstones campaign which also got inserted into the mix as well as The Dying of the Light, the campaign ran for three years of real-time play.

It was such an epic campaign that I think of it a lot and wonder what I could do to try to recreate the mammoth scale of adventuring;  I did add in my own touches to the scenarios keep the players guessing as to what was coming next.  From barge burning, to unexpected pied piper style shenanigans within the great city of Middenheim I had fun throwing encounters and random things to the players and they stood up to the challenge and rose above the adversity.

I think what I really liked was seeing the characters improve and grow from lowly street filth to movers and shakers with The Old World.

I still have the books, maps, notes and character sheets from the old game.  I don’t think I could run it again with the same players as I don’t think I could do it justice again and it would tarnish the memory of the whole shared experience.

Perhaps I’ll dig my notes out and scan them for posterity.

September 27

#RPGaDAY2015 – Day 14: Favourite RPG Accessory

Over the years I’ve bought lots of gaming accessories to try out, be they; dice trays, dice, dice towers, dice cups and all sorts of dice to boot.

I remember the first accessory I wanted to get hold of  was in the pages of Dragon magazine; Dragonbone Electronic Dice .  To have something like this in your hand and be able to roll as many dice as you needed without having to lose them seemed like a marvel of the electronic age.  The problem was that by the time I got the issue of Dragon some five years had passed and I wasn’t sure if the company was still in business so I gave it a miss.

The second item I lusted after was an all purpose GM screen, something where I could determine what charts and tables were facing me and something I could use for a variety of games that lacked an official screen.

I did manage to get two or three that fulfilled the criteria for a universal screen.  The first one I bought was made by the now defunct Citizen Games, it was a quad panel affair and really did the trick, the downside was that it was a portrait orientation which means you have to stare up and over it to look at the players.  The next one I bought was the Savage Worlds screen which is only three panels but is in my preferred landscape orientation but only has three panels.   The number of panels may be seen as irrelevant but having an extra sheet of useful charts does stop me from reaching for a book to reference.  There is one more screen to consider though and that is the self proclaimed The World’s Greatest Screen from  Hammerdog Games, a four panel screen in either portrait or landscape orientation.

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