RPG a Day 2015, Day 11

Day 11: Favorite RPG Writer

Again, do I have to choose?

I think when it gets right down to it Tom Moldvay is still one of my favorites. I love his style and the pulp influences her brought to his adventures.

RPG a Day 2015, Day 10

Day 10: Favorite RPG Publisher

Do I have to choose?

In the past I always put all my support behind Eden Studios. Not only do the publish my favorite games, they gave me my start as a "real" RPG designer.  But they are also a good bunch of guys, even if now it is just George there.

I am also rather fond of Cubicle 7 and the Troll Lords.

RPG a Day 2015, Day 9

Day 9: Favorite Media You Wish Was an RPG

Oh. There is so many. I think I would have say Harry Potter.

Not only is it a natural fit with a ton of potential, but it would be a great thing for RPGs.

There is just so much that could be done with this world.  You have magic, you have high school drama, you have good vs. evil. Just tons and tons of stuff.

BUT...JKR is not likely to ever make my dreams come true and grant me the license.  So my next choice is a Charmed RPG.

I could totally rock out on this game.

RPG a Day 2015, Day 8

Day 8: Favorite Appearance of RPGs in the Media

I have seen a few and I always find them amusing.  Supernatural usually does a nice job.  But my favorite still has to be from the X-files.

The first from "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'" Season 3, Episode 20

Jose Chung: Aren't you nervous telling me all this? Receiving all those death threats?
Blaine: Well, hey, I didn't spend all those years playing Dungeons and Dragons and not learn a little something about courage.

The next one comes from another one of my favorite episodes, "Unusual Suspects" Season 5, Episode 1.

Langly: Elron the Druid bets 50! Cash only, Elron... no cheques for the bank of Middle Earth! Come on Natural 20. Daddy needs a new Sword of Wounding. [Byers and Frohike enter] What's the big idea of bringing the Nark in here?
Frohike: Me and the Nark have a proposition for you.
Langly: What proposition?
Frohike: The coolest hack in the world.
Elron the Druid: Lord Manhammer?!
Langly: Say it. Say it!
Frohike: [reluctantly] Your Kung-Fu is the best...

When the Lone Gunmen "died" in the series I rose a toast in my next D&D game to Lord Manhammer.

RPG a Day 2015, Day 7

Day 7: Favorite Free RPG

It wasn't free when I got into it, but it is free now.

CJ Carrella's WitchCraft
And you can get it for free at DriveThruRPG!
http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/692/CJ-Carrellas-WitchCraft

It's not just the best free RPG, it is one of the best RPGs ever.

RPG a Day 2015, Day 6

Day 6: Most Recent RPG Played

The last RPG I played was at Gen Con and it was Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition.
I took my family through Castle Ravenloft.

It was an absolute blast!

RPG a Day 2015, Day 5

Day 5: Most Recent RPG Purchase

Well fresh off of Gen Con there is a lot.

HEX: Revelations of Mars
Pathfinder Occult Adventures
Victoriana 3rd edition
Chill 3rd Edition
Beyond the Supernatural
Palladium Fantasy RPG 2nd Edition
A bunch of Mayfair AD&D books
Castles & Crusades Castle Keeper Screen
Amazing Adventures Character sheets

AND a bunch of Munchkin stuff.

Now to find the time to play them all.

RPG a Day 2015, Days 1-4

Well. I am bit slow on this and wasn't going to do this, but the questions intrigued me.
Once again +Dave Chapman of Doctor Who and Conspiracy X fame presents his RPG a Day for 2015.
You can find him and more information on #RPGaDay2015 here:
http://www.autocratik.com/
http://autocratik.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/RPGaDAY
https://twitter.com/hashtag/RPGaDay2015?src=hash

So here we go!

Day 1: Forthcoming Game I am Most Looking Forward to
That is an interesting one.  I just got off of Gen Con so most of the "new" stuff is now out.   But I would have to say Leagues of Gothic Horror by Triple Ace Games.

Day 2: Kickstarted Game I am Most Pleased I Backed
Most recently, Baker Street.  But anything I have ever gotten from +Joseph Bloch's BRW Games has been on time (when not early) and exactly what I ordered.

Day 3: Favorite New Game of the Last 12 months.
It might be a little bit more than 12 months, but D&D 5th edition.  It has been a great game and my family loves it.

Day 4: Most Surprising Game
I think I am going to have to go with Baker Street again.  My expectations were low because there was no magic and I love magic in my Victorian games.  But this one was a total surprise because of how fun it was and how well everything worked.  +Bryce Whitacre did a bang up job on this one and I am really, really pleased to own it.

More posting tomorrow!

#RPGaDAY Day 31st, Favourite RPG of all time

#RPGaDAY Day 31st, Favourite RPG of all time

Here we are. At the end of another blog-fest.  It has been a lot of fun and I have really enjoyed reading everyone's posts.  I want to thank +Dave Chapman for doing this it's been a lot of fun.

Favorite RPG of all time?
How can you even choose such a thing?

D&D has been there the longest, but I am partial to Ghosts of Albion and WitchCraft too.  All three are my "favorites".

If I am allowed to pick myself then Ghosts of Albion.  If not, then Dungeons & Dragons.

#RPGaDAY Day 30, Rarest RPG Owned

#RPGaDAY Day 30, Rarest RPG Owned

I honestly don't know.

I do have a copy of the original White Box rules of D&D, 3rd Printing.  But I think they had made a lot of those.  I also have a limited edition 1st Spellcraft & Swordplay which was not as expensive but far less were made.

I have Dracula RPG based on the 90s movie which is rare only because it is so bad.

But I collect things I like because I like them, not so much because they rare.  And all my games get played and/or used.  Even Dracula. It might be bad, but it has a great collection of Victorian era fire-arms.

Looking forward to seeing what gems everyone else has for this one.

#RPGaDAY Day 29, Most memorable encounter

#RPGaDAY Day 29, Most memorable encounter

That would have to be the very first time I encountered a Lich back in the AD&D1 days. I am thinking it was the summer of 82 or so.

The DM read the monster description and she decided that because it was a former high-level magic-user that it had all these new spells. She played the monster as would have today, but back then that was kind of a new thing.

Needless to say it kicked our 6th to 7th level asses.

While I was annoyed, I later looked back on it and thought about how well she had done it all.

#RPGaDAY Day 28, Scariest Game you’ve played

#RPGaDAY Day 28, Scariest Game you’ve played

Good question!

I have played some great games of Call of Cthulhu and Chill that have been quite fun.  I have even played in some seriously scary AD&D games in the past.

But I have to say as far as scariest game line...that would have to go to Kult.

Everything about Kult is designed to put the players at ill-ease.

Though if we are talking about gaming sessions then there was this online WitchCraft game I was in call "Vacation in Vancouver" that was very Kult and Beyond the Supernatural inspired. Gifted and Lesser Supernaturals were disappearing all over the North West US and British Columbia.  The PCs quickly discovered an underground (metaphorically and literally) sex trafficking ring that sold gifted humans to greater supernatural types as sex slaves.  It was a pretty intense game and sometimes quite fearful.  It was an interesting game since we all took turns game mastering.  The bad part of that was we all felt the need to "out do" the others in terms of horrors. Eventually the characters all went in too deep undercover and we had to come up with other characters to go in and pull them out.

#RPGaDAY Day 27, Game You’d like to see a new / improved edition of…

#RPGaDAY Day 27, Game You’d like to see a new / improved edition of…

That's easy.

C.J. Carella's WitchCraft RPG

There have been two editions so far. 1st Ed was from Myrmidon Press.

The more popular 2nd edition was from Eden Studios.

I would love to see (or better yet write!) a new 3rd Edition.

For a 3rd Edition I would like to see the course creation more streamlined. Like you see in the Cinematic Unisystem books.  Make the base rules the same as Beyond Human and add in some material from Armageddon (which looks very dated now).

I would also increase the number of Lesser Supernaturals you could play and bring the Bast under that group.   I would also provide an appendix for adding Cinematic style Drama points to the Classic game.

As much as I love the magic system in Ghosts of Albion I would keep the Essence based metaphysics of WitchCraft.  But I think I would also include the Ghosts/Buffy system as a lesser form of spell casting.

Though I will admit a 3rd edition is a hard sell.  Currently Eden gives WitchCraft away for free (sans art).
And in truth it would be very, very hard to top that cover.

#RPGaDAY Day 26, Coolest character sheet

#RPGaDAY Day 26, Coolest character sheet

Hard call.  I love character sheets.

The original AD&D sheets were not works of art, but they certainly fueled my imagination like no other.
I loved the "new" sheets for Mage the Ascension when it came out.

My favorite sheets though are some I made myself.
- WitchCraft RPG
- my hybrid Cinematic/Classical Unisystem sheet and character journal.

There are a lot of great custom sheets over at Mad Irishman and a lot of classic and original sheets at RPGSheets.com.

#RPGaDAY Day 25, Favourite RPG no one else wants to play

#RPGaDAY Day 25, Favourite RPG no one else wants to play

At home it is Ghosts of Albion.  Yeah, I can't even get my own kids to play my game!

Outside of that no one seems interested in any of the World of Darkness games.

#RPGaDAY Day 24, Most Complicated RPG Owned

#RPGaDAY Day 24, Most Complicated RPG Owned

I honestly don't keep many complicated games around.  I play to have fun, not to torture myself with terrible rule sets.

RoleMaster is probably the most overly complicated game I ever owned.

#RPGaDAY Day 23, Coolest looking RPG product / book

#RPGaDAY Day 23, Coolest looking RPG product / book

Not really sure.  There have been so many.

I loved BESM 3.0 when it first came out. Colorful and really captured the feel I wanted.

I loved the way the Dresden Files RPG looks too.

But for my money the coolest RPG books are still WitchCraft and the 1st Ed. Monster Manual.

These two books fill me with all sorts of geek-related joy.

#RPGaDAY Day 22, Best Secondhand RPG Purchase

#RPGaDAY Day 22, Best Secondhand RPG Purchase

In one of my many moves during college and grad school I lost a milk crate's worth of my 1st Edition books.  I lost most of my modules, some Dungeon magazines, my Basic and Expert Sets and all my 1st Ed Hardbacks except my Deities and Demigods.  I still had all my 2nd ed stuff, Ravenloft and some of my modules.

At first I was not too bummed out.  I had 2nd ed and I was kind of getting out of D&D.

A few years later I saw some near mint 1st ed books on eBay.  My wife saw them and told me to get them.  Must have been something in the water because no one bidded on them.

I got a PHB, MM, DMG, and a FF all for about 60 bucks.  At the time I called it a steal and I still do!

#RPGaDAY Day 21, Favourite Licensed RPG

#RPGaDAY Day 21, Favourite Licensed RPG

Is this even a question? ;)

Ghosts of Albion is my baby. I will write other games, I might even write batter ones, but Ghosts was like nothing else.

I also enjoy Buffy, Elric, Call of Cthlhu (that is sorta licensed), the various DC Comics RPGs and more.
I'll also admit that d20 Star Wars is my favorite version of that game, but I like all versions of Star Trek.

#RPGaDAY Day 20, Will still play in 20 years time…

#RPGaDAY Day 20, Will still play in 20 years time…

Well.

I have been doing it this long (35 years) another 20 sounds reasonable.
Plus I could be retired then and really be an old, pain in the ass Grognard.
I could yell at the new kids and tell the how we used to do it back in the day.

Plus RPGs seem like a good way to keep your mind sharp and that is important in your later years.
It also looks like RPGs will still be around then too. Gen Con and D&D5 are both doing quite well now and there were a lot of small children there ready to take the hobby into the next generations.