Month: August 2017

What was your most Impactful RPG Session?

This a tough questions because memories fade.  What was impactful for me years ago may not seem all that impactful anymore.  However, something that happened 3 sessions ago may still resinate with me.  Well with GenCon approaching this year I still remember the best session I had last year:

Last year at GenCon I played in my first LARP game.  It was sci-fi themed.  Basically a group of us, just over a dozen I think, ended up on a starship stranded in space.  Rescue was weeks out and life support wouldn’t last near that long.  A classic Sci-fi scenario.

I’d never LARPed before but going in I decided I was going to give it my all.  I embraced my character and played it full tilt. I was a guy with something to live for.  Not a heroic or brave guy, but someone who had a family back home I supported and a very sick kid who needed my help.

As tensions rose on the ship and the inevitable was discovered, (most of us had to die so at least 2 of us could live) I didn’t take things well.   As everyone resigned themselves to their fate I was the decerning voice.  I was not one of the ones chosen to live.  A couple people were more important, the fate of worlds rested in their hands.  What did I care for worlds though; my world, my family, rested in my hands.  Inevitably the decision was stolen from me by the actions of a few of the crew and I had to accept my fate.

It was an intense role-playing session but a hell of a lot of fun.  A few of us from the game gathered at a bar afterward and drank till the wee hours of the morning, decompressing and reveling in the shared experience.

Which RPG Cover best Captures the Spirit of the Game?

Well, I would have to say that has to be the cover for Tales from the Loop.  With the beautiful art from Simon Stålenhag.  This is kind of a cheat because Simon Stålenhag’s art is what inspired the RPG in the first place, his art IS the Spirit of the Game.

Regardless the cover is a beautiful piece that conveys the idea of wonder and adventure from the eyes of children, in a setting of futuristic past.  The art throughout the book is great and you can read more on my impressions of the actual game in my Fan Friday Post.

Which RPG have you played the most since August 2016?

This was actually a tough one; at first blush.  I have played Roughly the Same number of sessions of Gods of the Fall, Achtung: Cthulhu, and a Cypher System game set in FFG’s Android Universe.  Then I realized that Gods of the Fall just a setting for the Cypher System.

So the answer is Monte Cook Games’ Cypher System.  The rules are fun versatile and easily adaptable to whatever setting you want to create.  I have thought of many games I could easily run using this system.  Heck, last August I quickly threw together a Warhammer Fantasy Cypher game to run at GenCon with my old Warhammer buddies. We had Bright Wizards, Slayers, Witch Hunters, and Priests of Sigmar battling the Skaven horde in no time… And it was Glorious.

It will be interesting to see if Cypher maintains this place as most played next year as Modiphius is calling to me with their great offerings and I am discovering the joys of PbtA games.  Still, however, Predation just came out and I’d love to get into a game of it.

What is an RPG you would like to see published? 

This is a hard question there are so many cool RPGs out there all genres are represented. I would have said one that combines tech and cool dinosaurs like a childhood favorite of mine Dino Riders, but along comes MCG’s Predation so I have that now.   What are we missing? A StarGate PRG?  No that exists.. a Narrative Pirate game, nope John Wick has us covered?  A teenage monster dating sim?  Monsterhearts 2 is already here.  It is hard to come up with a concept that isn’t already out there.

Well, there is one… The one I’ve been thinking about for some time.  In the mid 90’s I picked up a computer game at a local mom and pop software store that proceeded to suck away hours of my life.   In the game, I ran an organization and recruited named and controlled squads of soldiers as we desperately tried to thwart an oncoming Alien Invasion.  That game was X-Com UFO Defense.

Ever since playing that game I thought of how cool it would be to play an RPG game based off of it.  You played the soldiers but also took part in base building ala Mutant: Year Zero dealt with research and deciding what missions you wanted to go on.  The game doesn’t have to be about tactile combat like the video game, in fact, I would prefer it not to be. I instead envision a game with cinematic battles with aliens.  The game is about the soldiers the relationships they form, the sacrifices they make, the risks they take, and ones they leave behind.

Sure there are Alien invasion RPGs but none I’ve found that center on the members of an organization trying to fight back.

I’ve actually thought of trying to make this game myself.  Hacking the Cypher System and using rule structures stolen from Mutant: Year Zero, I even started writing a few outlines but I never got too far before I was pulled elsewhere.  But still, I’d love to see someone make a valiant try at an X-COM RPG.  If something like this already exists.  Please let me know.