Some people here play a couple of Role-playing games. This is seriously geeky past time but can be much fun.
The basic premise of this form of entertainment is:
- Kill things
- Take their stuff
As set out by the seminal Dungeons and Dragons, which lead Jack Chick to tell us that RPGs are Of the Devil.
“Herzog’s Law. Given a choice between gaming and dating, many gamers would be surprised that they actually have a choice”
A number of role playing games can be played online, such as online crack.
Discussion
{Really though, they are just the slightly more grown up version of the imaginary games one used to play with one’s little brother, with the addition of rules, ‘cause he’s now old enough to realise that if you always make up what happens you always win, and he doesn’t. – Jim} {Yes, that’s right, and now you can no longer take advantage of me in that respect and must be subjected to my superior settlers skills! Muwahahaha! stephen}
{but movies are alright, because you’re paying other people to do the imagining. Also, America tells me so. – mattw}
{I never said it wan’t alright – but you make a valid point, it does seem weird to pay people megabucks to pretend to be something, when we can just make believe ourselves. jim}
Some Games
The following is a selection of games that I find intersting for some reason or other. Many of the games have mechanical characteristics that appeal to me, and ussually also a setting or style of play that interests me. – brehaut
Call of Cthulhu
Chaosium’s 1920s horror game based on the stories of HP Lovecraft. An opportunity to go mad or die at the hands of a squid-faced-horror in the company of friends.
Mechanically this game is fairly archaic, it uses a plethora of polyhedrals, random character generation and a simple attribute and skill driven set of resolution mechanics. However, the system is simple enough so its crustyness doesnt really get in the road, and the way the sanity mechanics work is really cool.
- Pros: Cthulhu!, plays fast, sanity >:)
- Cons: Character creation is a bit hokey, linear resolution mechanic (percentage based)
- Notes on playing CoC with GURPS 3e
{Brehaut, mattw, eonsim and A.W. played a game of this, and were surprised by just how creepy and scary it got. The door banging in the wind didn’t help much. It was quite fun. – mattw}
We played halfway into The Condemned from Arkham sourcebook, but weather and other commitments caused us to neglect it.
Delta Green
Delta Green drags Lovecraftian horror into the 90’s. It focuses in on more alien aspects and ratchets up the paranoia to 11.
Trail of Cthulhu
Trail is a reinterpretation of the game using the GUMSHOE system. Set in the 30’s and with a heavy focus on investigation in the rules, even compared to Call of Cthulhu.
Don’t Rest Your Head
An indy game from Evil Hat games. The characters play insomniac superheros who have ventured into a dark parallel city that crosses over to nightmares. The book reads like a twisted dark fairy-tale with superheros.
- Pros: There is only one mechanic and it is well thought out, rich and is closely intergrated with the setting. Setting is cool. Very character driven.
- Cons: Narrow focused game, Needs a fair bit of on the spot creativity from the GM, and could come across as quite intimidating to new players because of the size of the resolution mechanic.
{I am currently giving this a run though with Ruth via email. seems to be goin’ ok. Would still like to run it in the real world properly too – brehaut}
Dungeons and Dragons
More here later.
GURPS
Generic Universal Role Playing System from Steve Jackson Games. Currently only for the Discworld setting but potentially a custom fantastic setting in the future.
This is a rules system without particularly much specific flavour. This does result in ‘bland’ reading abilities, and a massive skill list. However, the rules are fast moving and very clean during play once you have characters and setting material sorted. It does result in large upfront costs for GMs and to a lesser extent players at character creation time.
- Pros: Fairly easy to model most characters in detail. Rules for any conceivable situation. Amazingly detailed sourcebooks. Can run quite quickly if you dont use every rule.
- Cons: Lots of detail. Upfront time investment. Players need to have a fairly good idea of their character before beginning character creation. GM needs to have a strong idea of what rules they are going to use.
Useful resources:
The Mountain Witch
The game is one story in the style of older japanese fiction/dramas. The aim is for a party of samurai (ronin, in fact) to ascend mount Fuji to kill the Mountain Witch who lives at the top. Very cool looking mechanics and story.
The rule system is highly narrative focused. Most of the mechanics are based around the idea of winning conflicts, where the prize is the right to narrate the outcome as you wish. An interesting premise that brehaut at least wants to play with.
- Pros: A very tightly focused game, designed for strong character interaction and a dramatic story.
- Cons: May prove challenging for inexperienced players (eg, us) to handle some of the interactions and on-the-spot thinking.
Prime Time Adventures
A tiny game designed to play out like a TV show.
Promethean: the Created
Play Frankenstein’s monsters and related things in a quest to become truly human. The game is based on the New world of darkness rules and setting from White Wolf. Fairly straight forward dice pool based mechanics. Havent read enough of the book to know more.
Promethean discards a lot of ‘woe is me, I am a monster’ that is present in the World of Darkness, and replaces it with an interesting combination of isolationism, hope and self discovery (that almost sounds like a childrens book. only with dead people. and flesh eating monsters). The book drips with atmosphere, but unfortunately suffers from ‘proper-nounification’ in some sections.
Spirit of the Century
A great looking pulp style game from the creators of Don’t Rest Your Head (above) that has been getting great reviews all over the place.
Note also, Gorilla flying a bi-plane on the cover. How much more awesome can this get? the answer is none, none more awesome.
The two fists of Truth, Justice and Freedom abound.
Star Wars Roleplaying Game: Saga Edition
2007 edition of the Star Wars roleplaying game. Based on the d20 system as used in D&D.
- Brehaut ran an adventure for Matt and Jim
Other games of interest
PDQ - Prose Descriptive Qualities
This is the house system of ‘atomic sock monkey’ and used in their games. From my understanding it gets rid of most of the crunch from traditional games and replaces them with aspect like things. This includes hit points! spiderman can get punched in the girlfriend. Very interesting ideas.
D&D 4e
Its the new D&D, i probably wouldn’t care so much if it wasn’t for Star Wars being so much fun.
Burning Empires
I don’t think i would ever actually play this game, but it sounds like an interesting system to read just for the enlightenment it provides.
