My RPGs

I’ve played a lot of games over the years and I figured I’d make a bit of a list of some of my favourites/not so favourites and tell you why it is I like them. The games listed below are not in any particular order. (I’m intentionally leaving out Dragon Warriors – I think I’ve gushed enough about how much I like that game!)

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
This is the first fantasy game I ever properly GM’d. I’d dabbled in some Basic D&D DMing but fancied something a bit more detailed (and I never really liked AD&D). So, knowing something of the Warhammer World, I snapped up the softback copy in the late eighties. I can recommend the original rulebook alone – it has enough material to keep you going in campaigns for years. A lot of people didn’t like the career system but I found that if it was well managed it wasn’t that much of a problem. The magic system, however, was a bit of a chore and I was lucky that none of my players were that into playing magic users.
I’ve tried the Second Edition and whilst it is still a great game the rulebook just didn’t have the atmosphere of the original. This is my go-to fantasy RPG.

MERP
This was the first fantasy game I ever played where I got into my character. The rules are a cut-down version of the over-complicated Rolemaster system, but it’s still quite tricky in some places, and the rulebook is just that – a lot of rules. There’s not much Tolkien atmosphere in the book and we ended up just playing the game set in a fantasy Europe, but the system is robust and allows you to play a well-defined, rounded character. Again, the magic system was a bust and made no sense (and it didn’t suit the world of Tolkien at all) but we never took much notice of it, anyway.

Star Wars D6
All my RPG friends love Star Wars so it’s not surprising that this game was probably the most run. We set our games in the Setnin Sector (detailed over at http://www.lightsabre.co.uk/) and, through four interchanging GMs, got some great campaigns out of it. We always stuck with the original version of the game – the Second Edition just made things complicated for no discernable reason and was a horrendously laid out book, and even though the Revised and Expanded edition was a wonderful book it still retained some of the rules that I felt just weren’t necessary. In fact, the short Star Wars adventure I ran earlier this year used the original rules and worked like a dream.

Call of Cthulhu
Well, what can I say – I was introduced to the work of H P Lovecraft by this game so that’s one reason for me to like it, but not only that I love the system, which I knew from owning RuneQuest. Most of my games had either been fantasy or sc-fi so trying to emulate the world of the 1920s was quite difficult. After reading some of Lovecraft’s work (mainly Call Of Cthulhu and The Shadow Over Innsmouth) I got an idea of how to run the game. I’m not much of a horror fan but this game really did push some buttons. I’ve always prided myself on not ever having run a published adventure ever, but after reading The Complete Masks of Nyarlathotep I so wanted to run that adventure.

Mechwarrior
And I’m talking first edition, too. Yes, that dreadful 2D6 game where character creation was ‘Wuh?’ and the skill resolution system was ‘Eh?’ Once we got our heads around what turned out to be a simple system, we had a blast. I was playing a Davion special forces soldier and, with rorynex in hand, I spent my time doing work for Davion Intelligence in Kuritan space. Now, the system is poor and we had to do some rule modifying for certain areas of the game, but it was very, very good to play a character in the Battletech universe.

There’s also a couple that I’m going to recommend that I, alas, have not yet played (although I have read them).

Basic Fantasy/Swords and Wizadry
I did enjoy playing Basic D&D back in the 1980s and now we’ve hit the 21st century you’d have thought that there was no place for the older game. Boy, was I wrong. These two games have taken the old D&D and tweaked it ever so slightly, releasing games that capture the spirit and the enjoyment of the original game and adding a bit more to enhance the experience.

Icar
This is a solid sci-fi RPG that I enjoyed reading, and it has plenty of background material that gives you plenty of scope. It is a game that I’d like to play just to experience the world that has been created for it and the fact that the game has been designed/played/tweeked for years tells me it’s worth having a go at.

Dungeonslayers
Old school kill ‘em and take their stuff. It’s short, it’s sweet and it works. In fact, I’d recommend this game or Basic Fantasy/Swords and Wizadry as a beginners game – if you’re trying to introduce someone to the RPG hobby then you can’t go wrong with these.

And, of course, there’s a few I just didn’t get along with.

Shadowrun (1st Edition)
AAARGH! I so wanted to enjoy this game but the system was just so weird. Was it me? Did I just not ‘get it’? I don’t think so! Not only that but the initial nerdgasm about Elves and Ogres in a cybernetic corporation-run future wore of really quickly. I attended the games, mainly because at that time it was the only game in town, and once my character died it was almost a relief. Needless to say it turned out that I never revisted the game for later editions.

Prime Directive (Task Force Games)
Yes, I bought it because it was Star Trek. Yes, I bought it because I was asked to by my Star Trek friends. No, it wasn’t a very good game. I ended up converting the game to the D6 system, using Star Wars D6 as a template, because the game system just wasn’t any good. The book is full of useful info, and I bought it again recently just so that I could run some D6 system campaigns with it.

In all my 25 years of roleplaying I have owned, played in and GM’d 30 different systems. Some came and went with barely a ripple, but others struck my hobby and my gaming group with such a splash that it left a long-lasting mark on me and my players – and that wasn’t always a good thing.

A ‘We’re Bored!’ Chart for you

Are your players wandering about? Not sure what’s going to happen next because the PCs have derailed the plot?

Then welcome to Farsight Games' Totally Tried and Tested Table of Titbits. Simply roll 1D20 – the result is what happens next.

1 - Party is attacked by a wandering monster.
2 - Party is attacked by a wandering monster looking for directions.
3 - Mysterious small cartoonish white-haired but balding man in red robes appears who says he can get you home but won’t just tell you straight how to do it.
4 - A dragon falls out of the sky, lands heavily on a randomly chosen character, gasps, ‘The money’s in the…’ and then dies.
5 - Tapdancing goblin.
6 - Attacked by 1D6 lethargic orcs who really can’t be bothered.
7 - Approached by a random NPC who wants to sell them time-shares in a glorious castle by the sea, overlooking Passion Lagoon, honestly, it’s just beautiful...
8 - Tapdancing goblin.
9 - It starts to rain... Acid rain!
10 - Nothing happens. Some tumbleweed rolls past.
11 - Three talking mice engage the PCs in a theological conversation about the existence of Squeesquee, the Rodent God.
12 - A spaceship lands and three aliens attempt to invade the whole game world with a rubber band and a wooden club.
13 - Tapdancing goblin.
14 - Car chase! No matter what the genre!
15 - Intermission. All the players must go to the lobby for snacks.
16 - Ninja Pirate attack! No matter what the players say, all games benefit from the inclusion of Ninjas and Pirates. Ninja Pirates is just gaming gold.
17 - Tapdancing goblin.
18 - Random NPC tries to seduce one of the PCs.
19 - Bar fight! Even if they’re not in a bar!
20 - Two tapdancing goblins.

If music be the food of love...

... then game on.

I used to use a lot of background music in my games. I always felt it helped the atmosphere and enhanced the experience of the game I was trying to play. I used soundtracks from all kinds of movies and television shows and kept the volume down but it was always there, getting the players in the mood. To play with each other. In the game. Of course.

Back when I started with Basic D&D there was no room for music but I started once I began to GM Star Wars D6 campaigns. Shockingly, I used the Star Wars soundtracks for those games. Once I moved on to GMing WFRP I used Beethoven and Rachmaninov, and the MERP game I was playing in was accompanied by Clannad, especially their 'Legend' album (as we were trying to get a 'Robin Of Sherwood' feel to the game.)

After that there was a plethora of music - The 'Terminator 2' and 'Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome' soundtracks for post apocalyptic / cyberpunk games, the 'Alien' soundtrack for 2300AD, a selection of swing and dance music from the 1920s for Call of Cthulhu - I had a massive collection of soundtracks to suit any and all games I was playing. When the glories of CDs came along and I got a remote control and repeat function... I was in RPG Music Heaven. I bought soundtracks not only for their quality of music but also whether they would suit my games or not.

A few years ago I almost stopped buying popular soundtracks for my games - I had been running Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay using the Howard Shore 'Lord of the Rings' soundtracks and the game got lost, primarily because the atmosphere being evoked was 'Lord of the Rings' and not the grim world of Warhammer. So I branched out and purchased soundtracks that the players would most likely not recognise, so that the music would feel unique to the game I was running. The 'Army of Darkness' soundtrack, the 'Dune' and 'Children of Dune' soundtracks, the 'Shackleton' soundtrack... I dug out soundtrack music and classical albums where there was a good chance that my players had never heard it before. That way they equated the background music with just my game and not the subject/show it was originally associated with.

Now that I'm planning a Dragon Warriors campaign one of my first thoughts was 'what music shall I use?' Thinking about the subject matter - a fantasy medieval Europe post-crusades - I'm thinking of the soundtracks to 'Kingdom of Heaven' and 'The Thirteenth Warrior'. I'm also considering throwing in some Clannad, just for old times sake.

Grateful (to the) Dead

It's World of Warcraft time.
I just want to take a moment and thank a Horde Undead Mage called, I think, 'Zets', on the EU Azuremyst server.
My level 49 Alliance Dwarf Hunter Burgen was beset by Gnolls in Feralas and was about to get his arse kicked, when Zets came along and saved the day. He saved my bacon, enabling me to complete the escort mission I was on, and even gave me a hearty salute before riding on. What a dude.
So - Thank you, Zets.
A few weeks ago a Tauren Shaman did the same thing for me in the Alterac Mountains but I never got his/her name. But thank you, all the same.
Methinks I'll be trying out a Horde character next time I start a new game. For a bunch of evil bastards they're really nice people.

Here Be Gamers (Aarrrrrr...)

Can I please draw your attention to a most excellent podcast:

http://herebegamers.com/

And this has nothing to do with the fact that they mention my SKETCH 'Highlander' game.

No, really, it's a great podcast!

Vote for Swords and Wizadry!

The ENies voting booths are open.

I'd just love* you to vote for 'Swords and Wizadry' in the 'Best Free Product' category. So would lots of other bloggers and gamers who enjoy truly free games. Oh, and the guys who wrote it, as well. They'd be simply delighted.

Go on. Just for me.

*This is not a veiled threat. Honest.

Dungeon Design - Monster images

I've been messing about with Microsoft Paint again and came up with these in about fifteen minutes:

I'm setting up a whole page of different monsters, from trolls to goblins to orcs to demons, in GIF format so that I can cut and paste them from one file into the main dungeon floorplan file. The colours are a bit sharp but that's not a problem, and I can modify them as I see fit to suit the room, which takes just minutes. Fair enough, the goblin on the right looks like a purple Superman with a rattle, but it's early days yet.

I'm also wondering if I should design the whole thing first, or blog it bit by bit as I design it. People can click on the images for full-sized versions that they can print, and they can take the room details directly from the text in the blog post - copy and paste is our friend.

No Funny Friday RPG story today, because I don't have any more. Roleplaying is a serious hobby, damn you! Serious! Saying that, we recorded our D&D 4e session last night - it's not really suitable for podcasting, to be honest - and that was great fun. The best line, I think, was something like, 'But, Jason, we really respect you as a DM... you po-faced motherf***er.'

Dungeon Design Floorplan Test

I've been thinking some more about my idea of doing a large dungeon, designing it bit by bit over a period of time, and this was my primary idea for the floorplans.

Using very simple Microsoft Paint, I got hold of a GIF image of a some squared paper, large enough for me to draw on.

Then I used Microsoft paint and added detail. It was very simple - thick and thin lines for the walls and doors, circles for the fountain in the centre, and then use the fill function to detail the difference between the space in the room and the rock walls. The figures (in this case simple bandits with swords and shields) I drew seperately and then copied and pasted in, rotating the image as I saw fit to suit.

The whole thing took me ten minutes. There might be a bit more detail to add to other rooms, but I'm looking at half an hour to do a room, and then add text details to flesh it out. The best thing is that the finished image won't be any larger than 30kb. With text, that's barely 50 kb per room, so putting it all into an easily printable file should be a doddle.

It's looking quite promising.

Hmmm... Dungeon Design Considerations

I was thinking about doing a simple long-term project, and my idea is this - create a large dungeon for use with Basic Fantasy, draw the maps with Microsoft Paint using a square-type background and just add to it room by room as I go along during lunch breaks and what have you. I could use the generator tools on the Basic Fantasy website (http://www.basicfantasy.org/). Build and build until I have a huge dungeon covering player levels 1 to 10, and then stick it all in a PDF and give it out. If it gets good feedback, then adapt it for other systems using the same format, see where it goes from there. I was thinking about doing the Island Tomb from my Stormland SKETCH game setting at http://www.farsightgames.com/. That's huge!

Could I last? Will I create something huge or will I just get bored by room 4 and think, 'Ah, screw this!'

Basic Fantasy with a Dungeon Mixer

Superb...

http://www.basicfantasy.org/

...and if I combined that with this...

http://www.worldslargestdungeon.com/

...there's a good chance I'd wet myself.