Day 9: What is a good RPG to play for about 10 sessions?

This probably is not a shock to anyone who has read the blog lately but I am a big fan of running Star Wars in movie-sized chunks. I don't run it as a sandbox. I don't run it completely open-ended. Unlike a lot of other RPG's I really think a Star Wars game feels truest to the spirit of the movies when it's run with a definite plot with some definite end conditions.

• It may be a classic quest: We need to find something or someone and deliver that to a particular place, possibly by a particular time. 
• It may be a classic supervillian type plot: bad people are planning bad things that are bad for a lot of people, including the PC's. Discover it, react to it, then stop it are the traditional parts of the campaign. 
• It may be a war story: gather a group of specialists and then undertake a dangerous mission for one side in a war. 

Any of those basic frameworks is a great setup for a movie style limited campaign. Add in other elements to taste - greed, personal loyalty, combat prowess, political entanglements, or even discovering more about the Force - and you can build exactly the kind of game you want to run and your players want to play.

The long term connectivity payoff is allowing characters from prior "movies" to appear in later runs. You don't have to have the same group of characters or players, but bringing in just one PC ties this story to that other story and pretty soon you're weaving tales of a connected universe, not just one party. 

Runners up:

• Supers - you can run a good superhero tale in ten episodes or less. Here's one example of such a game.
• Shadowrun - a classic "shadowrun", including the setup for the run and the inevitable complications and betrayals that follow, are easily covered in ten sessions or less.
• Dungeon Crawl Classics - pick a 0-level adventure. Run it. Pick a 1st level adventure. Run it. Continue. You will see an incredibly enjoyable progression from pitchfork-wielding nobodies into wizards and warriors of notable power over the course of these games. 

The big difference for me in most of these limited campaigns is that they benefit immensely from being planned from the beginning as a limited campaign. I like a sandbox campaign just fine and some games (Traveller springs to mind) just flat-out work better in that mode. Others though, feel like they were written for exactly this kind of scenario (a fixed number of sessions) and the games listed above are my top choices. 

Day 8: What is a good RPG to play for sessions of 2 hours or less?

This is an easy one for me: ICONS. I've written a ton about it, I've played quite a bit of it, and it is still hands-down my champion for quick and easy play.

Runners-Up:

• If I couldn't play ICONS and had a short window I'd probably go with one of its parent games - Marvel Super Heroes, the 80's TSR RPG. Hand out some character cards and get to fighting evil!
• Another surprisingly quick option is another Marvel game: Marvel Heroic Roleplaying. Again, hand out sheets for Iron Man or Spider Man and go!
• Outside of this I'll go with "Savage Worlds" - characters are fairly quick to create and gameplay moves right along, especially with a session or two of experience and it feels like you're getting a lot done. 

Day 7: What was your most impactful RPG session?

"Impactful" is a pretty general word but I'll do what I can here:

• Some of my players still talk about the Star Wars game I ran probably ten years ago now. That's a good sign it had an impact. Sometimes having a definite start-middle-end in mind is a good thing and makes your game stronger. 
• I ran a Greyhawk campaign 20 years ago with just 3 players running back and forth between Dyvers and the City of Greyhawk that comes up more often than I would have expected it too. That's a good sign.  Sometimes fewer players lets you focus in on them and good things happen.
• Different parts of my 3rd and 4th edition games come up with different players. This often involves a character death, a TPK, or a character doing something really risky or stupid. It's not always the character who dies or did the thing either - sometimes they were just a witness and it was still pretty impactful. 

For me there are a few candidates - TPK's, unexpected character moments that really changed a game, and wildly different approaches to adventure situations than I ever expected. 

The one I would rank at the top though is from a recent M&M session that I documented here. It was a new player, a new and rather unusual character, a tense situation, and something that just developed by chance and it was awesome, easily the most interesting thing to develop in my last ten years of superhero gaming and a high point among all of my sessions regardless of genre or system. 

Day 6: What I'd do gaming every day for a week.

Weirdly, this is such an unrealistic scenario that I'm having trouble coming up with something spectacular. It assumes that not only am I free, but my players are free too, which is even less likely.

Ideally this would translate to a group of friends staying somewhere away from it all like a cabin on a lake with the goal of playing for a week straight. I'd like at least 3 of us to have prepared campaigns just for this week. Maybe two of them are RPG's and the third is a miniatures campaign or a boardgame tournament of some kind to change things up.

I get I am focusing on the setup here more than the actual game - so what would I actually do?

• One attractive option would be to run a big D&D adventure. My initial thinking is "Temple of Elemental Evil in one go!" - that would be a lot of fun and a strong way to kickoff a new campaign. At a higher level, running the whole Giants series one right after another would be fun too.  Running one of these big scenarios all the way through with  the same group of players in the space of a week would be a blast.
• The big Star Wars adventure: A new group gathers, maybe new characters with a smattering of returning favorites, a new mission/problem beckons, and resolving that is the first part of a "trilogy" of adventures played out over the week. Finish one, take a break in between, then start the next one. This could be a set of stories running parallel to the movies or it could be completely original and set in say the Old Republic. Come out of the week with an epic adventure completed and some fun stories to tell. 
• Star Trek Reboot: Something a little similar to the 2009 Trek reboot - a new crew gathers on a new ship for a simple shakedown cruise and then events spiral out of control and the PC's are caught up in an epic Trek story that could be the foundation for an entirely new campaign. The "bonding" that happens running a set group of characters through a bunch of table time in a short period like this would be a really nice setup for a new campaign start. This would involve Klingons and/or Romulans, maybe time travel, some new aliens, a threat to the Federation, and at least one bar fight. This is a "movie" adventure, not a "one episode of a TV series" adventure so ships might not make it, characters might not make it, and a lot of standard assumptions about Trek status quo are on the line. 
• Invasion! A 6-issue limited series: A superhero campaign based off of an alien or dimensional invasion. Ideally this would be a special game that takes place in a campaign that is already up and running. Instead of dealing with bank robbers or one mad scientist or some "hunteds" this would be an epic story that would see familiar NPCs and institutions and possibly the very home setting of the game threatened with occupation or destruction by a new menace. Of course, some old menaces would likely ally with this new force, but some old menaces might instead team up with the PC's to help fight it off. Tying it to an ongoing superhero campaign makes the people and the places that much more important when they are threatened. The events of this special mini series would at least "leave a mark" on the ongoing campaign. Characters and NPCs might fall, tragedy and/or heroism could affect the city and the people who live there, and some destroyed landmarks might never be rebuilt, instead becoming a park with memorials to the events and casualties of the invasion.
• A Savage Worlds plot point campaign: There are a fair number of these and I think it would be entirely possible to run them in the course of a week mixed in with other games: Necessary Evil, 50 Fathoms, Evernight, one of the Deadlands plot points, Slipstream, Tour of Darkness - all of them are cool and depending on the group and the general mood I know I could pick one and run a rollicking good game in the course of a week .

So all of these represent an opportunity to me to either kick off a new campaign in spectacular fashion, or to celebrate an ongoing campaign with an epic special run that affects the ongoing game. Either way it should be somewhat self-contained so that someone new could join in and make a meaningful contribution, or so that even if you never played another session you had a complete run that made some kind of interesting story to tell later. Also note I am not really tied to any particular edition or version of a game - just whatever makes the most sense for that group at that time. 

I don't think it will ever happen but I think it would be a ton of fun. 

Day 5: Which RPG cover best captures the spirit of the game?

I think this question has come up before and my answer is always the same: Shadowrun. That single scene covers almost everything you do in Shadowrun and shows what makes it different: guy plugging in to computer, girl with a gun and some kind of magic effect, and then indian-painted guy with dual sub-machine guns, all in a dirty part fo town with a backdrop of skyscrapers and opposition - Yeah, that covers a lot of ground.

It's so perfect for the game that second edition kept the same cover - how often do you see that?

Later edition still have nice art but 3rd kind of lost it's purpose and became "generic action scene", 4th goes back to something similar to these covers (a step in the right direction), then 5th is so busy I can't tell what's going on.

My runner-up hasn't changed in a long time either:

Gamma World has had some incredibly evocative covers and this one really pushed my buttons as a kid when it was current - armed men going into a ruined, overgrown city - please tell me more! That is a whole bunch of what the game is about. Plus the whole style is pure 60's-70's sci-fi art and it really sets the tone.

Then with second edition we get this:

This is another winner with Giant Deadly Robot acting out against a human with a stone axe and some kind of mutant with an energy weapon - yep, that's pretty much Gamma World. The cover of the rulebook inside the box was pretty solid too:

Mutant with pistol and shield and another with a fusion gun against blaster guy on a horse? Yep, that's the game!

Honorable Mention:

It's not a rulebook but it is the origin of the legendary Stop Sign Shield! This picture, again, is totally in line with what a Gamma World adventure looks like.

In contrast ...

There are lots of good covers out there, and even more bad ones - static posed hero, static posed monster, symbol of something relevant to game + title of game = boring and non-evocative. They may be pretty at times but they are often just too plain. The covers for 5th edition D&D and for FFG Star Wars are usually pretty and well done technically but they don't tell me much about the game itself. Most Pathfinder rulebook covers have some kind of action happening and so in my mind are a step above. Look at Numenera or The Strange too - what do they tell you, visually, about the game or the setting? Even the new Trek game, for example, on the collector's edition has a cover picture that is a close up shot of a starship hull.

WHY? It's incredibly boring and tell you nothing about the game! At least the standard version has some characters doing something! It's a great example of "pretty but uninformative". People get excited about Star Trek ships, sure - but not hull textures. Not really.

It's an interesting question today and I ended up writing quite a bit more about it than I expected.

More tomorrow!

Day 4: Which RPG have you played the most since August 2016?

Warhammer 40,000!

OK maybe that doesn't count.

How about "Star Trek Online"?

Nope?

I'm in a weird place here compared to my usual routine. I've run 3-4 sessions of a bunch of games over the last year - D&D, Pathfinder, Mutants and Masterminds, Deadlands, and Star Wars. In some ways this makes me happy as it means we're broadening our experiences and playing a lot of games. That said, we're not being very consistent. Hopefully the continuing focus on my Beyond the Rim campaign will give us some stability here, so I'll go with "Star Wars" as my final answer.

Day 3: How do you find out about new RPGs?

This is a pretty straightforward question so this will be one of the shorter entries this month:

• EN World - it's mainly focused on D&D type games but it ends up being the biggest tabletop RPG site and a lot of things are announced/noted/promoted there.
• Kickstarter - once you've done a few you tend to get notified of related projects, one version of the Network Effect.
• Other Blogs - I have a regular rotation of blogs I read and a lot of time they have news of a new game that I may not have seen elsewhere. If I like the blog enough to keep coming back and they think a new game looks interesting then there's a good chance I will feel the same way.
• Podcasts - similar to blogs above but also really good for things related to the game the podcast covers. Alternate rules, adventures, or a new game by the same writer or from the same company.
• Company Websites: Pinnacle, Green Ronin, Paizo, and FFG are all places I visit regularly.  

That's about it!

Day 2: An RPG You Would Like to See Published

This is a tougher question than it would have been a year ago:

• There's a new Star Trek game. It's not my favorite set of rules but it's in print and appears to be well on the way to being well-supported. This would have been my #1 answer.
• I'm learning to at least like the new Star Wars game (new = published 5 years ago apparently) so I don't feel the need to call for a new version of that.
• Cubicle 7 is going to publish a new version of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying, one based on the 1st and 2nd editions of the game. Those are the two I like best so I'm pretty happy with this news. When FFG a) went with a funky-dice system for 3rd edition and b) then stopped publishing the game altogether I was disappointed. I haven't run a ton of WFRP compared to say D&D but I do like having it around.  
• There's a mechanically decent version of Rifts available.
• Classic Runequest is available again.
• Mutant Crawl Classics will be out soon and is effectively a modern version of Gamma World
• Heck, we just had a Kickstarter for a new version of Top Secret!

So getting something "old" so to speak out has been handled in a big way over the last few years. That's usually where I feel the need - when an exiting game or setting goes out of print. Let's start there:

The obvious choice: a Warhammer 40,000 RPG. We had several, they all went out of print when FFG's license ended, and was never all that thrilled with them anyway. What makes for a wonderfully grim and gritty system at the Warhammer fantasy level gets pretty bulky and feels very different when you try to use it in a setting with power armor, missile launchers, and tanks. So I would like to see a new 40K RPG - completely new, not a reprint. There are Rifts-level power differences between what you might think of as typical characters in a 40K RPG so it's an interesting challenge for sure. 

Bonus Wishlist Item: Marvel Heroic. We have Cortex Plus books, we have 60 years of Marvel and even more of DC, but I would be ecstatic if somehow someway someone started publishing (or re-publishing) a licensed superhero game that used it. That was way too interesting a system that was cut down way too early.

But if we were looking for something completely new what would it be?

• Semi-original premise #1: "Fantasy Roman Empire" - the setting is the early  Roman Empire but with all of the trappings of a typical D&D world. Instead of just barbarians on the borders, how about orcs, elves, dwarves, etc. There have been various attempts at this over the years but none of them have ever taken off. I'd like to see some decent designers and writers backed by an experienced company try to make this work. There are enough interesting twists to make this stand out in my opinion. Then of course you get the "Mythic Greece" sourcebook or alternate campaign for it and we're rolling in the classics + dragons.
• Semi-original premise #2: "The New World" - The game assumes a Renaissance Europe type background and that you are part of a group heading out to settle the "new world" only recently discovered. This could go somewhat old-school with some resource management aspects but characters would lean more towards the lighter end of things. The GM side though ... his fun is in picking out and setting up exactly what is waiting for the players across the sea. Is it simply native tribes at a severe technological disadvantage? Maybe it's a far more fantastic threat - orcs and dragons? Maybe it's technological - the "new" world is actually the older world, one ruined by warfare or technological collapse centuries ago so you get flintlock-wielding colonists threatened by mutants and robots. Maybe it's a continent controlled by intelligent apes. I think an RPG with a set starting point for the players that caters to multiple scenarios for discovery detailed by the GM would be a lot of fun to play. 

Slightly more original premise:

• "Super Rock Band: The RPG" - Select your character's musical specialty, their talent level, their skill level, their personal charisma, and various physical traits. Maybe a "signature move" or item. Keep the rules fairly light - somewhere between FFG Star Wars, d6 Star Wars, or ICONS. I don't know that the purely mundane rocker world is enough to sustain a campaign so you can also select their "other" job:
• Maybe they solve mysteries as they travel around the world (+Scooby Doo or Josie and the Pussycats)
• Maybe they secretly fight crime as costumed heroes (+Teen Titans or The Impossibles)
• Maybe they protect the world against supernatural evil (+Supernatural or Hellboy)
• Maybe they protect the world against alien invasion (+ Dark Conspiracy or The X-Files)
  
  The focus would be on running single-session "episodes" where the band travels to a new city, uncovers some kind of problem, solves it, then plays their gig as the finale, getting bonuses or penalties for what they did during the session. Good performances increase their fame/power/money, while bad ones damage it in some way. This would be a sort of live XP system.
  
  System-wise I'd start with the d6 system, add a new stat or replace one of the old ones with "Musical" and have a separate skill for each instrument and singing style. Default is stat + skill so a really talented musician could fill in for a mind-wiped bass player even if they had no real skill in "bass guitar" Work in something like FFG's Obligation system from Edge of the Empire to give the group some other pressing issues to deal with and I think you could have a ton of fun with the right group. I think it would be a great one-shot or con type game too.

That's enough words for now - more tomorrow!

RPG-A-Day 2017

Hell, why not? I see it on EN World and on Barking Alien's place and I've not been posting as regularly so why not take this as an opportunity to pay a little more attention to the RPG side of things here?

So Day 1 is "What published RPG do you wish you were playing right now?"`

Is that literally right now? Because it's a Tuesday morning and I'm in between work duties, so that would be awkward. I suppose I could try to finally finish Baldur's Gate, or fire up Star Trek Online but I don't think that's what they mean.

Recently I've been running D&D 5th edition and Star Wars Edge of the Empire. I'm pretty happy with those. I've also been digging in to some other games for research/prep:

• Dungeon Crawl Classics - they had a kickstarter for scratch-off zero level character sheets which has me wanting to finish our first foray into this game.
• Mutant Crawl Classics - the kickstarter PDF recently went to backers and it looks like a lot of fun.
• Twilight 2000 - I have an almost complete set of published books for this game and at least two interested players. I'm working on completing the collection and contemplating how or when I would run a campaign.
• Shadowrun - the Apprentices have never actually played and it feels like I should fix that
• Savage Worlds Rifts - still haven't run a game. It's been discussed, it just hasn't happened yet. 

Lots of older school stuff there. I'd be happy running any of those if it didn't interfere with what I'm already doing.

The question specifically mentioned "playing" though. I don't know that they meant it to be that specific but let me take it as "playing" and not "running". I run a lot more than I play so this is a more interesting version of the question.

I'd say supers - M&M, Champions, ICONS, BASH, Marvel, whatever. It's been forever since I've played in an ongoing superhero game. My decision to make this year the one I catch up on Astro City is probably contributing here too.

Runner up: "Star Trek" - I'd like to play in a Trek campaign for a good while run by someone who knows and loves the material. Again, the rules are not the issue so much here as the genre or setting. 

So there's my answer to the question. 

This Looks a Bit Familiar: Bright

I don't pay a ton of attention to San Diego Comic Con anymore because it's turned into such a huge thing it's just a torrent of information - it's overload. I did see one thing over the weekend that caught my eye though:




I know "urban fantasy" is a wider genre these days but that looks a ton like a Shadowrun movie. Plus, Will Smith actually looks entertaining in this one, unlike some of his other recent appearances.

So color me interested in this one ...