Okay, so I didn’t do one answer a day, I did all these answers in the last few days. But what the hell, it’s done now. #RPGaDay2023
First RPG played this year:
None. I haven’t played an RPG this year.
First RPG Gamemaster:
My dad, for about an hour. I think in 1977. I rolled a character—an elf, as I recall. He invented a dungeon, using the light blue dungeon geomorphs.
I entered the first room, through an entrance which looked like a huge, monstrous mouth. When I entered, it snapped shut, trapping me inside the dungeon with its metal teeth.
I said that was unfair and refused to play any more.
Little did I know, I was hooked! I never played with my dad again—something which I hugely regret.
First RPG bought this year:
None. I haven’t bought an RPG this year.
Most recent game bought:
Barbarians of Lemuria, Mythic Edition.
Oldest Game Played:
D&D Basic. Diplomacy. Metamorphosis Alpha. Traveller Edition 1.
Favourite game you never get to play:
Barbarians of Lemuria, Homebrew Edition.
Smartest RPG you’ve played:
I can’t answer this question. They’re all smart, or they’re all stupid, depending on how you play them. But as to the smartest RPG mechanism in a game, it probably is the Traveller 2d6 plus/minus modifiers to get 8 for success system. It’s so simple, and so well balanced, to accommodate modifiers of ±0-3 or at an extreme, ±0-5. Barbarians of Lemuria’s core mechanic is similarly elegant.
Favourite Character:
Daryl Dyte, the Thief with a Black Country accent. I played him weekly for years. It must have driven my fellow players crazy!
Favourite Dice:
D6s. Yeah, I know that there are all these other cool dice types, but, practically, D6s simply work best. Rectilinear, make nice bell curves, can generate wide ranges of numbers. If I get to choose one other type, It’s D10s. With D6s and D10s you can do everything that every other dice type can do.
Favourite tie-in fiction:
No thanks. I don’t like tie-in fiction. I like every game-master’s world to be their own thing, for the players to discover. I can’t stand debates about canon—the point about a game-master’s world is that it should be undiscovered, unique and surprising, not conformant to some other vision.
Probably the only fiction that I’ve read that fits in with a game is HP Lovecraft.
Weirdest game you’ve played:
Maybe Numerera? I’ve only played it once. Maybe Call of Cthulhu—weird in a way that the question probably doesn’t mean!
Oldest Game you still play:
I’m up for playing any game, however old. However, I’m starting to think that the key to good gaming is simplicity. Some early game systems (AD&D I’m looking at you!) are needlessly complex. Were I to go for a D&Dalike, it’d probably be a BX retroclone.
Most memorable character demise:
Not mine, but a friend’s. The party surrounded an iron golem and started bashing the hell out of it with magic weapons. It quickly succumbed, after bashing various party members down to a low number of hit points. The DM ruled, “The giant, iron figure starts to collapse, but which way does it fall? 1, North, 2, Northeast, and so on.” My friend’s character was West of the golem, and started chanting, “Not seven! Not seven! Not seven!” The DM rolled a D8, and inevitably, it came up seven. Failing a saving throw to dodge, the character, who was wearing plate armour, became known, in death, as “Mr. Toothpaste”.
Favourite Convention Purchase:
Absolutely no idea. You’re assuming I’ve been to a game convention less than 30 years ago, aren’t you?
Favourite Con Module/One Shot:
Again, barely qualified to answer. I guess Tomb of Horrors.
Game I wish I owned:
The original Empire of the Petal Throne?
The Yellow King RPG? Maybe Tales from The Odd? The thing is, when I buy a game I’m almost always disappointed. I like to play, but I don’t have a hankering to constantly buy new games.
I also have an issue with artwork—if it’s too specific, too detailed, has the wrong vibe, or just reacts awkwardly with the pictures of the game world I originate in my imagination, then it can block my ability to imagine the world of the game in the way I want to.
Funniest Game you’ve played?
Paranoia
Favourite game system?
I like WHFRP’s career system. I like Traveller’s resolution system. I like Barbarians of Lemuria’s core mechanic. I like the simplicity of Dragon Warriors. I like the creeping terror of Call of Cthulu.
Favourite published adventure?
Ravenloft. Masks of Nyarlathotep.
Will still play in 20 years time?
Liberally homebrewed derivatives of Barbarians of Lemuria.
Favourite licensed RPG?
West End Games’s Star Wars RPG.
Best Secondhand RPG Purchase?
I don’t think I’ve bought an RPG second hand. Hah! Actually that’s not true! I bought copies of books 5 and 6 of Dragon Warriors on Ebay, to make my set complete. Book 6 was appallingly expensive—around £60 (it should have been under £10!) but I had to have it. I went on to run a 2 year campaign, weekly, in the 2010s.
Coolest Looking RPG product/book?
It’s cheating to say Art and Arcana, isn’t it? I really like anything featuring the work of Erol Otus. It’s good because it’s evocative, gonzo, fantastical, gritty, heroic, scary, bizarre, but also kind of primitive, almost cartoonish, like tatoos. So Dungeon Crawl Classics, The Arduin Grimoire, and AD&D’s Deities and Demigods. (I have the early version which includes the Cthulhu Mythos!)
Complex / Simple RPG you play?
Simple is the way to go. Barbarians of Lemuria. I like the sound of Into The Odd. I haven’t got time for complex, but, for the record, I have GM’ed Aftermath—so complex your character’s movement rate may change as you expend ammunition. Each bullet fired makes you less encumbered!
Unplayed RPG You Own?
Dungeonworld—I thought I’d find it really inspiring, but I don’t. In particular, it attempts to conjure up exactly the tropes I don’t like about D&D.
Noir—The Film Noir RPG
Favourite Character Sheet?
Homemade AD&D Character Sheets, made by me in the 1980s with a typewriter.
Game I’d like a new edition of?
No thanks. Really, I don’t hanker after new editions—I play with what I’ve got.
Scariest game I’ve ever played?
Call of Cthulhu. A homebrewed D&D adventure by one of my friends, called “The Tomb” in which two thieves, in pitch darkness, were trying to escape from catacombs that proved to be much more extensive and more hazardous than they expected.
Most memorable encounter?
When playing: our characters interacted with an NPC—a powerful wizard, and took him through our reasoning as to why literally the only person in the city we were absolutely sure hadn’t done the series of gruesome murders was him. Later it transpired it was him, of course!
When GMing: The evil cult had assigned their most expendible member—a young hybrid snakeman—as a guide for the party, who would, unwittingly, lead them (and himself) to their doom.
As the characters debate whether or not to do away with this grim abomination, I described him using his claws to play a flicking game with a collection of buttons. All of a sudden, they stopped seeing him as a monster, and started seeing him as a child—after which they hadn’t the heart to execute him. He ended up becoming a PC’s henchman—the perfect sidekick for a mysterious, and somewhat frightening, wizard.
Most obscure RPG that you’ve played?
Published game, probably Chivalry & Sorcery. Even more obscure is the unpublished Persyl—my own, teenage attempt at a “Rulings not Rules” D&D derivative.
Favourite RPG of all time?
They’re all great, and they’re all flawed. In terms of game most played, it has to be Traveller. In the 80s I ran an Edition 1 campaign which lasted, in weekly sessions, for more than 4 years. It was vastly expansive.
Now, though, I can’t do science fiction. Technology has changed the world so much since the 80s that I seriously doubt that the notion of humans with discrete, individual identities and will even exist in successful future societies.
Call of Cthulhu is great for one-shots and short adventures. I haven’t kept up with the latest editions, though.
Barbarians of Lemuria is my current preoccupation—it may yet become my all-time favourite, if I’m able, successfully, to work out how magic works in my world.
Compare your answers with those from the first #RPGaDay.
They exist! I didn’t do the first #RPGaDay.