#RPGaDAY, Last Year: Day 18 – Favorite Game System

by ThomasNo Comments

A year ago, I wrote a short piece about why I like Apocalypse World’s system. In the past few months, I’ve had a chance to work on a few Powered by the Apocalypse games (games that use the base system from AW) and have been glancing over at what’s going on with the second edition of Apocalypse World. You know, I’m still intrigued. I like how it is fast and gets to the point of the conflict without a lot of dicking around, has a lot of player buy-in, and how the philosophy of the game carries through the design. So yes, my Favorite Game System hasn’t changed.

Here’s what I wrote last year.

 

road warriorI’m going to make this a different answer than the one for the “favorite RPG of all time” writing prompt. ((This will be on the 31st.)) I will have to go with Apocalypse World’s system: roll 2d6 + stat, succeed on a 10 or higher, succeed at a cost on a 7-9, fail at a 6 or lower. But sometimes it’s succeed at a cost at 10+, succeed at a greater cost at 7-9. The actions–moves–often are written with options your character can take with the ones you don’t take acting as prompts for the GM. Here’s a typical example:

On a 10+, choose two. On a 7-9, choose one:

  • You don’t get hurt
  • You don’t hurt someone you care about
  • You don’t lose a thing you care about

So if you succeed, and you don’t choose “You don’t get hurt”, you get hurt. Similarly, if you don’t choose losing a thing, you lose a thing.

Not everything is set up like this, but it’s simple enough to go between the “it’s impossible to succeed without cost” and “you can succeed cleanly” settings with this system.

The system itself is so simple (and the writing in the AW book strongly drives play in a specific direction), the AW system has been co-opted by several other games for several other genres. It’s a light, fast, fun system that can be surprisingly gritty. I think it’s pretty cool.

#RPGaDAY2015, Day 17 – Favorite Fantasy RPG

by ThomasNo Comments

If you asked me a year ago what my Favorite Fantasy RPG was, the answer would have been completely different.

DragonAgeBoxMy two favorite ones were published by Green Ronin: Dragon Age and A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying. “If I were to play a fantasy RPG,” I had said a few times over the past few years, “it would probably be Dragon Age.” But I’d want to strip out Bioware’s setting and have my own generic game based on that. So did Green Ronin: They’ve been talking about making the Adventure Game Engine that powered Dragon Age into their own system since I first played it in 2010. It’s almost everything I want in a fantasy game, too! Dragon Age let you do some crazy heroic stuff with the stunt system, and it plays quickly. ((Especially compared to D&D 4th Edition and Pathfinder.)) Fantasy AGE finally came out at Gen Con 2015–personally, I think that having that be used as the game system on the Geek & Sundry RPG show, Titansgrave, spurred production on the new game.

However, 2015 was too late for me.

Dungeons & Dragons, 5th Edition, had come out the year before.

I had been turned off from fantasy RPGs and D&D in particular, as the rules wound up growing massiver and more unweildy. The sheer amount of product, year after year, from publishers using the Open Gaming License of D&D’s third edition and from Wizards of the Coast themselves, not only made it difficult to keep up with the lore and the rules and the options, but it also overwhelmed the hobby games market and community. It (D&D 3, D&D 3.5, Pathfinder, and D&D 4.0) were everywhere. I was burned out on fantasy settings. There were so many other indie games to try out, and games in other settings.

So, I was done.

ddstarterUntil I picked up the D&D 5th Edition Starter Set. Local store sells stuff at way under MSRP and lets you rack up points, which brings the price down even more, and I heard that D&D Next was supposed to be good, despite my initial misgivings with the overly-long crowdsourced playtest. The final product wasn’t as massive and unwieldy as anticipated. In fact… It played a lot like AD&D2, my D&D flavor of choice. But still: faster, smoother.

You know? It’s actually pretty good. It’s pretty…darn good. Surprisingly, after saying I was done with fantasy, I’m playing another fantasy game.

And it’s Dungeons & Dragons, of all things.

#RPGaDAY, Last Year: Day 17 – Funniest Game You’ve Played

by ThomasNo Comments

One year ago today, the topic was Funniest Game You’ve Played. I really haven’t played much since that post, so the answer will remain the same.

The thing about humor in games is if it’s forced, it’s not funny. That’s why I don’t go for comedy games. I prefer the humor to come up naturally within a game. To put it in movie terms, you know Michael Bay’s Transformers? The first one? There’s the government agent guy and he’s the forced humor in the movie: an overacting cartoonish insult to the audience’s intelligence. But there he is, somehow stripped down to a Superman-like-logo t-shirt that he’s wearing and goofy boxers! Isn’t that hilarious? Oh, and now he’s being peed on by Bumblebee. Haw haw.

That type of thing is just painful.

That’s been my experience with comedy RPGs. Instead of the funny just happening, it’s pointed out.

head of vecnaSome of the funniest bits have come from games where people are playing it straight and serious. Eric vs. the Gazebo. The Head of Vecna. That one thing where two Call of Cthulhu characters wound up being eaten by a ghoul because they kept fighting over who was going to use a shotgun on the advancing creature until it was too late. All stories from games that were played straight.

Too many funny moments come from non-humor games, like in our serious Blue Planet game where our down-on-her-luck waitress, who was built out to be incredibly observant (like Shawn Spencer from Psych) never, ever, ever once succeeded on notice or spot or observe something roll. All these points, all this effort to fit a character concept and the dice constantly betrayed her. Each time Amy rolled to notice something, the table cracked up in laughter.

Or the Shadowrun 4th edition game where a rigger using a drone with twin machine guns firing, firing, firing at a ghoul jumping off a building to the street – and every dice I rolled for the ghoul’s dodge comes up a success. We pause the game as we recover from the ninja ghoul breaking the game.

Amidst a carnival in Lacuna, where cockroaches are pouring out of exploding balloons and clowns and someone says something completely that fits right in with the situation but those of us around the table, a step removed from the action, suddenly realize how bizarre that comment is and we laugh, louder and longer than we would in, say, Toon.

No, give me a serious drama and the sparks of humor shine a bit brighter. Give me a Game of Thrones episode and a contemptuous smile by Tyrion at just the right moment. That’s what I like.