Once again there is lack of rpg talk on this forum, but instead of being sad, or shocked, or appalled by it, I decided to do something about it.
There was thread like this on old forums too:
By the lack of roleplaying discussion. We should fix this:
I’m trying to start a Spirit of the Century game with my summer RP group. A couple of people are whining that it isn’t fantasy (they’re all DnD fans), and instead I only have 3 players. A little concerned, but hopefully having a faked-his-own-death Teddy Roosevelt NPC will show everyone how awesome the system can be.
Any other games about to happen? Going on? Fun news (How about that Burning Wheel announcement).
The tabletop RPG flame has been burning a bit brighter as of late. PAX South is usually when we do most of our TT RPG action now that Burning Con is in limbo.
The thing is I feel like I am kind of stuck in the past. I’m still excited to play the same games that we were playing 5+ years ago. Because in all those years, we haven’t actually played that many of them. I have a whole shelf full of amazing games that were kickstarted and such, but barely any have been touched, or even read.
I actually played some Inspectres/Action Castle/The Sword with some Netrunner people late last year to see if they could become a regular group. I don’t think it will be regular, but 'twas a good time.
I am most excited for Ghost Court which I kickstarted. I feel like this is a game that I can actually get people to play spur of the moment, and won’t require the usual huge RPG investment. The concept also is really approachable, so people will be actively excited about playing.
I definitely cut back on backing Kickstarters, but I still have plenty of them to read. The new Paranoia kickstarter should deliver this month, about two years overdue, which will jump to the top of the queue.
Currently playing a Burning Wheel (+ Codex) game with some off-and-on Dungeon Crawl Classics on the side.
[quote=“Apreche, post:5, topic:262, full:true”]
I would love to play some Paranoia.
[/quote]That is definitely the kind of thing a Communist would say…
I’ve said it before and I say it again, I’m endlessly lucky for having a cool rpg club near me. I get to constantly play and run different games with different people. Also games there are mostly short campaigns, which I feel is almost optimal way to play rpgs. Sure long campaigns have their own magic and can be super cool, but they are huge long term time commitment and thus rarely work optimally and I’m just not too into one shots.
Speaking of spesific games, I ran a campaign of The Sprawl before the holidays and it was good. My first tabletop rpg I ever played was Shadowrun and what I really loved about that game was not it’s rules (obviously) nor the fantasy aspects, but the parts of cyberpunk and the basic idea of group of runners doing jobs for and against big dangerous Megacorporations. The Sprawl is exactly that. Every session of play is a mission where player characters poke the most dangerous entities of the world, for the noble goal of getting some money.
The campaign wasn’t perfect, no first time running a game can be, but it was good enough. I had fun with the game, players seemed satisfied and I just have to pitch the game again for another campaign this following Monday when we start new games.
I played a couple regular games in 2014-2015; D&D 5e and Blades in the Dark. Our Freemarket game is technically also “regular” because it happened twice ;]
The Burning Wheel is my BFF, but Blades in the Dark is an incredible accomplishment. In its playtest form, it was super-easy to run with almost no prep, without making sessions overly procedural or templated.
I feel that increasing amout of game, especially on the indie side, are made by busy adult people for busy adult people.
Which means working well with short campaigns and one shots, easy fast prep and fast character creation.
[quote=“okeefe, post:11, topic:262”]
Our PAX South FreeMarket game will be back—assuming the players are in—but I’m going to plug it after MAGFest.
[/quote]I have forgotten everything.
Write some new memories, blame some Bleeder for your troubles, and now you’re back in the game.
We should fast-forward some in-game time and each write a new memory anyway so that we all have something to start with that we both remember and care about.
I tried out a one shot at PAX Aus called GxB (GirlxBoy). The premise is thus: The GM is a new girl starting at a Japanese high school looking for love. The players are all other students at the school angling to win her heart. You’re playing out a Harem anime.
There’s not much to character creation beyond naming them and making a short bio (e.g. Sang Matsumoto: rich playboy, captain of the kendo club, has a chip on his shoulder about his half Korean heritage). You then each take turns asking the GM out, in character. You have to propose three date activities.
Each player then takes turn taking the GM on their proposed date. The thing is, the other players are in charge of describing what actually happens on your date and are trying to make you fail. For example: Sang: I take her to a greenhouse full of flowers and start a monologue about how she is a thing of beauty. Other players: The greenhouse is full of bees. Your date is getting stung by bees.
They GM has a deck of playing cards. If you do something she’s into, she gives you a card, facedown. If you upset her, she may take one of your cards back.
At the end of the game, the player reveals their cards and a scored by who got the most hearts. The player with the second most hearts has a chance to reveal a shocking secret about the person with the most hearts so that she chooses him instead. As an optional extra, the person with the most clubs dies tragically.
If you’ve got a group of people who are up on their anime tropes and know how to play them up, this game is hilarious.
I saw Austin Walker put The Sprawl as one of his top games (it was supposed to be video games but whatever) and I’ve been looking for a cyberpunk RPG. So I might give it a go.
Was it during “season 2”? I know they switched games a couple times during that but sticking to the same characters and theme I believe. I didn’t much care to listen to the people who he plays with so I ended up stopping my sub, but they were playing some cool stuff.
Yes, season 2. Their main game changed once, from Technoir (which also seemed like a cool game to try at some point) to The Sprawl. Then it also has big picture faction game, with different players that I think uses kind of a mix of things. Also there is some one shots with different games. I think that the way Austin manages to use different games is really cool and sadly again one of those things you can’t do in one shots or even in short campaigns.