What Past/Present PnP games have you enjoyed?

[Oubliette_Red]

My first foray into PnP games was Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set (Blue Box) and not long after that my friends and I ventured out with Traveller, the only game I know of where your character can die during creation. After that we returned to Earth to play our own super heroes with Marvel and Champions.

 

I think I still have character sheets from all of those, except for DnD, though I still have some from later Editions of that.

 

Edited February 19, 2020 by Oubliette_Red

[Coyotedancer]

My very first tabletop RPG was a game of old-school, "black box" Traveller run by a friend's older sister. I was 12 years old. (I'll be 50 in about a week, to give you an idea of just how long ago that was. XD) I've been tossing funky dice ever since. 

 

Currently I'm playing in a troupe-style 13th Age game, and running a house-ruled-to-Yu-Shan-and-back version of first edition Exalted. 

[VileTerror]

I had heard of tabletop gaming and roleplay prior to getting involved with it, but attempted to invent my own while still in high school.  I was very lonely in high school.  I don't think I got very far.  I wonder if I could track down those documents, and if I'd even be able to make sense of them if I -did- still have them.

 

Anyway!  After that, I "got in" with some roleplayers after accidentally bashing my forehead in to one of their faces.  Long story.  Very embarrassing for me.  Not going in to detail on that one.

 

First tabletop roleplaying game I tried was D&D, and almost immediately thought I hated tabletop roleplaying.  Mercifully, I had already become hooked on gaming by this point, so when someone introduced me to Dark Heresy, I discovered the problem wasn't tabletop roleplaying.  The problems were a combination of D&D and my first GM.

 

Ever since?  I have been running weekly tabletop games.  Sometimes multiple sessions in a week.  Although sometimes I have also taken a break from being the GM and became the player.  Still, over all, I think I'm still sitting very close to "once a week" as my average for GMing.

Currently, due to extreme stress at work, I've stepped down from GMing of my on-going Shadowrun campaign.  One of my players has stepped up and is hosting Vampire: The Masquerade.  It's my first time in nearly two decades of tabletop gaming doing anything with a Whitewolf system.

 

Oh!  And a few years back, I tried my hand at a City of Heroes tabletop game from scratch.  However, I did not remain objective in that venture, and ended up trying too hard to fully capture the game, rather than extrapolating like should have from the get-go.  If Homecoming disappears from us, I'll probably return to working on that project.  Basically scrap it and start over.

[Wild Claw]

Let's see. I started with the Blue Box edition of D&D, and bought into every edition since. Went from there to Star Frontiers, Cyberpunk (original edition), Justifiers, Villains and Vigilantes, Shadowrun, GURPS, dabbled in Paladium (specifically TMNT),  Champions, Mutants and Masterminds... I've got a bunch of weird one-offs stuffed on the bookshelf as well, but never got actual games running from them. 

[Haijinx]

3 hours ago, Coyotedancer said:

My very first tabletop RPG was a game of old-school, "black box" Traveller run by a friend's older sister. I was 12 years old. (I'll be 50 in about a week, to give you an idea of just how long ago that was. XD) I've been tossing funky dice ever since. 

 

Currently I'm playing in a troupe-style 13th Age game, and running a house-ruled-to-Yu-Shan-and-back version of first edition Exalted. 

Played that one also.   The original Traveller.   One of the most underrated games ever.  

 

You can still get the Computer RPG on Abandonedware sites.  Its a lot of fun.  

[Dreamboat]

The only P&P game I ever played was a really bad attempt at D&D...4th Edition, I think. It was some kind of "starter" adventure between me and two other people, and none of us had ever played a tabletop game before, and I was trying to DM despite this, and all in all it was not very good.
I've still wanted to have another go, but I've never managed to get all the people together, schedules don't match up, etc. etc. Timing's just never right. However, I still love hearing about people's games!
At some point before I die I want to try Legend of the 5 Rings. I've heard it's a bit daunting for novice players, but clearly that has never stopped me!

[Oubliette_Red]

2 hours ago, Dreamboat said:

The only P&P game I ever played was a really bad attempt at D&D...4th Edition, I think. It was some kind of "starter" adventure between me and two other people, and none of us had ever played a tabletop game before, and I was trying to DM despite this, and all in all it was not very good.
I've still wanted to have another go, but I've never managed to get all the people together, schedules don't match up, etc. etc. Timing's just never right. However, I still love hearing about people's games!
At some point before I die I want to try Legend of the 5 Rings. I've heard it's a bit daunting for novice players, but clearly that has never stopped me!

Sorry to hear that your experience was not what you expected. I actually liked playing 4th ED, the powers and skills operated differently and it seemed like it was a lot easier for novices to pick up the game granted we also had a great GM who was already familiar with it.

 

If it's possible for you I highly recommend hitting up a local game shop, they usually have open adventures running one Edition or another, or countless other PnP games.

[Apparition]

I played the Buck Rogers XXVc: Countdown to Doomsday computer game on my old 286 PC back in 1990.  Inside the box was an advertisement for the Buck Rogers XXVc tabletop role-playing game by TSR that the computer game was based on.  I really enjoyed the computer game.  About a month later, a new comic book and tabletop gaming store opened up nearby, and a friend of mine and I went to check it out.  I looked for, and found, the Buck Rogers XXVc boxed set (the very last boxed set TSR produced if I understand correctly), and my friend picked up the Robotech RPG by Palladium Books.  I GMed Buck Rogers XXVc, my friend GMed Robotech.  That's how it started.  Eventually, our group expanded, and we alternated between Buck Rogers XXVc, Robotech, Villains & Vigilantes, DC Heroes, Heroes Unlimited, Star Wars d6, and Shadowrun.  Out of those, my favorites are Buck Rogers XXVc and DC Heroes.

 

Now, I play two tabletop RPGs a week online.  Every Tuesday night, I play StarCluster 4, which is an independently published science-fiction tabletop RPG with several different settings available.  Every Saturday night, I play Starfinder.  They're very different from each other rules wise, but I enjoy playing both.

[Apparition]

2 hours ago, Dreamboat said:

The only P&P game I ever played was a really bad attempt at D&D...4th Edition, I think. It was some kind of "starter" adventure between me and two other people, and none of us had ever played a tabletop game before, and I was trying to DM despite this, and all in all it was not very good.
I've still wanted to have another go, but I've never managed to get all the people together, schedules don't match up, etc. etc. Timing's just never right. However, I still love hearing about people's games!
At some point before I die I want to try Legend of the 5 Rings. I've heard it's a bit daunting for novice players, but clearly that has never stopped me!

 

If you have any interest at all in playing the Legend of the Five Rings tabletop RPG, I strongly suggest that you pick up the books now.  The publisher, Fantasy Flight Games, just announced that they're pulling out of the tabletop RPG business.

[Sura]

16 hours ago, Coyotedancer said:

Currently I'm playing in a troupe-style 13th Age game, and running a house-ruled-to-Yu-Shan-and-back version of first edition Exalted. 

13th Age is spectacularly good IMO.  5E is fine, but 13th Age would be my D20 choice every time.

 

14 hours ago, VileTerror said:

Oh!  And a few years back, I tried my hand at a City of Heroes tabletop game from scratch.  However, I did not remain objective in that venture, and ended up trying too hard to fully capture the game, rather than extrapolating like should have from the get-go.  If Homecoming disappears from us, I'll probably return to working on that project.  Basically scrap it and start over.

Somewhere I have a City of Heroes conversion(?) done for Savage Worlds IIRC.  I don't remember it being terribly complicated, so it may have been someone's work in progress.  I think someone mentioned it on a forum and I messaged and asked them for it.

[VileTerror]

I generally don't like conversions.  I'm one of those people who like the system to be tailored to the setting.  The numerical highs and lows should be representative of the highs and lows of the narrative.

For example, I wouldn't use a conversion of the Dark Heresy ruleset to run a Pink Mohawk Cyberpunk game, even if the Critical Wound tables are, frankly, a fun thing to add to -any- system with copious amounts of violence.

 

I also want to share https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMJreH2P5Pc with all of you.

 

[SeraphimKensai]

D&D 3th was insanely fun using some Homebrew kits. 4th was also fun to get newer people into the game.

 

However I think I've had more fun with some playing Vampire The Masquerade or even Mage: The Ascension.

[Coyotedancer]

Mage is good fun. I'm a long-time Ars Magica fan (A lot of the arcane jargon I use with my Oranbegan characters is based on the terminology of the Hermetic magi in Ars-), so I took to M:tA pretty readily, it being something of an evolution of that older game.

 

Wraith was always my favorite of the old WOD games, though. I GMed Wraith for a year or so, switching off with other members of our group, who ran Vampire and Changeling on their turns. 

 

Fading Suns, Space: 1889 and Castle Falkenstein were also popular with that group. We had some good times with all of those. TORG and Deadlands saw some play, as well.... and I actually met Mr. Coyote playing Shadowrun back-in-the-day. XD

 

Edited February 22, 2020 by Coyotedancer

[Redlynne]

Okay, I've told this story to people who know me (and who know just how thoroughly I can "break" game systems), but I haven't shared it on these forums yet.

 

 

 

Some 20 or so years ago I came up with the most absolutely game breaking power that ANYONE had ever seen in a Champions character build ... and even now, I can describe it to people who know the Champions system and just watch their jaws do this ...

 

 

... and then I tell them that in the context of the overall character build I put the power into ... IT ONLY COST 1 CHARACTER POINT TO GET THE POWER.

 

And it's at this point that I figure I've got the attention of every Player who has ever played Champions.

 

 

 

Because the power that I created ... was called ... PRATFALL ...

 

 

 

I'm pulling this from memory, so if the numbers don't add up exactly right, it's only because it's been a while since I had this written up on a character sheet.

 

 

 

So the Pratfall power was made for comedic effect(!) and it basically became the ULTIMATE POWER that the GM wound up being helpless against simply because it was just too flipping useful in too wide a range of circumstances.  Even the other Players in the campaign started getting in on the act and ganging up on the GM with offering ways for my character to use Pratfall to foil the GM.  Pratfall became the commonly agreed upon most powerful power anyone had ever seen or could possibly use ... even though it only cost 1 character point.

 

Pratfall was basically this as far as the game mechanics were concerned:

• 1" Running movement
  • Usable Against Others(!)
  • Ranged(!)
  • Variable Advantage(!)
    • = 15 Active Points

The way the power worked was that my character could make anything "not nailed down" (and not flying/swimming/etc.) move involuntarily for a SHORT distance (up to 1" of movement as specified by the power) ... however I argued that I didn't need a target to "move that far" to trip over their own feet and simply "fall down" where they were.  It was designed as a comedy power.  MY power makes my enemy (or enemies) simply fall down where they stand ... because it MAKES THEM PRATFALL on "command" by my character.

 

The REAL kicker though was the Variable Advantage.

The reason why is because the base cost of Running was SO CHEAP (at only 1" of movement) that you can then afford to have a HUGE Variable Advantage ... which then lets you get up to ALL KINDS OF TOMFOOLERY with the power.

 

I could make it an AoE.

I could make it an AoE with a hole in the middle(!).

I could make it an AoE with a Personal Immunity(!).

I could make the power Sticky so as to make additional targets Pratfall if they stumbled into each other.

I could give the power Variable Effects so as to increase the comedy value ... such as having a bowling alley bowling ball sound and pin strike sound when they fell down.

I could give the power multiple stacks of Ranged in order to be able to "reach" far enough to a distant target.

I could (and quite often did!) give the power Fully Invisible Power Effects(!) so that no one would KNOW that it was MY power that was making them Pratfall(!).

I could make the power Autofire(!) with the potential for Way Too Many Hits and make affected targets cartoon flop around on the ground (because I was controlling their movements).

I could add a Time Delay to the power.

I could add a Trigger to the power(!).

 

In other words ... it was the most intensive TROLL power that anyone had ever seen put on a character.

Let's just say that the permutations of what kind of absurdity I could get up to with a Variable Advantage that large was for all intents and purposes very nearly impossible to guard against, since I could "tailor" the Pratfalls around my character to the situation VERY effectively (and unfairly skillfully).

 

And because I had a Movement Pool (for Running, Flying, Gliding, etc.) ... and Pratfall was a Movement Power ... I was able to add Pratfall, as a 15 Active Points power to the Movement Pool as a Fixed Slot in the pool for a cost of only 1 additional character point.

 

Which is why I say that the Pratfall power only cost me 1 character point.

 

 

 

The GM for the campaign I was playing this character build in looked at what I'd done ... smirked at the comedy power ... asked for an explanation (which I gave, with examples) and then figured that letting me have a 1 character point "comedy" power was rather clever, but didn't really grasp the potential of what he was allowing, and okayed the overall character build ... including Pratfall.  After all, Pratfall wasn't a power that would do damage ... at most all it could do is make an enemy "fall down" involuntarily (woop de fricken' doo) ... so it wouldn't be that useful.

 

Once I demonstrated how useful the power was in game, I calculated that I could use it to knock over every fan in attendance in the stands of a 50,000+ football stadium.  😎

 

 

 

The first time the GM started to get an idea that Pratfall was ... too powerful for the campaign(!) ... was during the first game session.

 

 

 

The GM had a Big Bad™ for us to fight prepared ... named ... THE WHITE BISHOP.

 

We had been street fighting for a bit (our brick had picked up a manhole cover and used it as a discus) and THE WHITE BISHOP enters the fray.  White robes, funny hat, WAY HOLIER THAN YOU PAL ... the works.

 

The combat round progresses to my turn to do something and I ask the GM to tell us where THE WHITE BISHOP was located on the street we were fighting on, since he'd made an extremely grand and cinematic entrance (that the GM was incredibly proud of, and for good reason since it basically put all of us Players ON NOTICE).  Other Players started offering possible locations where THE WHITE BISHOP ought to be placed on the battlefield, but none of their proposals made enough sense (all things considered) ... so the GM asked me where he ought to be.  I mentioned the manhole cover that had already been thrown by the brick and suggested that THE WHITE BISHOP ought to be in the center of the street beside the now open manhole (that went down to the sewers, and the manhole cover was long since thrown and gone).  Since this put THE WHITE BISHOP in the "center" of all of the action where he could threaten everyone equally, the GM readily agreed.  It "fit" with the entrance scene the GM had already described and made THE WHITE BISHOP the center of attention.

 

So with that bit of battlefield positioning decided, I informed the GM what my action was going to be ... I used Pratfall on THE WHITE BISHOP to make him fall into the open manhole beside him (and thus down into the sewers below street level).

 

 

 

To put it politely ... gameplay had to stop for more than 5 minutes as everyone tried to survive the laughter that resulted from the declaration of my action.  🤣🤣🤣🤣

 

The GM ruled (when he regained his composure, and that took ... a while ...) that THE WHITE BISHOP was caught completely by surprise by my Pratfall power and he fell through the open manhole beside him into the sewers.  There was of course a screaming fall sound ... followed by a tremendous SPLASH sound ... followed by the most mournful wailing of horrified despairing "YEUGHGH!!!!!!!" ... and ... THE WHITE BISHOP was "defeated" ... mainly because he was no longer ... um ... WHITE and PURE ... so he fled the scene down in the sewer rather than allowing himself to be seen in his now disgraced state up at street level!

 

MORE rolling on the floor ensued as everyone laughed themselves silly ... and it took a while before anyone could stop giggling long enough to put more than a few words together without succumbing to the sheer sense of absurdity of what had just happened.

 

My character had "defeated the Boss" of the episode ... by damaging his dignity, rather than his HP, beyond recovery.

So of course I "won" the MVP award for that first game session of the campaign.

 

 

 

In later game sessions, my Pratfall power started taking over the campaign as THE most "powerful" and "useful" power to have in almost any situation or circumstance.

 

 

 

At one point in the campaign we broke into a Ninja Stronghold™ ... THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR ...

 

All of the PCs were in a van and we just drove in through the front door into a big atrium courtyard with lovely hedges and trees around the perimeter (because, of course).

 

As soon as the van screeched to a halt in the middle of the courtyard, one of the other Players asked ... "Are there any ninjas?"

The GM dutifully rolled some dice, theatrically noted the result and then said ... "You don't SEE any ninjas..."

 

The other Players start worrying about being ambushed and not knowing how many ninjas we're now up against inside their own stronghold ... you know, the usual.  I let them fret and worry for about a minute and then I tell them ... "Guys, I've got this." ... and slowly turned to look at the GM, and I swear the GM started to look worried when I did that ...

 

I used Pratfall on the entire area of the courtyard via AoE radius, with a hole in the middle so it wouldn't affect us in the center of it all.

 

Ninjas fell out of EVERY hedge ... EVERY tree ... off the roofs around the courtyard ... out of the windows of the buildings around the courtyard ... I'd gotten ALL OF THEM within the AoE of Pratfall, and falling down ruined their camouflage/stealth while also costing them the initiative.

 

And with obvious targets in a target rich environment, the other PCs simply SURGED into the fight and it was about as lopsided of a steamroll after that as any City of Heroes Player could wish for.

 

 

 

When the campaign wrapped up, EVERYONE who had played in it (including the GM) agreed that the Most Valuable Power throughout the entirety of the campaign, from the first game session through the last, was simply no contest ... since the power of Pratfall was simply too overwhelming for any other power to compete with.  Pratfall was a "spoiler" of a power that would spoil almost any setup or ambush or any opponent too fashion conscious (or proud) to "survive" the humiliation of a Pratfall.  The Pratfall power itself did no HP damage ... but it totally "reshaped" the battlefield to our advantage in more ways than anyone had ever anticipated might be possible.  The GM practically had to go out of his way to find ways to constrain how I could use it, and even then his success was limited simply because there were simply too many ways to use the power to set up all kinds of (comedy laced) failure modes for NPCs.

 

 

 

And that is how I made THE MOST POWERFUL power anyone had ever seen in a Champions campaign ... and it only cost me 1 character point to add it to my character sheet.  It did no damage ... but it totally changed the game.  😎

Edited February 22, 2020 by Redlynne

[Sura]

On 2/21/2020 at 7:50 PM, Coyotedancer said:

Mage is good fun. I'm a long-time Ars Magica fan (A lot of the arcane jargon I use with my Oranbegan characters is based on the terminology of the Hermetic magi in Ars-), so I took to M:tA pretty readily, it being something of an evolution of that older game.

 

Wraith was always my favorite of the old WOD games, though. I GMed Wraith for a year or so, switching off with other members of our group, who ran Vampire and Changeling on their turns. 

 

Fading Suns, Space: 1889 and Castle Falkenstein were also popular with that group. We had some good times with all of those. TORG and Deadlands saw some play, as well.... and I actually met Mr. Coyote playing Shadowrun back-in-the-day. XD

 

There's a Bundle of Holding for Castle Falkenstein right now.  I've been really tempted, it's a great system and setting.

 

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Falkenstein2020

 

There's going to be a new version of Deadlands coming out as a Kickstarter sometime in March I think, to go with the new version of Savage Worlds.

 

🙂

[Coyotedancer]

I saw that! XD

I already have the dead tree versions, but picked the PDFs up anyway just to add them to the collection I keep on my Surface. 

 

'New version of Fading Suns is in the works as well... Although some of their design choices are making me o_0 a bit. 

 

 

Edited February 25, 2020 by Coyotedancer

[GM Laufeyjarson]

I played quite a bit of AD&D, but never really enjoyed it much.  Turns out I was playing with a lame group; the game was fine, but having people always multiclass the weirdest things and never know what spell or action they wanted to take, and having games cancelled because someone's kid was having their third birthday or Christmas was only NEXT MONTH got really old.

 

Eventually I found other people to play with who were more into superheroes, and they introduced me to Champions, which was great and I still enjoy.

 

We had a regular gaming group playing Pathfinder until the pandemic made visits a problem.  We did play virtually and that was okayish, but we're short a GM lately so have just been chatting and watching movies instead.

[ZorkNemesis]

I used to play D&D 3.5 when it was the current edition.  Me and a couple of my friends met weekly, we'd rotate the DM role and run each other's stories with no real campaign or cohesion.  Just a bunch of one shots our party got roped into.  It was good fun for a while but we ended up having a falling out after we added a couple more friends to the group.  There were disagreements about race choices (I wanted to keep things simple and not include some of the more complex races) and accusations of favoritism between a couple of our players when they DM'd.  We also all kind of grew up and went our seperate ways after high school.  It was fun while it lasted though.

 

Never played any other tabletop games of the same sort, unless you count sampling the Ghostbusters board game from a few years ago.  I do love me some regular board and card games though.  Games like Terraforming Mars, Munchkin, Photosynthesis, Pandemic, etc.  But I don't know how many of them really count in this regard.

[TheOtherTed]

The first PnP game I ever bought was FASA's "Star Trek: The Roleplaying Game," back in nineteen mumbledy five.  Ended up buying nearly all the "background" supplements and a few campaign supplements.  Never ran a game, never played a game.  Still have some of the books - though not exactly mint condition.

 

I fell into a PnP group in my first year of college that tried pretty much everything.  Except Star Trek, that is.  ICE's Rolemaster was a general favorite, but we also played Paranoia, Traveller, James Bond 007, MERPS (a simplified version of Rolemaster specifically for Middle-Earth), Advanced D&D, Champions, and a few others I can't remember.  I ran a MERPS campaign for a semester, and while it was fun, it's clear to me now that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing...

 

Eventually I bought GURPS, and that ended up being my system of choice for years.  Our "regular" campaign was in a standard high fantasy setting based loosely on one of those "choose your own adventure" book series.  After a while, we branched out in random directions, including cyberpunk, Lovecraft, the World of Darkness adaptations, an unintentional mock-up of Space 1889, Bunnies and Burrows (ugh) - and Star Trek.  Then we all grew up and scattered across the country.

 

Although I'm not likely to play again (and, frankly, I have no desire to), I'm still fascinated by the genre.  I impulse-buy a system or two each year out of curiosity, just to see how things work, and I'll occasionally pick up a "vintage" game for nostalgia's sake.  Always good for bathroom reading, if nothing else.

[Haijinx]

On 10/14/2020 at 9:25 PM, TheOtherTed said:

The first PnP game I ever bought was FASA's "Star Trek: The Roleplaying Game," back in nineteen mumbledy five.  Ended up buying nearly all the "background" supplements and a few campaign supplements.  Never ran a game, never played a game.  Still have some of the books - though not exactly mint condition.

 

I fell into a PnP group in my first year of college that tried pretty much everything.  Except Star Trek, that is.  ICE's Rolemaster was a general favorite, but we also played Paranoia, Traveller, James Bond 007, MERPS (a simplified version of Rolemaster specifically for Middle-Earth), Advanced D&D, Champions, and a few others I can't remember.  I ran a MERPS campaign for a semester, and while it was fun, it's clear to me now that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing...

 

I remember Rolemaster and Merps that was a well produced set of books.  Especially all the campaign supplements for Merps.   I owned quite a few of their offerings but was hard to get people to play.  

 

James Bond was a good game, we actually did play that one for a while.   

 

We played the heck out of Star Trek though, so a bit of the opposite.  Used to set the basement up like the bridge of the Enterprise.   

[FrauleinMental]

I started in 1984 with the red box D&D Basic Set, which I'd seen advertised in Omni magazine.  I then found a group playing AD&D.  I've played each subsequent edition, and I was playing in a 5e game before our group went on hiatus in March.  I GMed Marvel Super Heroes (the FASERIP system by TSR) in high school and, for all it's problems, it's still one of the best adaptations for balancing multiple power levels.  I played Shadowrun when it first came out in 1989, back when being a mage hurt.  I ran a 2e game in college, and I joined the Missions team during 4e and 5e.

 

I've GMed a long-running GURPS game in grad school, which spanned the 3e/4e transition.  I still have extra copies of the 4e slipcase on my shelf.  More recently, I've played a fair amount of GUMSHOE, with the Dracula Dossier (Night's Black Agents) campaign and most of the Eternal Lies (Trail of Cthulhu) campaign.

 

More recently, I've GMed a couple of short-run games with Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space, including a Torchwood-based campaign.  I'm also a big fan of Star Trek Adventures, though I haven't gotten to play it as much as I'd like.  (And I've spent way too much money on the Eaglemoss starships.)

[TheOtherTed]

9 hours ago, Haijinx said:

James Bond was a good game, we actually did play that one for a while.

I think we only played one or two sessions, but it impressed me enough that I went out and bought it.  Couldn't find supplements for it though, try as I might (this was well before the internet was a thing), and my buddies were far more invested in RM at the time (soooo many stats!  soooo many tables!  soooo much math!).

 

And, yeah, the MERPS books were great!  I ended up working with a guy who wrote a few of those.  I'll admit I fan-gushed a bit, but the fact that we were working at a convenience store quickly brought me back to Earth...

Edited November 3, 2020 by TheOtherTed

[Crazyleo]

Prior to Covid; I was in a Pathfinder 1E group. We made it through most of the "Wrath of the Righteous" AP before the GM running had to cancel due to conflicting work schedules. I was up next running Iron Gods and made it to the end of book 2 before my Ipad that had all the pdfs on it was stolen.

 

Afterwards we moved on to Starfinder but I find the system a bit lackluster. Thankfully 1 session a month was set aside for another game: Scion. That game I played a Zen Archer type character who is one of the most powerful combatants on the team.

 

[tidge]

It's been decades since I've slung dice with a table-based RPG. My own 'PnP' gaming started with table-top games (think early Avalon Hill, Star Fleet Battles) and I was introduced to D&D during the early mass market "box" era (red/blue, Gamma World, Boot Hill) and dove into AD&D and later Star Frontiers. My engagement with TSR ended at the initial Dragonlance era, pre-second edition D&D. I remember the lesson of Boot Hill as basically "never start a fight"!

 

I never got into TSR's Marvel Superheroes; instead we were a Villains & Vigilantes group that morphed into the revised Champions (mid-late 1980s).

 

We definitely tried out other RPGs: FASA's Star Trek & Doctor Who (both good for fanfic, neither so good for play), GURPS (excellent as an excuse to explore different source material, not a game system I enjoyed playing) come to mind immediately.

 

The Fantasy setting I had the most fun playing in: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (the 1st go 'round). I enjoyed that characters didn't start with a lot of agency (i.e. you aren't a blessed or chosen one) but that you could improve your lot (and stats!) in a very dangerous world that could be both funny and horrific. The WFRP adventuring groups definitely had that feel of being an oddball cast of characters that had to find a reason to work together: working around the diverse character roles tended to stifle over-the-top roleplay that I'd seen weirdly injected into more 'basic' archetypes.  I am less impressed by the golden-haired elf-child who ascends to demigod status than I am by a Rat Catcher who works his way into the ranks of Highwaymen!

 

 

[Fortuneteller]

I used to rp most of the usual suspects like ADnD 2nd Ed, and a lot of White Wolf 2nd Ed sourcebooks.
Couple of the more obscure PnP we played on occasion were;

Deadlands: The Weird West 1st Ed - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadlands
Spaghetti western with a supernatural/steampunk twist, had a unique gameplay system that used poker chips and playing cards.

Legend of the Five Rings 1st Ed - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_the_Five_Rings_Roleplaying_Game
Feudal Japan, only spirits are real and they are super pissed off.  Had a cool Iaijutsu duelling system that would often result in instant player death if you fumbled your rolls.