TTRPG Discussion Thread

[Billbailey96]

I am a big fan of tabletop RPGs from DnD 1ed to today's latest batch of indies. I have 121 different systems (not counting supplements) in my collection by last count. So I just wanted to make a thread to discuss our favorite RPGS.

[Billbailey96]

My collection so far (without supplements):

7th Sea	PDF
Actung! Cthullu	Print
Adventures in the Household (5e)	Print
Aether Nexus	Print
Alien RPG	Print
Apocalypse World	PDF
Band of Blades	Print
Beat the Boss	PDF
Black Powder and Brimstone	Print
Bladerunner RPG	Print
Blades in the Dark	Print
Bloodpunk (5e)	PDF
Bluebeard's Bride	PDF
Brancolia (5e)	Print
Break!	Print
Brindlewood Bay	PDF
Brinkwood: The Blood of Tyrants	PDF
Call of Cuthullu 7th Edition	Print
City of Mist	PDF
Colostle: Solo RPG	Print
Comrades: A Revolutionary RPG	PDF
Coriolis: The Great Dark	Print
Cryptomancer	PDF
Cyberpunk Red	Print
Cypher System	Print
Dark Harvest: The Legacy of Frankinstein	PDF
Dark Heresy 1st Edition	PDF
Dark Heresy 2nd Edition	PDF
Deadlands: Noir	PDF
Deadlands: The Weird West	Print
Deathmatch Island	Print
Delta Green 2nd Edition	Print
Delta Green: The Conspiracy	PDF
DIE RPG	Print
Dungeon Crawl Classic	Print
Dungeon World	Print
Dungeons and Dragons 5.5e	Print
Dungeons and Dragons 5e	Print
Ex Novo	PDF
Fabula Ultima	Print
Fallout	PDF
Fate	Print
Flying Circus	PDF
Forbidden Lands	Print
Fragged Aeternum	PDF
Fragged Empire	PDF
Fragged Seas	PDF
Free From the Yoke	PDF
GURPS 4e	Print
Heart: The City Beneath	Print
Historica Arcanum (5e)	Print
Household	Print
Imperium Maladictum	Print
Inevitable: An Authurian Western RPG	Print
Into the Odd-Remastered	PDF
Iron Kingdoms Full Metal Fantasy	PDF
Iron Kingdoms Requiem (5e)	Print
Ironsworn	PDF
Ironsworn: Starforged	Print
Ironsworn: Sundered Isles	Print
Lancer	Print
Legacy: Generation Ship	PDF
Legacy: Godsend	PDF
Legacy: Life Amoung the Ruins	Print
Legacy: Primal Pathways	PDF
Legacy: Rhaposdy of Blood	PDF
Legacy: Worldfall	PDF
Lex Arcana	PDF
Masks: A New Generation	Print
Memento Mori	PDF
Microscope	PDF
Mutant City Blues 2nd Edition	PDF
Mutant Year Zero	PDF
Necessary Evil: Invasion (Revised)	PDF
Never Going Home	Print
New Edo	PDF
Nibaru	PDF
Numenra	Print
Only War	PDF
Our Brillant Ruin	Print
Pathfinder 2nd Edition	Print
Penumbra City	Print
Pugmire (5e)	PDF
Rapscalion	PDF
Red Markets	PDF
Revolt!	Print
Rifts	Print
Rouge Trader 1st Edition	Print
Ruins of Symbaroum (5e)	PDF
Savage Worlds	Print
Scum and Villany	Print
Shadow of the Demon Lord	PDF
Shadowrun 1e Reprint	Print
Shiver	PDF
Shiver: Gothic	PDF
Sigmata: This Signal Kills Fascists	PDF
Soulbound	Print
Spire: The City Must Fall	Print
Stoneburner	Print
Streets of Peril	Print
Swyvers	Print
Symbaroum	Print
Tales from the Loop	Print
Tales of the Valiant RPG	Print
The Electric State RPG	Print
The Last Caravan	Print
They Came From The Sea!	PDF
Things From the Flood	Print
Through the Breach RPG	PDF
Tiny RPGs (Several)	PDFs
Torg Eternity	PDF
Triangle Agency	Print
Unbound	Print
Uprising: The Dystopian Universe RPG	PDF
Vaesen	Print
Victoriana	PDF
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition	Print
Wicked Ones	PDF
Wild Sea	Print
Winterhorn	PDF
Zweihander	PDF

Edited Wednesday at 04:12 PM by Billbailey96

[Billbailey96]

So to make this about more than showcasing my TTRPG addiction I wanted to talk about some of the games I have played and what I liked about them (I invite others to do the same of course.) So right now a game I am really enjoying is Blades in the Dark. The game takes heavy inspiration from things like Peaky Blinders, the old Thief Games from the 90's, and the more modern Dishonored series. The idea is that your a band of scoundrels running a gang in a supernaturally haunted electro/steam-punk city. A fun mechanic that the game introduces is the fact that the gang itself has a character sheet giving you abilities based on what time of gang you want to run (are you a cult, smugglers, or a band of sneak thieves?). This not only gives the GM a good indication of what kind of game you want to run, but also grounds the game in an organic story of your gang's rise to power. On the player facing side the mechanics are simple; you take a skill and roll a dice for each point you have in that skill, 4's and 5's are partial successes and 6's are full successes with 3's and lower being failures. The GM side is a little more complicated as there is a series of levers you have to manipulate to determine the roll's effect of the fiction as you determine things like effect and potency. Beyond the mechanics, the real star of the show is the setting of Duskvol, a city stuck in a world were the sun barely rises above the horizon every day. In this world death doesn't work like it should, meaning if a body isn't cremated shortly after death, the spirit of the deceased will haunt the place they died (not a good thing for the assassins hired to kill the guy in the first place). So the underworld is both a criminal and literal presence in day to day life throughout Duskvol.  If you like crime storys and gothic settings, Blades in the Dark is a must have. 

[BRB_bio]

That's an impressive list!  The only games I recognize are Call of Cthulhu, GURPS, and Mutant City Blues.

 

I played Cthulhu back in the 90s, but all I remember is being slightly drunk and being the first of the party to go insane.  I also ran a GURPS campaign for 2-3 years in college, based on the "Manmarch" choose-your-own-adventure-books.

 

I bought GURPS 4e out of nostalgia recently and was almost immediately disappointed.  Their "fix" to the attribute system felt like they took a sledgehammer to a problem that required a scalpel.  On the plus side, they at least tried to make "flexible" armor a bit more realistic.

 

Some favorite TTRPGs of mine:

James Bond 007 (Victory Games) - the first game to introduce me to a purely point-buy character generation system

Star Trek Roleplaying Game (FASA)

Paranoia (West End Games)

The Burning Wheel (Luke Crane) - almost unplayable as written, but with a muck ton of interesting ideas.

[Billbailey96]

If there is anybody who is interested in the history of RPGs I have three books to recommend.
The first is "Playing at the World" by Jon Peterson. The 1st edition is massive but definitely a treasure trove on the origins of RPGs from wargames to DnD and onward. 

The second is "Designers and Dragons" by Shannon Appelcline. This one is a multi-volume work that looks at RPGs from the perspective of the various designers and publishers decade by decade. Its very good at tracking the trends of the medium as new mechanics and ideas popped up and spread through the industry. 

The final is "Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground" by Stu Horvath. This one is also a decade by decade book but more focused on the games themselves. Definetly a good book to have if your a collector and interested in an encyclopedia of sorts for your collection. 

[Billbailey96]

4 hours ago, BRB_bio said:

That's an impressive list!  The only games I recognize are Call of Cthulhu, GURPS, and Mutant City Blues.

 

I played Cthulhu back in the 90s, but all I remember is being slightly drunk and being the first of the party to go insane.  I also ran a GURPS campaign for 2-3 years in college, based on the "Manmarch" choose-your-own-adventure-books.

 

I bought GURPS 4e out of nostalgia recently and was almost immediately disappointed.  Their "fix" to the attribute system felt like they took a sledgehammer to a problem that required a scalpel.  On the plus side, they at least tried to make "flexible" armor a bit more realistic.

 

Some favorite TTRPGs of mine:

James Bond 007 (Victory Games) - the first game to introduce me to a purely point-buy character generation system

Star Trek Roleplaying Game (FASA)

Paranoia (West End Games)

The Burning Wheel (Luke Crane) - almost unplayable as written, but with a muck ton of interesting ideas.

Call of Cthulhu is interesting, like any horror game I think it needs the right GM and the right players to really work since Horror requires a certain atmosphere to really work. As for GURPS I actually have 3ed, I picked it up years ago at a used book store and it was the book that spawned my hoard. Its interesting but GURPS tries to be to many things to too many people. The best games I've collected over the years benefit from a tighter thematic focus instead of a kitchen sink "Generic RPG" approach. I also have a copy of Paranoia (the second most recent edition) hiding in a box in my storage unit. 

[Darmian]

One thing that was great for GURPS 3rd was the Character Creator Program they brought out for it.  The 4th ed version was total crap in comparison.  And I have a lot of GURPS books that I bought just to read!  Because when they did a deep dive back then they really dove deep.

[Billbailey96]

Here is a thread I started a few weeks ago talking about Super Hero RPGS if anyone is interested

[TTRPGWhiz]

I, uh, also enjoy ttrpgs.

This is one of my favorite alternate settings of all time, to a game that very few people played, was mechanically flawed, and still holds a place in my heart.

 

Edited Thursday at 08:35 PM by TTRPGWhiz