#RPGaDay2015 - 17th - Favorite Fantasy RPG

It's August 2015, and to follow on with the success of last year's #RPGaDay event, David Chapman at Autocratik has created a new list. Each day in August, I'll be posting my "answer" to that day's topic.

This is a tough one. I've been playing a lot of fantasy lately. My weekly Sunday game has been 13th Age, I'm playing in D&D Encounters on Wednesday nights with my daughter, and I've played and run a ton of Dungeon Crawl Classics games at my FLGS. They're all great games. I guess I'll break it down and come to a decision by the end.

I really love the feel of 13th Age. It has excellent theater of the mind-style combat. It's very satisfying to use the various powers in the game. For the game master, the stat blocks are a dream. The One Unique Thing and Icons-related rules are pretty cool too. That said, in later levels the damage dice can be cumbersome, and while there are suggestions to take an average on some, that sticks in the craw of many gamers. Also, the Icon dice rules can really leave the GM hanging. There's a lot of advice out there for these, but at the end of the day, it's easy to run out of ideas or be repetitious when there's a lot of fives and sixes on the table.

Fifth Edition is the best D&D since Second Edition. I'm enjoying playing. I ran one session and found it easy. I love the organization of the books, and the new art style is really evocative. The PHB comes with a great selection of races and classes. Adjudicating the game is easy with the simplified combat rules. That said, there's still quite a bit of math necessary to create encounters, and the stat blocks haven't really been improved. Thus far, I'm also not a big fan of the way WotC is handling setting in this edition—I don't typically have good luck with published adventures. I also have an unreasonable hatred for the Forgotten Realms.

Dungeon Crawl Classics just speaks to me. The design of the book is mind blowing. The art is blended into the layout beautifully. The book is deliberately written in a Gygaxian style, which I find quite fun. Every spell has its own table you roll on to get your results, and every wizards' spells look and act a bit differently. Remember way back last paragraph when I said I don't have much luck with published adventures? Well DCC has the best published adventures in RPGs today. They're well-organized and very creative, and I love running them! I also love the funky dice, but it bugs me I can't get them in all the cool modern Chessex styles. While the base mechanics are super-simple, the game is quite fiddly when you want to do anything involving magic.

Having gone through all three candidates, I just can't provide a favorite. I love them all for different reasons, and they're all my favorite, depending on my mood. Sorry, dear reader!

#RPGaDay2015 - 15th - Longest Campaign Played

It's August 2015, and to follow on with the success of last year's #RPGaDay event, David Chapman at Autocratik has created a new list. Each day in August, I'll be posting my "answer" to that day's topic.

The longest campaign I ever played in was probably the D&D 3rd Edition game that took place over about two years. I've had other games technically go that long, but with more breaks than the D&D game, which was played pretty reliably in comparison. With my well-documented "Ooh Shiny Syndrome," it would be the one and only 3rd Edition campaign I'd complete.

#RPGaDay2015 - 11th - Favorite RPG Writer

It's August 2015, and to follow on with the success of last year's #RPGaDay event, David Chapman at Autocratik has created a new list. Each day in August, I'll be posting my "answer" to that day's topic.

This is the toughest question of the month. I had to actually have a conversation with my wife about this one. I started out with five names, and at the end of the conversation, I was only able to narrow it down to three: Shane Hensley, Steve Kenson, and Harley Stroh.

Shane created two of my all-time favorite RPG things, Savage Worlds and Deadlands. He also did a great version of Lankhmar and worked on my favorite D&D setting, Dark Sun, back in the days of TSR. If Shane writes it, I'll buy it.

Steve Kenson wrote what was arguably the first true "next generation" D20 System game, in Mutants & Masterminds. It was also the first supers RPG to rival the classic Champions. More recently he wrote my current favorite supers RPG, Icons.

Harley Stroh is a beautiful, sick and twisted, genius. As one of the key writers for the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG, his adventures are consistently the most interesting and entertaining, even to read, let alone run or play. Check out Peril on the Purple Planet, it's pretty great stuff.

#RPGaDay2015 - 8th - Favorite Appearance of RPGs in the Media

It's August 2015, and to follow on with the success of last year's #RPGaDay event, David Chapman at Autocratik has created a new list. Each day in August, I'll be posting my "answer" to that day's topic.

The trouble with RPGs in the media is that media pretty much always feels the need to take a geek-bashing stance on them. That said, I think Community's take on D&D was pretty realistic and still managed to make me laugh quite a bit—I've certainly played in games that came off a lot like the YouTube video below.

Good stuff.

#RPGaDay2015 - 7th - Favorite Free RPG

It's August 2015, and to follow on with the success of last year's #RPGaDay event, David Chapman at Autocratik has created a new list. Each day in August, I'll be posting my "answer" to that day's topic.

Almost caught up...

This is a tough one since really there are so many free RPGs out there. I have to admit I'm a little torn about my answer, as this RPG is technically "Pay What You Want" and I bought it through Kickstarter before the free version hit the interwebs (officially). But if I strip those issues away and go with the RPG that's brought the most fun to my game table, which also happens to be available for free, then I have to go with Fate Core. I've been playing Fate since the release of Spirit of the Century, and I have to say Fate Core is the RPG I anticipated more than any other announced product since D&D 2nd Edition.

Here are my Fate highlights:

• Running Spirit of the Century at a public event in the late '00s
• Running Dresden Files RPG in my home game, soon after its release
• Playing in a weekly Dresden Files RPG/Forbidden Kingdoms hack, run by Jason Corley
• Playing in a weekly Dresden Files RPG, using at-the-time unreleased Fate Core rules, run by Ryan Macklin
• Running my go-to-last-minute Fate Accelerated con game, Quest for the MacGuffin, multiple times
• Running a Fate Accelerated My Little Pony game for my daughter's 10th birthday

#RPGaDay2015 - 6th - Most Recent RPG Played

It's August 2015, and to follow on with the success of last year's #RPGaDay event, David Chapman at Autocratik has created a new list. Each day in August, I'll be posting my "answer" to that day's topic.

I've been running late with these. I'm hoping to use this weekend to play catch-up.

I mentioned recently that I've started playing D&D Encounters. Well, given this came in on a Thursday, and D&D Encounters is a Wednesday event, I'm gonna have to say... wait for it... D&D 5E!

This was an awesome session because my daughter has joined the fray. It was kind of a last minute thing, so she used one of WotC's pre-generated characters. The intention was to get her feet wet with a human fighter then take this week to build some sort of spellcaster. It turns out she had so much fun with the pre-gen, she's keeping the character.

The folks at the table were great with her, and she made me proud with her play. This is a really exciting time for me, as my daughter is really getting into my favorite hobby!

#RPGaDay2015 - 3rd - Favorite New Game

It's August 2015, and to follow on with the success of last year's #RPGaDay event, David Chapman at Autocratik has created a new list. Each day in August, I'll be posting my "answer" to that day's topic.

Today's post—favorite new game of the last 12 months—was harder than it should have been. I was overthinking really. Is it new or new to me? Do setting count, since they're not a game in and of themselves? I've decided to just write about what I've liked the most this last year.

Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition is my favorite edition of the game. Previously, my answer would have been 2nd Edition, but 5th Edition is just that good. I love having most of the character abilities rolled back into the classes. I love the simplicity of the inspiration die and advantage/disadvantage. I'm not a fan of Forgotten Realms, but that's just made me want to re-visit setting design, maybe even try a hexcrawl. For the first time in 15 years, I have no complaints about the holy trilogy of gaming: Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, Monster Manual.

Many settings released this last year for my favorite RPG, Savage Worlds. Two of them stand out for me: East Texas University (ETU) and The Last Parsec. You can look to yesterday's post and find why ETU is one of this year's favorites, but The Last Parsec, I'll explain here.

The Last Parsec is Shane Hensley's love letter to Star Frontiers. Why is that a big deal? The very first game I GMed was not D&D; it was Star Frontiers. As a kid, I was a much bigger fan of Sci-Fi than I was fantasy, especially Star Trek. I was all about exploring strange new worlds. I remember the Yazirian felt like something between a Klingon and a Wookie to me. I used one as my GM character for that game. The Last Parsec works seamlessly with the Core Rules and the Science Fiction Companion, and Shane & Company certainly captured the feel of my belovedStar Frontiers.

Crit or Get out of the Chair

Now that I've made my interest in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons known, I'm considering running a game. This may seem like a no-brainer, but honestly I have some anxiety around running D&D. To be completely honest, I've had very little luck with the game since my teen years.

In the late '90s, I ran second edition just a couple times—a "default D&D" game and a Ravenloft game. Neither moved into campaign play, and the Ravenloft game was a complete failure. The only saving grace of those sessions was that my wife had fun and I introduced my sister-in-law to gaming too.

When third edition came out, I liked what I read and attempted to run The Sunless Citadel. I never finished the module, handing over the DMing reigns to another player. I did get to play a full campaign in third edition, though, at least to 12th level. And I did run some X-Crawl which, while not purely D&D, went well and gave me a chance to flex my dungeon design muscles.

When fourth edition hit the shelves, I was really excited about the possibilities in the system. I attempted to run Keep on the Shadowfell, and for various it just didn't go well. Before long, I realized that fourth edition just didn't feel like D&D to me, and it stood as the last time I got involved with the game.

So here we are with the fifth edition of the best-known roleplaying game in the world, and frankly, I have no idea how to run it.

I certainly have a desire to run the game. Actually I've been itching to get D&D right for years. I think it's part of the reason I've had a tough time keeping other campaigns going—I get the fantasy itch and can't find a way to scratch it. Pathfinder is too complex for my tastes these days, and no other  game system has the feel I recall. I toyed with some retro-clones, but it felt weird "going backwards."

One thing the third and fourth editions taught me is that I need to not run modules, and one related thing in my favor is the amazingness that is the fifth edition Dungeon Master's Guide. If I do run D&D, I'll likely use the DMG to build my campaign and design my adventures. The plan would be to create a homebrew setting, semi-on-the-fly. I'd lean on my players for background information. For example, if a player selected a cleric, they'd help me design their deity.

If I run it, I'll report on the whole journey here.

Until next time, do good, avoid evil, and play more games!

My (Very Late) Thoughts on Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition

I truly believe we are living in a golden age for RPGs. Roleplayers have an amazing array of choices, in terms of games available and avenues in which to buy and play them. The giant RPG publisher may be mostly dead, but not for lack of RPGs being made and sold. 2014 was an exceptional year within this golden age, and I believe it will be remembered as a landmark year, partially due to the release of Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition.

I'm not going to bore you with a breakdown of the rules and mechanics of play—I'm writing this way too late to have anything new to say in that realm. What I'd like to do is just share some thoughts on what I've seen, and what I think of it.

The first thing I should note is that for me, this feels like an alternate history 3rd Edition. Now don't assume I'm bagging on 3.x. It's a great game, and I got years of great play out of it's myriad variants (D&D 3.0, Classic Spycraft, and Mutants & Masterminds 2E being my highlights). That said, it was a huge departure from the original 2nd Edition core books. (I should note I was completely out of the D&D loop during the Black Book era of things like Skills & Powers.) When I read through and played 5th Edition, it felt more like a natural progression from those original 2nd Edition books than 3rd Edition. So what if Wizards of the Coast never released 3rd Edition in 2000 and managed to keep the 2nd Edition line, as I remember it, going? Then add in the things designers have learned over the last 14 years, and took the same "it still has to feel like D&D" approach. I believe 5th Edition is pretty damn close to what that 3rd Edition would look like. Why is this an important thought to me? Well, the original three 2nd Edition books were my favorite D&D iteration. (Yeah. I'm that one guy with 2E as his fave.)

The Player's Handbook is very well done in 5th Edition. I love how you can play through your whole class using only one section of the book, with only minor departures if you decided to play a spellcaster or take an occasional Feat. I think 13th Age does a better job of compartmentalizing the classes, but that book departs more from the feel of D&D for me (not a bad thing, just different). Speaking of "an occasional Feat," I love that Feats aren't really necessary in play. I was skeptical when I'd heard this, but it's true. The trade-off between raising your stats and getting a Feat is perfect. I think Feats are great in concept, but they got way out of hand in 3rd Edition.

There's been a great deal of positive sentiment for the 5th Edition Dungeon Master's Guide, and I have to agree. In fact, I'd say this is the best DMG ever made. The main reason? It acts as a true Dungeon Master's, well, Guide. The tools for building a world, creating a campaign, all the tables—I'm sure this will change over time, but today, I can't imagine what changes I'd make to this book. Truly brilliant.

As for the Monster Manual, I don't have much to say, other than I'm glad it's not a binder with loose leaf like the original 2nd Edition core—which has stood as my second-biggest 2nd Edition complaint (second only to racial level limits from AD&D in general). Other than the binder kerfuffle D&D has never really had a bad core monster book.

I'm hoping to run a D&D campaign in the near future, and for the first time, I'm actually interested in trying organized play. I'm sure I'll have more on that last thing after I try it.

Until next time, do good, avoid evil, and play more games!