#RPGaDay2015 - 9th - Favorite Media You Wish Was An 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.

Fell behind again... Real life stuff for the win. 

There is so much crossover these days between RPGs and pretty much every other type of media, this one is tougher than I thought when I first glanced over the topic last month. The answer forces me to call myself out.

Back in 2009, I was re-watching the Doctor Strange animated movie. It was a good movie, as far as I'm concerned—good enough to re-watch, for sure. On my re-watch, I got inspired by the first six minutes. Seriously go watch it if you can. I wanted that RPG. I wanted it so much, I decided I'd create it myself. That little desire gave birth to Fuse, a Savage Worlds setting idea I've wrestled with on and off for nearly six years now. Hopefully one day, you'll get to play it.

#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 - 5th - Most Recent RPG Purchase

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.

My most recent RPG purchase was Titansgrave: The Ashes of Valkana for the Fantasy Age system. I'm a huge fan of Wil Wheaton's TableTop, so when I found out he was doing a show featuring his own setting, I was definitely intrigued. I'm not disappointed in the show or the project. Their both brilliant, and I highly recommend them.

#RPGaDay2015 - 4th - Most Surprising 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.

Since there's no time period assigned to today's subject—Most Surprising Game—I'm drawn to a session I played a few years ago, run by my friend, Bill Keyes, at a charity gaming event: Lucha Libre Hero. The reason this game stood out is that Hero is really not a game that fits my current interests—character creation is too involved and the system tends to focus too much on minutiae. Still, the game goes down in history as my favorite play experience of all time in a public setting. It was a combination of things that made it my favorite.

For starters, the people at the table were amazing roleplayers. There were four of us, but I don't recall the fourth player's name. My friends, Wendy and Camdon, were there, and they are both top shelf players. Couple that with Bill's GMing style, and it made for a lot of fun.

Speaking of GMing style. Bill stripped out a lot of the fiddly parts of the Hero system for his game. He also had wrestling moves on the character sheet, and I've been a wrestling fan all my life. It was fun to pull off moves in-game, and due to my familiarity with wrestling, it made visualization really easy. He also did a great job explaining the Lucha Libre genre, as it's presented in the game.

I do so wish there was a Lucha Libre RPG that utilized a system more to my tastes than Hero.

#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.