Author: Gareth

Today’s topic is Favorite RPG Setting. It doesn’t really specify whether that setting is unique to RPGs, or a licensed setting, or whatever — so I’m assuming that if there’s an RPG using the setting, it qualifies. I’ll be interested to see people’s responses to this one, which I’m sure will be widely varied.

As I’ve been writing these (in batches — thank god for post-scheduling), I’ve been trying not to get too “shill-y”, and talk about stuff that I’ve worked on, or designed myself. I’d love to be able to continue that policy, but in this case, I can’t do that and be honest in my response.

In truth, my all-time favorite setting is the one that I’ve been (infamously) late in delivering: Far West.

Yes, we’re four years after the kickstarter, and I’m only just now getting to the end of layout process of the core rulebook. I know that frustrates people. It frustrates me even more — I’ve actually been working on Far West since 2007, long before the kickstarter. The setting combination — Chinese wuxia tales filtered through a lens of Italian Spaghetti Westerns, captured my imagination like nothing I’ve worked on before. And here’s the thing: It still does.

That’s how I know it’s my favorite. Despite the stress, despite the negative feelings surrounding the lateness, despite all of that, the setting still excites me, still gets me fired up to work on every day. As I crawl the agonizing last few feet to delivery of the RPG, I’m still having ideas for follow-ups: Adventures, fiction, and more. Still. Every day.

That’s why it’s my favorite setting. I hope it turns out to be one of yours, too. The RPG will be available soon, but in the meantime, you can check out the setting via the Far West website (check out the Vignettes, or the store, where you can pick up the Ennie-nominated short fiction anthology).

Now, let’s check out Dave Chapman’s video entry for the day, with special guest Josh Fox from Black Armada Games:

Today’s topic is Favorite Horror RPG. Another genre that I’ve played quite a bit, and I have a number of games which I’ve played and really enjoyed over the years — the various games of White Wolf’s World of Darkness line would probably be more aptly described as “dark fantasy”, rather than “horror”, given the focus of player-as-monster, but I was also a big fan of the original Hammer-films-esque Chill RPG (far more so than the Clive-Barker-ish second edition).

But my favorite horror RPG is no surprise, and it’s one you’re going to see mentioned over and over again today: Call of Cthulhu (especially appropriate given that today would have been Lovecraft’s 125th birthday). I’ve played this game set in the Victorian Age, the 1920s, the 1930s, World War 2, the modern day, and the near future. I’ve even used the game for entirely non-Lovecraftian horror adventures, throwing the players up against “mundane” monsters like ghosts, werewolves and vampires. When I think of running any sort of horror, my mind goes to Call of Cthulhu first and foremost, before I consider any alternatives. If that’s not an indication of “Favorite Horror RPG”, then I don’t know what is.

So there’s my response (and the response of the majority of folks posting today, I’ll bet).

Here’s Dave Chapman’s video entry for the day, with special guest Derek Stoelting from Eden Studios…

Today’s topic is another “favorites” question: Favorite Supers RPG. This is another genre that I’ve play quite a lot, and for a long time, so the list of games that I’ve really enjoyed is pretty long: Champions, TSR’s Marvel Superheroes, the old Games Workshop Golden Heroes, Chaosium’s Super World, and on and on.

I’m going to cheat a bit on this one and say that I have two favorites: A nostalgic favorite, and a current favorite. The nostalgic favorite is the Advanced rules set of TSR’s Marvel Superheroes game from the mid-80s (aka “FASERIP”). It wasn’t the source of my longest-running supers game (that would be Golden Heroes), but it was a game that I’d played the longest, as I had a habit of using the Ultimate Powers Book supplement to create superhero and supervillain characters, on my own, for fun.

My current favorite, though, was one I had a hand in bringing to life: ICONS: Superpowered Roleplaying, which was specifically inspired to be a combination of the style and ease of the classic FASERIP system, and the newer indie flavor of FATE-based rules. During Adamant Entertainment’s stewardship of the line, we produced the core rules, a villain supplement (The Villainomicon), and ten adventures. Now under the watchful eye of Steve Kenson’s Ad Infinitum Press, a new edition of the rules (the Assembled Edition, pictured) has been released, as well as more adventures — and there’s a thriving community of third-party support publishers as well (including Adamant, whose ICONS TEAM-UP featured rules which were included in the new Assembled edition)!

So, despite being a little bit shill-y, that’s my favorite supers RPG. Let’s check in with Dave Chapman and today’s video entry to see what was his favorite (or, in his case, I suppose that would be “favourite”).