Category: Gaming

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”).

Today’s topic is a tough one for me: Favorite Science Fiction RPG. It’s difficult because I’ve always preferred science fiction to fantasy — hell, when I play fantasy, I even lean towards science-fantasy (what do you expect from somebody who was raised on Star Wars?). I’ve played more science-fiction games than any other category. So the question of which is my favorite is a difficult one.

I could answer it several ways, for one thing. If I was going for “which Sci-Fi setting do I most enjoy playing in”, that would narrow things down to Doctor Who, Star Trek and Star Wars. All of these, though, have had several games devoted to them over the years. If I went purely on what rules system I enjoyed the most, that clears things up a bit more: Doctor Who’s three games (FASA’s 1980s Doctor Who, Virgin Books’ 1990s Timelord and Cubicle 7’s current Doctor Who: Adventures In Time and Space are all fine, but in each case, for me, the rules took a back seat to the setting. Of the three, I like the rules of the current system the most. For Star Wars, despite the existence of the WotC version and the current Fantasy Flight systems, my favorite will always be the original West End Games version of the late 1980s. The rules are really, really good — and “feel” like Star Wars to me, making that game a really strong contender. The Last Unicorn and Decipher versions of Star Trek never made much of an impact on me… but the original FASA Star Trek of the 1980s? I think I’ve hit upon the one game that beats West End’s Star Wars, in my estimation.

FASA’s STAR TREK: THE ROLEPLAYING GAME was one of the first games that I specifically hunted down: I saw an ad for it in Dragon Magazine, and it lit a fire in me. When I finally got it, I devoured it. Got everything I could for the game. The rules system was based on percentile dice, like my beloved TOP SECRET, and the system of generating your character’s service history was an early iteration of “Lifepath” systems — similar to those present in Traveller and Cyberpunk, which gave almost a solo game quality: I would have fun creating characters even when I didn’t have a campaign going. When the game first came out, it was mostly set in the Original Series era, but as the line continued, gradually the art began to reflect the then-current post-Khan Star Trek films, which I loved. I actually didn’t play it as much as I’d have liked — at least not until college, when I found people who were as into it as I was — but yes: It’s definitely my favorite science fiction RPG.

Here’s Dave Chapman’s video entry for the day, where he choses my close second: