Category: Gaming

Today’s topic is Favorite Fantasy RPG — and of course, everybody is going to probably say some flavor of Dungeons and Dragons, since it’s the 800-lb gorilla, the game which created the hobby, and the one that many of us have played the most.

I do love D&D, and yes, as far as fantasy games go, I have played it more than any other variety. For me, it’s like a lingua franca for gamers — something I’m sure everyone is familiar with, so it’s a good go-to game to play. It’s extremely adaptable, allowing for play in any sort of fantasy setting with a minimum of adjustment, too. Other fantasy games that I enjoy (Stormbringer, Warhammer Fantasy, etc.) are far more locked into particular settings or styles, and really, if you get down to it, I could just as easily play those settings in D&D.

So yeah, as boring as the answer may be, it’s Dungeons & Dragons. Not even a contest, really.

Here’s today’s video entry from Dave Chapman, along with special guest, freelancer T.R. Knight.

Today is another quick weekender: Longest Game Session Played. By necessity of age and responsibilities, answers to this question are going to skew heavily towards adolescence and college years, I should think.

For me, the answer is a simple one — I’ve really only done one marathon, back in the misty prehistory of 1983. A bunch of us got together in the summer at my friend John Cochrane’s house, in the late morning, and we played TOP SECRET and DUNGEONS & DRAGONS until the next morning. We took time for eating, and for sleep, but all told it was probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 18 hours of play.

Mostly, though, I keep sessions to a much more reasonable 4-5 hours at most.

Dave Chapman, however, puts my numbers to shame, in his video entry, with special guest Lynne Hardy of Modiphius:

Today’s topic is a quick one (as befits a weekend entry), Longest RPG Campaign.

As a designer, I don’t get a chance to do much long-term playing: Playtests aren’t usually long-term affairs. Plus, in the past couple of years, I haven’t had a local group for recreational RPGing, so I have to go back to my college years for the answer to this one, and, to be honest, depending on how you measure it, I have two answers.

The longest game in actual play sessions was a Vampire: The Masquerade campaign that I ran from the year of it’s release, 1991, until around 1994 or so, with basically weekly play (while school was in session — we took breaks between semesters).

The other longest game was a one-on-one game of James Bond 007, where a friend and I would play once every 6 to 8 weeks with a “new movie” (completely with an original soundtrack, composed by my friend — I’d give him the title of the next “film”, and he’d come up with a title theme, an action sequence theme, and either a sneaking-around or a romance theme). Eventually the time between films got longer, especially after he moved, but we kept it going during visits, making the adventures of Richard Deming, 001, last from around 1992 to around 1996.

So there’s my answer. Or rather, answers. Let’s check in with Dave Chapman, and today’s special guest, Robin D. Laws: