Sidequest: Every TTRPG Played 51-57

Many, many, many moons ago, I started a series of blogposts listing every tabletop roleplaying game I've ever played - inspired by a post over where the skies are blue (BlueSky) by Kieron Gillen. 

I'm still trying to follow some sort of chronological order. If you want to catch up, you can find the previous posts here:

Every TTRPG I've Played 1-10

Every TTRPG I've Played 11-20

Every TTRPG I've Played 21-30

Every TTRPG I've Played 31-40

Every TTRPG I've Played 41-50

And so, onto the last batch, before I catch up to date with everything I've played. I'm sure I missed some out, but this is all I could remember. 

51) The Gaslight Club

Cover of The Gaslight Club by We-Evolve

This was another playtest for Stoo. The Gaslight Club is a weird one – it plays very much like the old Gangbusters RPG from the 80s, all 1920s with gangs and fancy clubs, nice cars, and classy suits. That is, until something bad happens, and you end up injured or killed, only to be taken behind the scenes, waking to repeat the same events over again. You quickly discover you are hosts in a 'Westworld' style theme park who are becoming aware of the abuse you are constantly subjected to from the human guests. It's only a matter of time before the looping narrative becomes a quest to escape. Great stuff!

52) Blade Runner

Cover of the Blade Runner Roleplaying Game by Free League

I wanted to try the Blade Runner RPG not only because I loved the movies, but mostly because I wanted to try out some cool investigative roleplaying, and I wasn't disappointed. Built on the Year Zero Engine as used in more of my favourite games (Tales from the Loop, see number 40 on this list), there are some clever time management elements in there, and delving into your memories for both human and replicant characters. The stories are really well crafted, utilising a lot of props, but the standout moment was when my character (a human) was suspected of being a replicant and was forced to take a Voight-Kampff test... and failed. Was I really human? Or was it all a set-up? 

Brilliant.

53) The One Ring (2nd Edition)

Cover of The One Ring (Second Edition) by Free League

Returning to Middle-Earth decades after playing the old Middle-Earth Roleplaying Game (see number 10 on this list), with another game by Free League (or Fria Ligan). The One Ring RPG (second edition, the first edition was done by Cubicle 7) was an interesting experience. Really loved the 'stances' thing in combat, where you could be on the attack, defence, etc. and they did a great job of making it feel like Middle-Earth and the epic scope of Lord of the Rings. But, man, is it dangerous. I think we had three 'total party kills' in one adventure, and we all got wiped out again in the follow up. 

Despite all of this, looks like we may be returning to TOR in the very near future.

54) FATE

Cover of the FATE Core rulebook by Evil Hat

FATE is one of those games that I've always wanted to see in action, but never really got around to playing. Stoo wanted to run a game based on the TV series "Travelers" (which is a brilliant and emotional series of time-travel and cool sci-fi stuff, which I talked about on an earlier blogpost last year). Lacking a system to play it with, we gave FATE a go – one of those systems that a lot of people really love, but it just didn't gel with me. Sorry. Game was good, but really didn't get to grips with FATE at all. I'm sorry. Had the book sitting on my shelves for years, and it may just go back there. I'd be reluctant to get rid of it, as my dearly departed cat loved to rub her face on the corner of that book, and took some of the sheen off of it. It reminds me of her at least.

55) Mothership

Cover of the Mothership Player's Guide by Tuesday Knight Games

I wrote a little about Mothership last year when we went to Tabletop Scotland. Looking at the cute boxed set of the standard edition – how it had multiple little A5 books, dice, a screen, and more – just inspired me so much, and filled my head with ideas for how to produce games on a similar scale. So darn cool. 

Of course, we had to play it. The actual game experience was very like ALIEN (see number 50 on this list), with the same feeling of fragility in the characters, and impending doom. Space is flipping dangerous, and full of horrific nightmare creatures. It was good! We didn't feel incompetent, the skill level was about right, and we encountered some disgusting monsters. It was just so depressing and ominous. 

Very good, but doom-laden.

56) Harrowhill Point

Harrowhill Point is an RPG I've been working on for a while with a few of my trusted and regular writers. It's survival horror, in the same vein as Silent Hill or Alan Wake, and I can't really discuss much more than that. We've been playtesting it, and the playtests were SUPER helpful and really worked to bring the epic story of horror and weirdness together. Hopefully, it should he heading to Kickstarter through Cubicle 7 sometime next year. 

57) Mythic Bastionland

Cover of Mythic Bastionland by Bastionland Press

And, possibly finally, we are currently playing Mythic Bastionland. Once again, I watched a Youtube video by Quinns (see his Quinns Quest Youtube Channel, it's very good) and was instantly sold on an RPG. It wasn't the subject matter or the game system so much, rather the lovely design and layout. I bought a copy and didn't really expect to play it, I just absorbed the way it was put together and the gorgeous artwork.

The other players in my group were intrigued, especially Stoo who fancied running it, and so we generated characters, created a map, and off we went. 

It's been good so far – the random element feels a bit odd, and once you realise how the game works (with the D6 every hex determining what happens) it feels like you've seen behind the curtain, and all the pressure is on the GM to 'make stuff up on the fly'. The communal combat rolls are an interesting new take, and took a little getting used to. It means you have to think tactically as a group, but I sometimes feel it takes away from the individual drama of a fight, and the crazy random outcomes from a bad roll. 

It's been fun though!

... what next?

What is next? Of course, this is discounting the D&D 5e game I've been playing monthly with my old gaming group from the 80s (still going strong!) but as it's just D&D and I've already listed D&D right at the start (okay, you pedants, I know, that was AD&D 1st ed, not 5e) I didn't think it required listing again. 

Next, I think it's going to be going back to The One Ring, though I know we talked about Slugblaster for a while (another bit of pimping by Quinns inspired that one), along with my constant desire to run something weird an investigative like Masks of Nyarlathotep or Delta Green's Impossible Landscapes. Who knows!

Okay, that's one series of blogposts that I started finally finished. 

I guess I should finish off the #RPGaDAY posts for this year, and go back to my other weird reminiscences.

Until then, stay multi-classy. 

Sidequest: Every TTRPG Played 41-50

Many, many moons ago, I started a series of blogposts listing every tabletop roleplaying game I've ever played - inspired by a post over where the skies are blue (BlueSky) by Kieron Gillen. 

I'm still trying to follow some sort of chronological order. If you want to catch up, you can find the previous posts here:

Every TTRPG I've Played 1-10

Every TTRPG I've Played 11-20

Every TTRPG I've Played 21-30

Every TTRPG I've Played 31-40

And so, onto 41-50...

41) Star Trek Adventures

The cover of first edition Star Trek Adventures by Modiphius

I wrote a long blogpost ages ago about my involvement in Star Trek Adventures. I'm a big Trek fan, and love everything it stands for. When Chris Birch at Modiphius mentioned to me that he'd secured a license that involved a five-year mission I was so excited to get involved. And involved I was. Chris had me developing the game system, how the game would look, suggesting the products, advising on art and graphics, even looking at how the minis were being developed. It was fantastic. I loved every second of working on that. It was just frustrating that I couldn't handle that and a job in retail at the same time. Something had to give, and I reluctantly backed away from Star Trek and faded back into working in retail full time... 

We playtested a bit of the Trek system when we were working on it, playing with my regular gaming group to see how combat and momentum worked. Good times!

42) Spire / Heart

Cover of Spire by Rowan, Rook, and Decard

This is another two-fer, as we played Spire with a lot of its companion game, Heart, involved. This was another huge revelation. The way the experience system worked, accomplishing specific goals to unlock new abilities. Really clever. And some of the themes and motivations were completely bonkers. There was a lot of exploring underground, some investigations into the Spire, and I just remember using my Zenith Ability, my final power that was so powerful it would kill my character. My strange knight's final act was to erase the concept of the Spire from existence. The tower, the elves, the ruling class that brought so much misery, all gone. Forgotten, as if they never existed. As you can imagine, that's where our game ended. I think one of the other characters used their Zenith ability too, for a truly epic finale. Awesome.

43) Aegean

Cover of the Aegean RPG by We-Evolve

This one kinda started as playtesting and we just kept going. Stoo was working on an RPG based on Ancient Greek mythology, and wanted to playtest it. It felt strangely like Runequest in its detail in combat, looking at the reach of weapons, and the usefulness of armour. However, his Aegean RPG incorporated a lot of cool and heroic abilities, as well as the influence of the gods. Top all of that off with some town building mechanics, and Aegean shaped up to be incredibly cool. We played a lot of games of Aegean – including using the game system to play mythic Vikings battling frost giants and elves, and a separate game in a more traditional fantasy setting. The system holds up brilliantly, and it's no surprise Stoo is using again for his next game.

44) WILD

Cover of the WILD RPG by We-Evolve

Another bit of playtesting I'm afraid. Well, you don't spend ten years working on a game and release it unplayed do you? WILD went through a lot of versions, starting off using Vortex like Doctor Who, then a different dice system, then Tarot cards in a variety of forms and styles. Without those playtests it would not have been playable. Thanks everyone.

45) Scum & Villainy / Coriolis

Cover of Scum and Villainy by Evil Hat Productions

This is another one that's a strange mash up of two games. Our regular GM wanted to run Coriolis, but didn't really gel with the game system. This was long before the new Coriolis that uses the Year Zero Engine. Instead, we used the Scum and Villainy ruleset, a game that uses the Blades in the Dark system, and kinda felt like Firefly but incorporated some of the locations and mythology of Coriolis. Again, it was awesome and epic, and it was great to experience the Blades in the Dark system, with its "succeed at a cost" element from PtbA. 

46) Changeling: The Lost

Cover of Changeling: The Lost by White Wolf

Considering I was a massive fan of the old World of Darkness, and loved Mage: The Ascension, it wasn't until well over a decade later that I tried the 'New World of Darkness' in a game of Changeling: The Lost. We played set in Victorian York, and I based my character heavily on Timothy Dalton's character from the TV series Penny Dreadful. It was great, and whimsical, and strange. Trains full of fey markets, and weird spider-ladies. Our knowledge resource was an owl. One of the characters could communicate with the dead, and we were trying to save kids from becoming abducted from the city's orphanage. 

When Covid hit and we were locked-down, playing online meant that the game became a roleplaying experience of going to cafes, sampling cakes and drinking tea, or going shopping, rather than progressing the plot – you know, all the things we couldn't do in reality! 

47) Action Potential

Cover of Action Potential RPG by We-Evolve

This was another bit of playtesting, back when Action Potential was in its early concept phase. Rhi had used the Forged in the Dark ruleset to create a cool RPG of being able to upload your consciousness into new 'sleeves', in a cool cyberpunk weirdness way, like Altered Carbon. We played characters sent to a space station to discover what had happened to the crew, only everyone was dead and — plot twist — the crew were our characters! We were playing backups of our consciousnesses uploaded into new bodies as our originals had been killed on the station.

Rhi worked with Debs to develop these cool character sheets where your sleeves had different stats that overlapped and you could switch them out as you changed sleeve. It was really cool, and well worth playing.

48) Hard Wired Island

Cover of Hard Wired Island by Weird Edge Games

I must admit, I'd not heard of this game before we started playing it, and it surprised me by being really cool. Again, very cyberpunk, and set on a space station that feels very much like what we thought cyberpunk would be in the 80s. I played a hard-boiled detective, like someone from Sin City, who teamed up with a synth and graffiti artist to try to stop thugs from targeting a pro-synthetic club. Was really cool, and I'm definitely going to look into the second edition when it Kickstarts. 

49) Doctors and Daleks

Cover of the Doctors and Daleks Player's Guide by Cubicle 7

Another strange one. I didn't think Doctor Who would work with 5e Dungeons & Dragons, but the team who worked on this absolutely nailed it. They captured the feel of the series, kept true to Doctor's ideals, and introduced some amazing new non-combat conflict rules to 5e, allowing you to defeat an enemy with wits and dialogue. I was on board for the project, bringing my Doctor Who roleplaying knowledge, and did a few playtests, but did play a little on a short actual play run by Zak, which was a blast (especially as I played Graham O'Brien and got to be confused and old, just like me). 

50) ALIEN

One of the tensest games I've played. So many stress-dice being rolled, so much running around panicking. I think, in true ALIEN fashion, all of the characters died, but we destroyed the ship with the xenomorphs in so they couldn't get onto another ship. Very cool, and very evocative of the source material. I'd be intrigued to see how a longer campaign would work, and really harks back to the old Odyssey game that I played waaaay back (see Number 18).

--

That's it for this part. Maybe one more batch to go? 

Until next time, stay multi-classy!

Building Better Worlds

I should really plan my blog posts better, but sometimes you watch or read something and just feel like putting words on paper, so-to-speak. Please forgive me if this gets a bit ramble-y and off topic.

Many years ago I fell out of love with The Walking Dead. I loved the series, and loved the comics before it, avidly watching the TV series, and reading the comics every month as they came out - then buying those cool collector's hardcovers just so I had them safe and accessible without having to drag out the comic boxes and open each issue's bag one by one. It got to the arrival of Negan, and there was a scene that absolutely shocked me and turned my stomach. I kept reading the comics, but the memory of a certain character's demise (and one of my favourite characters in the Walking Dead universe) kept creeping in. 

About ten or fifteen issues later, I remember reading it and thinking "why am I reading this? This just feels like prolonged trauma." Rather than put myself through the misery of watching these people suffer any further, I bit the bullet and cancelled my order for it at the comic shop, turning to other comics that didn't feel miserable... 

And then, that happened in The Walking Dead TV series. (Season 7, episode 1). You know the bit. And it all came flooding back. My wife stopped watching, and I gave up there and then. 

Many years have passed, and then along came Free League's announcement of The Walking Dead Universe RPG, and I thought to myself... "should I go back to the TV series?" And I did... I started from the episode after the trauma inducing incident where I stopped watching, and I'm getting back into it... Sure, I hate Negan with a passion, but you're supposed to. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is absolutely brilliant in the part, but why do people love him so? How does he get to be in a spin off? I'm still in Season 7, so don't tell me, but honestly, I think there should have been a #JusticeForGlenn hashtag going around. 

I backed the Kickstarter for the RPG, of course, because I love Free League's games, but the thing that really stood out for me was their announcement the team behind the TV series were involved with the 'game universe' to ensure that the events that play out in the game, and their streamed game fits in with the series. I think the plan is that the events of the streamed game is 'canon' to the Walking Dead setting. 

It's a brilliant marriage of game and license. And it could work both ways. Just look at the history of licensed games. Back in the dim and distant past, when there were only three Star Wars movies, and my favourite game company in the 80s (West End Games) produced the first (and amazing) Star Wars Roleplaying Game, WEG created new worlds, new characters, locations, droids... 

And some of those locations and characters have made it into Star Wars canon, mostly thanks to the Heir to the Empire trilogy if Wikipedia is to be believed. More recently, license-holders have seen the value of tabletop RPGs as a way to spread the word of their media, with the Carnival Row RPG (a free downloadable PDF through Nerdist and Monte Cook Games) that was created to promote the Amazon TV series, and The Green Knight RPG that A24 created as a full 'starter set' format game to promote their movie of the same name.

Heck, when I was working with Eden Studios on the Buffy RPG, we were putting the Slayer's Handbook together and remember us saying "Maybe we could ask Fox what Faith and Kendra's last names are?" Eden asked, months passed, but we got a reply - they didn't have last names, but Joss Whedon decided what they would be (Lehane and Young) - and those names became part of canon for the Buffyverse ever since.

Tabletop RPGs can fill in those blanks in a chronology, or missing information. And I guess that's why I called this post "Building Better Worlds" like the Weyland Yutani Corp. Just think of your favourite TV series or movie, and think of how small the actual place or time is involved. TTRPGs can expand and develop areas you've never imagined. Just like the Shackleton Expanse in the Star Trek Adventures RPG by Modiphius - a region of space unused by the series or novels, but on the map of the Star Trek galaxy. 

Here are some examples - 

The Magicians - one of my favourite book series and a fantastic TV series. But what about other students at Brakebills? Other years? What else could be going on in Fillory?

Twin Peaks - one of my favourite TV series. There were 20+ years where we didn't see what happened in that strange little town. And what's happened since Cooper changed the course of history? 

Battlestar Galactica - another ship in the fleet, or another Battlestar that was lost?

James Bond - he's 007, what about the other Double-O's? 

Stranger Things - What happened in the 70's? The 90's? What about the rest of the lab's experiments? Other 'gates' to the Upside-down? 

The X-Files - What happens after Season 11? What about between Season 9 and 10, when the X-Files were 'shut down'? New agents, continuing the investigations even if it's in an 'off the books' capacity. 

Sapphire and Steel - we only really saw Sapphire, Steel, Lead, and Silver in action, what about all those other medium-atomic weights investigating temporal disturbances?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - after Season 7, there are many Slayers out there in the world, all needing training, guidance, and with their own Scooby-gang to help face the demons and vampires.

I guess, the familiar universe and setting, but the potential to do your own thing within those worlds, is why I love licensed RPGs. And while the publishers are fleshing out the world(s), the IP-holders can take this as inspiration for their universes and build bigger worlds.