It’s August and that means that the annual #RPGaDAY ‘question a day’ is here to celebrate “everything cool, memorable and amazing about our hobby.” This year we’ve decided to join in the fun and will be canvassing answers from the ENWorld crew, columnists and friends in the industry to bring you some of our answers. We hope you’ll join in, in the comments section, and share your thoughts with us too… So, without further ado, here’s Day 4 of #RPGaDAY 2017!
#RPGaDAY Question 4: Which RPG have you played the most since August 2016?
Morrus: In the last year, I ran Curse of Strahd for D&D 5E (about 8 months), a weekly sci-fi WOIN game (been going a similar time) and played in a long Call of Cthulhu game which has intermittently gone on for over a year. I’m not sure which of those adds up to the most actual time, but I feel pretty lucky that I’m doing so much gaming these days.
Michael J Tresca: Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons: There's My Little Pony vs. the Princes of the Apocalypse, my son's Gamma World-inspired Exterior hexcrawl, and my own Welstar campaign.
Christopher Helton: Lately our weekly game has been with the classic edition of TSR's Marvel Super-Heroes game.
Angus Abranson: With a few ‘prelude’ investigations, before launching into the epic Masks of Nyarlathotep, Call of Cthulhu is way ahead of anything else I’ve played in the last year. Even our playtesting for Judge Dredd & The Worlds of 2000 AD hasn’t come close to the hours spent trying to avoid becoming gibbering messes confined to small padded rooms…
Darryl Mott: West End Games D6 Star Wars. I picked up several of the books cheap and I needed a space opera sci-fi setting to test out a campaign idea to see if it would survive contact with the players. It’s an interesting system that’s a lot of fun so long as you don’t let munchkins anywhere near it.
Bruce Heard (Dungeons & Dragons; Calidar): D&D BECMI
Chris Spivey (Cthulhu Confidential; Harlem Unbound): That is a pretty tough call. Edge of the Empire squeaks by, as I have started a monthly campaign set directly after Order 66 this year. But close runner ups: Godlike, Call of Cthulhu and Cthulhu Confidential.
Ken Spencer (Rocket Age; Why Not Games): In the past year I have played Dungeons and Dragons 5e the most, hands down. Partly this is because I want to grok the system so that I can develop games for it, but also because I find it to be fast, easy for new folk to pick up, and most of all, fun. There is a lot that you can do with this iteration of D&D, and putting the system through its paces has been amusing to say the least.
Marc Langworthy (Modiphius; Red Scar): I seriously struggle to get my gaming group to try out anything other than Pathfinder. So that (and Mutant Chronicles of course!)
Darren Pearce (EN Publishing; Savage Mojo): I very rarely play RPGs these days. I have run a mega amount of Rob Schwalb’s Shadow of the Demon Lord though.
Ed Jowett (Shades of Vengeance; Era: The Consortium): That would be Era: The Consortium, but only by 2 sessions, with Era: Survival a close second! My Vilithii Psionic nutcase (testing out the A New Dawn expansion's mechanics) was amazing fun and it was great to play for once - I usually am the GM!
Ian Sturrock (RPG writer and game design lecturer): Dragon Warriors! Though, I've played very little at all since then, as I've been finishing up my PhD. I've probably played more skirmish games with RPG elements, like Frostgrave, because the time commitment is lower.
Garry Harper (Modiphius Entertainment; The Role Play Haven): 7th Sea, 1st edition.
Uli Lindner (Space: 1889; Clockwork Publishing): Probably a tie between Star Wars D20 and Splittermond (a German fantasy game), for both of which I have regular groups.
Richard August (Conan, Codex Infernus): The Cthulhu Hack by my esteemed friend and neighbour, Paul Baldowski (based on the equally esteemed though geographically less neighbourly David Black's brilliant OSR game 'the Black Hack'). Brilliantly simple and, despite its brevity, deep.
Stephanie McAlea (Stygian Fox Publishing, The Things We Leave Behind): Probably Pathfinder, although it’s not my favourite.
Martin Greening (Azure Keep, Ruma: Dawn of Empire): Easily 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons. I play every other week with a group of longtime friends. Half our group have moved away, but we get together via Google Hangouts and Roll20.
Paul Mitchener (Age of Arthur; Hunters of Alexandria): Probably in the lead (I haven't done the sums) is The One Ring. I'm running through a version of the epic Darkening of Mirkwood campaign, and have had an interlude playing through a five session high stakes mini campaign with another group. The One Ring is a wonderful game, beautifully written and illustrated, and it absolutely does the job, both in feel and in terms of mechanics, when it comes to evoking Tolkien and the themes of Middle Earth.
Mike Lafferty (BAMF Podcast; Fainting Goat Games): Haven’t played RPGs as much as I would have liked this year. But – SUPERS Revised Edition from Hazard Studios has been what I’ve played the most. Mostly online with Roll20. You can hear one of our sessions on this episode of the BAMF Podcast.
Simon Brake (Stygian Fox): Probably Monsterhearts. Possibly Apocalypse World. The Powered by the Apocalypse rules have proved very popular with my regular gaming group.
Rich Lescouflair (Alligator Alley Entertainment; Esper Genesis 5E): D&D
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Originally created by Dave Chapman (Doctor Who: Adventures in Time & Space; Conspiracy X) #RPGaDAY os now being caretakered by the crew over at RPGBrigade. We hope you’ll join in, in the comments section, and share your thoughts with us too!
#RPGaDAY Question 4: Which RPG have you played the most since August 2016?
Morrus: In the last year, I ran Curse of Strahd for D&D 5E (about 8 months), a weekly sci-fi WOIN game (been going a similar time) and played in a long Call of Cthulhu game which has intermittently gone on for over a year. I’m not sure which of those adds up to the most actual time, but I feel pretty lucky that I’m doing so much gaming these days.
Michael J Tresca: Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons: There's My Little Pony vs. the Princes of the Apocalypse, my son's Gamma World-inspired Exterior hexcrawl, and my own Welstar campaign.
Christopher Helton: Lately our weekly game has been with the classic edition of TSR's Marvel Super-Heroes game.
Angus Abranson: With a few ‘prelude’ investigations, before launching into the epic Masks of Nyarlathotep, Call of Cthulhu is way ahead of anything else I’ve played in the last year. Even our playtesting for Judge Dredd & The Worlds of 2000 AD hasn’t come close to the hours spent trying to avoid becoming gibbering messes confined to small padded rooms…
Darryl Mott: West End Games D6 Star Wars. I picked up several of the books cheap and I needed a space opera sci-fi setting to test out a campaign idea to see if it would survive contact with the players. It’s an interesting system that’s a lot of fun so long as you don’t let munchkins anywhere near it.
Bruce Heard (Dungeons & Dragons; Calidar): D&D BECMI
Chris Spivey (Cthulhu Confidential; Harlem Unbound): That is a pretty tough call. Edge of the Empire squeaks by, as I have started a monthly campaign set directly after Order 66 this year. But close runner ups: Godlike, Call of Cthulhu and Cthulhu Confidential.
Ken Spencer (Rocket Age; Why Not Games): In the past year I have played Dungeons and Dragons 5e the most, hands down. Partly this is because I want to grok the system so that I can develop games for it, but also because I find it to be fast, easy for new folk to pick up, and most of all, fun. There is a lot that you can do with this iteration of D&D, and putting the system through its paces has been amusing to say the least.
Marc Langworthy (Modiphius; Red Scar): I seriously struggle to get my gaming group to try out anything other than Pathfinder. So that (and Mutant Chronicles of course!)
Darren Pearce (EN Publishing; Savage Mojo): I very rarely play RPGs these days. I have run a mega amount of Rob Schwalb’s Shadow of the Demon Lord though.
Ed Jowett (Shades of Vengeance; Era: The Consortium): That would be Era: The Consortium, but only by 2 sessions, with Era: Survival a close second! My Vilithii Psionic nutcase (testing out the A New Dawn expansion's mechanics) was amazing fun and it was great to play for once - I usually am the GM!
Ian Sturrock (RPG writer and game design lecturer): Dragon Warriors! Though, I've played very little at all since then, as I've been finishing up my PhD. I've probably played more skirmish games with RPG elements, like Frostgrave, because the time commitment is lower.
Garry Harper (Modiphius Entertainment; The Role Play Haven): 7th Sea, 1st edition.
Uli Lindner (Space: 1889; Clockwork Publishing): Probably a tie between Star Wars D20 and Splittermond (a German fantasy game), for both of which I have regular groups.
Richard August (Conan, Codex Infernus): The Cthulhu Hack by my esteemed friend and neighbour, Paul Baldowski (based on the equally esteemed though geographically less neighbourly David Black's brilliant OSR game 'the Black Hack'). Brilliantly simple and, despite its brevity, deep.
Stephanie McAlea (Stygian Fox Publishing, The Things We Leave Behind): Probably Pathfinder, although it’s not my favourite.
Martin Greening (Azure Keep, Ruma: Dawn of Empire): Easily 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons. I play every other week with a group of longtime friends. Half our group have moved away, but we get together via Google Hangouts and Roll20.
Paul Mitchener (Age of Arthur; Hunters of Alexandria): Probably in the lead (I haven't done the sums) is The One Ring. I'm running through a version of the epic Darkening of Mirkwood campaign, and have had an interlude playing through a five session high stakes mini campaign with another group. The One Ring is a wonderful game, beautifully written and illustrated, and it absolutely does the job, both in feel and in terms of mechanics, when it comes to evoking Tolkien and the themes of Middle Earth.
Mike Lafferty (BAMF Podcast; Fainting Goat Games): Haven’t played RPGs as much as I would have liked this year. But – SUPERS Revised Edition from Hazard Studios has been what I’ve played the most. Mostly online with Roll20. You can hear one of our sessions on this episode of the BAMF Podcast.
Simon Brake (Stygian Fox): Probably Monsterhearts. Possibly Apocalypse World. The Powered by the Apocalypse rules have proved very popular with my regular gaming group.
Rich Lescouflair (Alligator Alley Entertainment; Esper Genesis 5E): D&D
****
Originally created by Dave Chapman (Doctor Who: Adventures in Time & Space; Conspiracy X) #RPGaDAY os now being caretakered by the crew over at RPGBrigade. We hope you’ll join in, in the comments section, and share your thoughts with us too!
