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What I'm watching Here's my television viewing schedule, as of spring 2012: >>Sunday -11:00 a.m., Disney XD: Ultimate Spider-Man (animated superhero; new) *** -11:30 a.m., Disney XD: The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes (animated superheroes) *** -Coming soon: Tron Uprising...

Greco-Roman deities In addition to the books I posted earlier (including the Green Ronin ones Thotas asked about) is the D20 Lore of the Gods, which is pretty good and at least the equal of many of the more recent official pantheon books from Wizards of the Coast.

Land of the lost -- RPGs Sure, we've all heard the stories of friends whose parents or overzealous roommates threw out prized, pizza-stained notebooks or supposedly Satanic books with lurid covers. However, it's much harder to lose stuff as an adult. Back in 2005, the new McMansion development...

Classical ancient RPGs I also liked the D20 "Ancients" book. Here are some others, many of which are out of print but can be found online at good prices: -AD&D2 Age of Heroes, The Glory of Rome *** -D20 Relics & Rituals: Olympus *** -D20 Trojan War, Eternal Rome (Green Ronin) ****...

Space crunch Time to do what I've done -- buy more shelving! You might also want to see if you have games or books you no longer care for. You could sell/give them to friends and family; donate them to a local library, school, or charity; or sell them to used bookstores, on eBay, or to Noble...

Game time! I try to read EnWorld.org and a few other role-playing blogs every day. In addition to a full-time job and other hobbies, I run one face-to-face session and one teleconferencing game per week. The F2F game is actually two parties of about six gamers each that meet on alternating...

Typical party size In my experience, it was easier to run adventuring parties of more than six role-players in earlier editions of Dungeons & Dragons. Most of the campaigns in which I had 12+ people that I mentioned earlier used AD&D2. In D&D3.x, Pathfinder, and D&D4e, the optimal group for me...

Typical party size My largest parties have included more than 20 role-players. I briefly ran AD&D1 for my entire dorm floor in my freshman year of college, and I ran a longer-term AD&D2 campaign with my students when I was teaching. Most of my groups, however, have under a dozen members. When...

Name level in D&D5e I would also like to see this come back. I've been running my homebrew fantasy campaigns since the early-1980s boxed sets, and I've required Player Characters to begin planning for some stronghold or organization by the time they reach "name level" since at least AD&D2 and...

Byzantine game Try the D20 "Last Days of Constantinople," any D20 or GURPS book on imperial Rome or the early Middle Ages, and other games set in late antiquity, such as "Fvlminata," "Cthulhu Invictus," and BRP "Rome." You should also think about themes for your campaign -- is it about the...

Core races and classes Core Races: -Dwarves -Elves -Gnomes or Halflings -Humans -Some humanoid (just one): Half-Orc, Dragonborn, Warforged... Core Classes: -Cleric -Fighter -Rogue -Wizard Advanced (optional) Races: -Dwarves: Hill, Mountain, Dune, Deep -Elves: Sylvan, High/Eladrin, Grey...

Recent games Played most recently: -Pathfinder (running a regular campaign) -FATE 3e Starblazer Adventures (running) and Legends of Anglerre -Fortune's Fool -Darkpages Acquired recently but not yet played: -Old School Hack -Lamentations of the Flame Princess -Mouse Guard -OGL Mutants &...

Western games I look for the following things in Western games: -Faithfulness to the mood and tropes of the pulp/movie genre, with gritty heroes, fallen heroines, plucky settlers, and perils in every direction. Who doesn't want to see ranchers fight farmers, railroads and the telegraph begin...

Advancement rate Most of my adventuring parties, from OD&D and AD&D2 through D&D4e and Pathfinder, have leveled up about once every four sessions. We start at Level 1, and relatively few Player Characters make it past "name level," or tenth level. A given party might take two years of real time...

Free superhero rpgs As much as I like Mutants & Masterminds/DC Adventures or Icons, they're not quite free. The advantage of truly free games is that you can easily download them and find one that suits your preferences for tone, crunch, and length. Free RPG List Entries: superhero Scifi 411 -...

Don't touch it -- it's evil! There are a few ways to deal with this: -Simply tell the role-player that you prohibit evil Player Characters because they're disruptive to the adventuring party and your scenarios. He may not like it, but he can then go and find a game that's a better fit...

I'm more of a fan of the lower-magic versions of the King Arthur legend such as The Last Legion, the 2004 King Arthur, and the 1975 King Arthur: the Young Warlord than Malory's Morte d'Arthur, First Knight, or the recent Merlin TV show. However, I do like the 1981 Excalibur and even Monty Python...

End of Saga Edition I've also enjoyed "Star Wars: Saga Edition," which I thought was one of the better implementations of the D20 rules system. It was more streamlined than D&D3.5 (and less powers-based than D&D4e) and fit the cinematic feel of George Lucas' space opera, at least for me. I've...

I've said before on EnWorld's message boards that I like the idea of a retro, stripped-down D&D4e. I'd keep the lack of Race/Class/Level restrictions and the D20 rolling system rather than go completely back to OD&D/AD&D's THAC0. I myself prefer the woodsy Elf to the planar Eladrin, but...

RPGs I'd take to a deserted island The five role-playing games I'd choose if I had to be stranded on an island would be: -Dungeons & Dragons (a tossup between D&D3.x/D20 and D&D4e) -Mutants & Masterminds, 2nd Ed. -Star Wars: Saga Edition -True20 -GURPS 4th Ed. Of course, it would be even...