Games that are fun, but need a one-in-a-million GM

[WizarDru]

I can't believe it - between Vaxalon, Undead Pete, Tarek, and Wanderingmonster, that's more people who have heard of Continuum than I've met in 6 months!

What am I, chopped liver? I actually bought Continuum when the designer talked me into it at the World SF Convention in Baltimore back in 1998. Never played it, but it's a great read.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

I'm going to throw Blue Planet out into the ring. I haven't read the second edition, but the first had a lot of unusal mechanics that mandated a strong GM.

For instance, characters could arbitrarily decide how much cyberware they had. That's great if you're all a buch of master role-players. But every group I've been has had at least one guy who showed up just for the combat ( ::cough:: usually me ::cough:: ).

Great, great setting though. I'll nominate it for "best earth science in gaming".

 

[Tsyr]

Yeah Tsyr, it's gonna be Hardcover, like the DB book. Then in Spring 2003 comes Abyssal, and in Fall 2003, Sidereals.

Oh come ON, why can't it be the other way 'round? Sidereals are cool and unique and really key figures, Abyssal are just evil mirror images of Solars...

 

[ranix65]

Because they want the Sidereals to be very mysterious which they think they'll accomplish by making their's the last book out. Also they want people to be able to use the Abyssals as something more than just "Dark Solars" they're gonna get a lot more than that ya know.

 

[The_Gneech]

I have to second The Prisoner. I ran a very short Prisoner campaign using the HERO System and it was much fun, but too hard to keep up. I had a 6-session story arc planned, but we only actually played the first three.

Those three sessions, tho, were very cool. The best session started with me handing two of the players a note:

"The entirety of this game session takes place only in (third player)'s mind. Instead of your own characters, you will be playing 'alternate' versions of them who are loyal to the masters of The Village. Reality is also changed in the following ways..."

The only P-V-P kill I've ever had in a game was this one, where the targeted player killed one of the others in an attempt to escape from The Village. At the end, when the targeted player "woke up," and I explained what had been going on, it messed with his head for a week.

Just exactly the sort of thing that The Prisoner is all about -- but it could only work with the right group!

-The Gneech <-- is not a number, he's a free man

 

[WizarDru]

I"The entirety of this game session takes place only in (third player)'s mind. Instead of your own characters, you will be playing 'alternate' versions of them who are loyal to the masters of The Village. Reality is also changed in the following ways..."

I salute you, sir. [golf clap] Well played...well played, indeed.[/golf clap]


And spot on for Mr. McGoohan's vision.

 

[Rel]

I've got a copy of the Mage rules (although I've never played) and whilst I think I can see where a great game would come from, I was a little baffled by what actually <i>happens</i> in a typical game!

I know this sounds stupid, but as a D&D/fantasy gamer (with occasional diversions into CoC and Fading Suns and convention gaming) I looked at Mage (and more recently Exalted) and wondered just what the heck a typical set up is.

The backgrounds and the worlds are supberb, really good, but I just wouldn't know where to start with an adventure.

Having run several Mage campaigns, I could give you a brief description of how I started each if you (or anyone else) would like.

 

[Teflon Billy]

...Have you ever actually played a tearjerking game of D&D?

No, I never have.

 

[Synicism]

OK, I happen to agree with a lot of the games that have been mentioned thus far.

I love Mage, but damn it is hard to run. The mechanics are easy enough, but in every game I've tried to play, the GM and one or more players had incompatible ideas of just how magic worked and it fell apart.

I never could get into changeling. To me it always struck me as a bunch of cute, furry types playing mass-make believe. I have been told that it can be otherwise, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Planescape is a hard setting to run. It is so complex and so multidimensional, your average D&D GM just can't do it. It can be hard to play because a lot of things out there are, well, a lot bigger than the PC's and may just eat them.

Also from the D&D front for "hard games to run" is Ravenloft. OK, it's easy to run. It's hard to terrify your players and instill the gut-wrenching feeling of horror. Mainly, I think, because quite frankly, it's too easy to lay waste to anything in one's path. It's hard to be scared when you're invincible.

GURPS Goblins is pretty unplayable. The whole book is some kind of "Modest Proposal" satire on Dickens' England, except that the whole world is populated by, well... goblins. It's really, really bizarre.

So far, the one game that I've found that really takes a one in a million GM to play is Little Fears (Key20 Games).

So far the company has only realased one print book, but damn. It dubs itself "the roleplaying game of childhood horror." It starts with a scary premise - that all the things you feard as a kid are quite real and after your soul, and that adults can't help you because they're totally incapable of perceiving the world as you do. Then throw in everything from werewolves to body snatchers to fallen faeries to totally human terrors like bullies, child abuse, kidnapping, and guns.

This is the one RPG I've played in years that really made me shiver.

 

[The_Gneech]

I salute you, sir. [golf clap] Well played...well played, indeed.[/golf clap]


And spot on for Mr. McGoohan's vision.

Well thanks! Really tho, it was the other two players who carried it off, dropping just enough hints without giving the whole game away. The targeted player had almost figured it out when he "woke up."

-The Gneech, experimental gamer