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Month: August 2015

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#RPGaDAY2015 Day 31 Favourite Non-RPG Thing To Come Out of RPGs

Wow. This is going to take a bit of actual thinking, at which I believe this month has shown I suck.

Okay, I’m going to cheat and say RPG games in computers. It’s no surprise that I love both Fallout: New Vegas and the Borderlands series. These both have the excitement of a shooter like Call of Duty, but inject it with RPG elements – Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas are basically first person RPGs. It’s a cheat because it’s still an RPG, but adding the computer game element to it changes it in my mind.

And the worst? The D&D movie.

#RPGaDAY2015 is the brainchild of game designer Dave Chapman. Basically, each day in August there is a question about RPGs.

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#RPGaDAY2015 Day 29 Favourite RPG Website/Blog

I don’t really patronize a lot of websites or blogs per se. Those that I do, I use RSS to read. To be honest, even those that I do have in my feed, I very rarely read.

The one website that does touch on RPG stuff – though it’s more of a straight up geek site – is Hero Press. It’s generally bite-sized chunks of information, pieces of geek interest. Tim Knight, the guy who runs it, seems like a very stand-up dude from the slight interaction I’ve had with him.

But to be honest, the website I use the most in regards to RPGs is Google Plus. I don’t really use Twitter any longer because all the RPG people seem to be at G+, and G+ has a lot more options for cool comms than Twitter.


#RPGaDAY2015 is the brainchild of game designer Dave Chapman. Basically, each day in August there is a question about RPGs.

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#RPGaDAY2015 Day 28 Favourite Game You No Longer Play

You get a twofer.

If it’s a system, I guess it would be Old School Hack. I don’t think we explored that enough. Mostly because of my own game design fever and forcing my crew to playtest all my stuff.

If it’s a campaign, I’d go with our old Middle Earth campaign. It was truly epic with just crazy plots and subplots, lots of memorable characters, and it was Middle MF Earth!


#RPGaDAY2015 is the brainchild of game designer Dave Chapman. Basically, each day in August there is a question about RPGs.

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#RPGaDAY2015 Day 27 Favourite Mash-up

Okay, the actual topic is favourite idea for merging two games into one. I’m taking that to mean mashup, but could it also mean you have two games running and you want to merge them into one campaign?

Meh. I’m going with mashup. Not that it helps. Once again, can I just say Sword Noir (hardboiled sword & sorcery)? How about Nefertiti Overdrive (ancient Egypt and kung fu)?

I honestly can’t think of a mashup in RPGs that I have played, at least not one that left a big impression. Expedition to the Barrier Peaks maybe? Or Ravenloft? Those were cool, but it’s not like they made a big impression on me. They were adventures I went through or ran that were interesting, but left behind once we were done.

There was one very short campaign in university in which we played super-powered assassins. We were superheroes in powers, but were government assassins. I guess that’s as close to a mashup as I can recall that made a significant impact on me – as in I loved it.


#RPGaDAY2015 is the brainchild of game designer Dave Chapman. Basically, each day in August there is a question about RPGs.

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#RPGaDAY2015 Day 26 Favourite Inspiration for your Game

That’s actually pretty easy. As the guy who has run games set in the Viking age, the Roman Empire, and 25th Dynasty Egypt, history is my favourite inspiration. Even for games that are not historical – like our epic Middle Earth campaign – huge amounts of it are informed by history, be that events, personages, or culture.

History, muthafugga. Dig it.


#RPGaDAY2015 is the brainchild of game designer Dave Chapman. Basically, each day in August there is a question about RPGs.

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Gen Con Wrap-Up: Final Thoughts

So, Gen Con 2015 . . . what more can I say?

Listen, I love Gen Con. I really, really hope that I will get a chance to go again. There are always highlights and I get to meet friends that usually I can only wave to virtually.

And gaming, gaming, gaming.

But this time I learned not to overextend myself.

Do I want to do more interviews/demo more games next time? Of course.

Do I want to run more games next time? Of course.

Do I want to hang out with my friends, sometimes later than is rational or healthy? Absolutely.

If I learned a lesson this time, it is restraint. Don’t try to frontload everything. Don’t run more than two games in a day. Plan lots of down time. And if I’m feeling tired or run down but don’t want (or can’t) get back to the hotel, head to the Quiet Room.

Changes in my real life mean I might not be able to make it back next year or maybe not even in 2017, but I plan to return – whenever I can. My budget for Gen Con is about $1,000 USD (which is $1,250 CAD) which is a lot, but whenever I can afford to go and have the time to do so? You’ll be seeing me at Gen Con.

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#RPGaDAY2015 Day 24 Favourite House Rule

Can I just say Sword Noir? No?

Back when I was playing d20, my favourite house rule wasn’t one of my own, it was Kenneth S. Hood’s Grim ‘N’ Gritty Combat Rules. Originally, these were available for free, but they got so popular, Mr. Hood (or someone representing him) put them up for purchase. That makes total sense to me.

I wrote a review of the free version back in my free e-zine days. You can find that here.


#RPGaDAY2015 is the brainchild of game designer Dave Chapman. Basically, each day in August there is a question about RPGs.

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#RPGaDAY2015 Day 23 Perfect Game for You

I’m going to interpret this as asking for a kind of Platonic ideal game, as we’ve already talked about favourite games.

The perfect game for me would be a simple system (no more than 20 pages of rules, total) with abstract measurements for your characters, and a single mechanic that addresses any kind of conflict resolution. I don’t want to be rolling too many dice, but I definitely want dice to be rolled. Give the player plenty of narrative input and make creating mechanical obstacles so easy the GM can do it on the fly with a minimum of brain power.

This is the game I am always trying to design. This is the game I always want to play.
#RPGaDAY2015 is the brainchild of game designer Dave Chapman. Basically, each day in August there is a question about RPGs.