12 RPGs every gamer should play before they die

[subplotkudzu]

I don’t normally meme, but this one caught my attention. I normally GM, so my focus is there.

1)      Dungeons and Dragons: some flavor of this, though my inclinations are for 3E or the Basic Set for opposite ends of complexity. It’s the grandfather of gaming and should be experienced if only for that reason, but it’s also capable of delivering some cracking good games along with BF Skinner-influenced character growth that can be a game all its own.

2)      Villains and Vigilantes: because everyone needs a chance to play themselves with super powers, and everyone needs to see that characters can have different power levels (an aspect of the random power generation charts) while still contributing equally to play.

3)      James Bond 007: because the default structure of one player with a highly skilled PC rather than a party will show you why you don’t need parties, and therefore highlight why you do. Plus, the system is a great example of how focusing just as much time and effort on things that matter to a Bond story (car chases, seducing people, gambling) as it does on combat keeps combat from becoming as dominant as it is in other systems.

4)      Pendragon: because, like James Bond, it is a wonderful emulation of the source material, it is a combat game where the combat is fast and simple, and because the rules for personality traits show you where surrendering your character to the dice can be a good thing.

5)      Amber Diceless Roleplaying: because as a GM Amber really forces you to think about challenges, character power levels, inter-party rivalry, sharing authorial control, spotlight time and parallel plotting without having any external crutch (read, dice) to fall back on for your decisions. This one should be later in the list, because running Amber is a masters’ course in GMing.

6)      Call of Cthulhu: because you need to have the heroic paradigm inverted, playing in a world where the spoils of victory are alienation and madness but that the fight has to be fought anyway. And because it will teach you how to plot an investigative mystery, which is very useful in almost any other game.

7)      Paranoia: because sometimes all the normal rules of play – that you have a chance of winning, that the world is fair, that the party is working together – need to get tossed out the window and followed with an array of blaster fire. And because there is just nothing else like it out there.

8)      Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG: because there is no better system for a powerful titular hero with a circle of assistants; because it is a spot on emulation of the source material that is translatable to much other pulp and heroic fiction, because it builds on the lessons taught in V&V about not mixing power with effectiveness by showing you how to use those for story arcs and character growth.

9)      Star Trek (Decipher edition): because it remembers that serial fiction is as much a vehicle for drama as it is action stories, because it teach you how to build such tightly constructed stories in ways that still don’t railroad your players and because it has a kicking cool space combat system that keeps every player involved (even if the person to person combat system needs real work).

10)   Feng Shui: because sometimes you just need to kick ass, with no western style genre guarantees that you won’t die in the process. And because it has solid guidelines action movie game construction, moving the PCs from set piece fight to set piece fight while making the whole greater than the sum of its parts.

11)   Any PBEM: I’ll echo mylescororan here – because you need to learn that there are other valid media for gaming, with their own quirks and charms

12)   Any LARP: again, because you need to experience another style of play, at least once.

At least, that's my opinion

Comments

[avram]

I think I've played eight out of your first ten, but I need to brag here: In two cases, I played them in playtest, before they were released.

How different is Decipher's Star Trek from its FASA and Last Unicorn predecessors? Both of the earlier systems also had starship combat mechanics that got the whole bridge crew involved, and I'm hoping that Decipher doesn't do too much better a job, because I'm mining the LUG version for a Risus-based Star Trek game, and I'm trying to avoid the temptation to buy another damn rulebook.

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

Brag away. I have no qualms about name dropping my presence on playtest groups, so why should you?

Decipher's version is very different from FASA. However, the design team from LUG jumped over to Decipher when Wizards bought LUG, so there is a lot of similarity between LUG and Decipher's versions.

The Decipher version of starship combat is different. Decipher doesn't have power allocation, but instead the ship can make 2 ship maneuvers per turn, which are selected off a standard list with set difficulty numbers and occasional prereq moves. It's oddly reminiscent of Dawn Patrol or other old school plane to plane battles, but without a map - everything is done narratively and on a rather loose 'distance track'.

Characters who aren't needed to make rolls for the maneuvers (usually limited to command, helm and tactical) can take other actions - scanning the enemy, reparing the ship, trying to get a transporter lock and so on are not ship maneuvers.

This worked well in play. My players all had 2 PCs, and in a ship fight everyone had a character they could focus on (Ashacat played both the captain and the doctor, so the doctor would fade into the background) and have something to do. Kriz1818, focusing on her Science Officer, probably had the fewest number of options but she was still engaged.

[avram]

That distinction between "ship maneuvers" and other stuff nicely formalizes the vague notions I'd been stumbling towards. Thanks. It sound like I can probably just work off the LUG book.

I don't think I want my players to each be playing two bridge crew; too much likelihood of one player having to support both sides of the same conversation, which I found to be awkward when it happened in Lisa's CthulhuPunk game.

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

I found it to be very useful, if onyl because it kept everyone from sending every character down on every away team. Our breakdown was

Captain/Doctor
First officer (Tactical officer)/Engineering Lieutenant
Science Officer/Civlian Anthropologist (the game had an anthro/hist theme)
Betazed Ambassador/Helm Ensign
Security Chief/Engineering Lieutenant (who became chief engineer at the end of his first season in play).

This gave a broad skill set and didn't often lead to people talking to themselves. The usual away team had the first officer and the doctor, with the other characters being filtered in based on the situation - the captain wasn't always beaming down to the surface.

[avram]

Hmm. Maybe I'll start with everyone having one character, and then let them make second characters after they've decided that they're missing out on something with the first.

Also, looking over your USS Carter posts, I'm seeing references to a Hook, Pinch 1, Midpoint, etc. Are these terms from a section on scenario design from the Decipher RPG?

[avram]

Or (having just done some googling) should I just read some Syd Field?

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

You could do that. One reason I like the Decipher rulebook is that the GM advice is designed to let you build game sessions that feel like Trek episode screenplays. That means the three act model and the use of hooks, pinches and plot turns. I found it works really well, and that the USS Carter games reflect that. (the write ups from the first season, from a Player perspective, are at http://www.houseofhum.com/stephen/fun/star_trek/)

If you end up deciding to get the Decipher rules, you really only NEED the Narrator's Guide, as it has all the advice on episode and season design along with the star ship combat rules.