Aiee! Run From Kelvin's Brainsplurge!

Oh okay then, let's have a look.


I'm not going to do one a day; no one wants to see that. Let's bash through the whole lot in one fat hit.

Here we go!

1. What published rpg do you wish you were playing right now?

What, right this moment? I'm okay thanks. I like games but I don't want to be playing every moment of every day, like some sort of...

Oh.

I want to play Mutant Year Zero. It's been sitting in my reading pile for a year or so but I haven't got it to the table yet.

2. What is an rpg you would like to see published?

I may write a longer blog post about this but I think it's fascinating that computer rpg series like Final Fantasy spit out a complete ruleset and setting every couple of years and then move on; would anyone buy or play these games if they were released as tabletop rpgs? I would be interested, at least.

3. How do you find out about new rpgs?

I don't follow any news sites or anything like that, so I tend to pick up on new releases when people get excited about them on Google+.

4. Which rpg have you played the most since August 2016?

I am a sad loser and I have logged everything I've played and because these things are true I can tell you that it was the Frankenstein patchwork d100 game I used to run The Dracula Dossier. Thirteen sessions in all.

5. Which rpg cover best captures the spirit of the game?

That's a great question. I can think of lots of covers I like but do they capture the spirit of the game? Fifth edition Call of Cthulhu has a wonderful cover but I don't think it's indicative of how the game plays, as such.

Of the games I own, I'm going to go with the second edition of Shadowrun; it's not the best image in the world -- the composition is a bit flat and that drain is given so much prominence that you'd be forgiven for thinking it's a main character -- but does a great job of showing what the game is about.

6. You can game every day for a week. Describe what you'd do!

Assuming I've done all the preparation and I'm ready to go, I'd probably try out a bunch of games and play a different one each day. Maybe two a day, one after lunch and one after dinner.

I know. Rock and roll.

7. What was your most impactful rpg session?

"Impactful" is a horrible word. Eurgh. Stop it.

Anyway, probably the most influential -- much better, see? -- session was the first time I played Call of Cthulhu. I'd played other rpgs before that, and it was Shadowrun that probably got me hooked, but that first CoC session was a profound and enlightening experience.

8. What is a good rpg to play for sessions of 2hrs or less?

"2hrs"?

Good gravy.

(Mental note: stop being an arse.)

Anyway, two hours doesn't seem long enough to get going, once you've taken into account making the tea and moaning about what the Tories have done this week, but I'd go for something quick and easy, like Fighting Fantasy. I imagine you could rattle through a lot of content in two hours with that game.

9. What is a good rpg to play for about 10 sessions?

Most campaigns I run last about ten to twelve sessions, so the easy answer is "any of them" but that's not very helpful.

There's a suggestion in 13th Age to run a campaign in which everyone gains a level with each session and characters have ten levels in that, so you get this focussed and neat sort of "zero to hero" thing. I don't know if that means 13th Age is a good rpg to play for about ten sessions, but I'd like to give it a try some time.

10. Where do you go for rpg reviews?

Reviews from R'lyeh is good, as is tenfootpole. Ramanan Sivaranjan knows what he's talking about, and I will always pay attention to what Patrick Stuart or Zak Smithsabbath like, although our tastes can often vary.

11. Which "dead game" would you like to see reborn?

TSR's Saga System -- the one with the cards -- was ahead of its time and had a lot going for it, but died when TSR did. I'd love to see a new version.

12. Which rpg has the most inspiring interior art?

Death is the New Pink or Troika! because Jeremy Duncan is a genius. So are Jez Gordon and Zak Sabbathsmith, but I don't think there's a published rpg out that features their work. Yet.

(I also have some pictures in DitNP but if you're looking at my stuff instead of JD's then You Are Doing It Wrong.)

13. Describe a game experience that changed how you play.

I was going to blog about this. Maybe I did. I'm old and can't remember everything. Hrm. It was when I was running The Enemy Within II: The Enemy Within and the Temple of Doom and I noticed that WFRP2 sort of expects you to build non-player-characters according to the same rules as player-characters and I remember thinking "no, I'm just going to do what I like" and made up the statistics.

It's sort of obvious and everyone else has probably been doing it for years but it had never occurred to me before and now I do it all the time.

14. Which rpg do you prefer for open-ended campaign play?

I'm not sure how to answer this one because every open-ended game I've played has fallen apart at some point. I would imagine that the best sort of rpg for this kind of campaign would be something where characters don't change much in terms of power level; perhaps something like basic D&D, the Chaosium d100 rules, or Traveller.

15. Which rpg do you enjoy adapting the most?

I don't understand the question. Is this asking if I enjoy hacking games? If so, then I don't do it often because if I have to change a ruleset in order to run something then there's a good chance that there's already a different ruleset that's better suited to what I want to do.

That said, I am a big fan of the Chaosium d100 rules and I find them easy to tweak and modify, so maybe that's my answer.

16. Which rpg do you enjoy using as is?

See above. I'll drop rules if they make no sense or slow things down but for the most part I'm not much of a hacker. Fighting Fantasy and WFRP2 are both games that I run without changing much, if anything.

17. Which rpg have you owned the longest but not played?

Probably Lacuna Part 1: The Creation of the Mystery and the Girl from Blue City. I've had it since 2009 and I've never got around to playing it. I find it interesting and I'm excited to play it but I also find it a bit intimidating and all I can imagine is making a right mess of running it.

18. Which rpg have you played most in your life?

Ooh, crikey. I've played a lot of Pathfinder in recent years, and I played a stupid amount of Shadowrun when I was but a wee sprogling, but I reckon it's probably Call of Cthulhu. I've run three big-ish campaigns and have played double figure one-shots.

It may be Pathfinder because that takes ages to play, but I don't like it nearly as much as I like adore Call of Cthulhu and I would be sad if I have played it more often.

19. Which rpg features the best writing?

Small but Vicious Dog.

20. What is the best source for out of print rpgs?

I get mine from eBay because all the shops that used to sell ancient rpg books have closed down around here.

In the brief time during which I lived in Minnesota, the local Half Price Books was like a treasure trove of old rpg stuff, but I wasn't gaming at the time so I didn't pick anything up. Tsk.

21. Which rpg does the most with the least words?

Probably one of these twenty-four hour games or two-hundred word rpgs but I don't think I've read any of them.

Troika! is quite lean but also good. Let's go with that.

22. Which rpgs are the easiest for you to run?

I have no patience for fiddly games any more so I only run games that are easy to run. This is one reason I like 13th Age; for the players it's like AD&D in terms of complexity and options but for the GM it's more like Basic D&D.

The easiest for me is probably Call of Cthulhu because the d100 system is super simple to use, and almost everything is on the character sheet.

Then they ruined it by Pathfindering the seventh edition but I've already moaned about that.

23. Which rpg has the most jaw-dropping layout?

Rifts.

Oh, did you mean jaw-dropping in a good way?

24. Share a PWYW publisher that should be charging more.

I don't know of any PWYW publishers off the top of my head. Lamentations of the Flame Princess sometimes does it but it seems to work for James, so what do I know?

25. What is the best way to thank your GM?

I think it depends on the GM. I always appreciate it when the players tell me they enjoyed the game and would like to play more.

Alas, they tend to tell me this either (a) after the final session of the campaign, or (b) years after the game dribbled away into nothing because of -- I thought -- a lack of interest.

Fist-shaking bitterness and tearful self-doubt aside, it never hurts to just say "thank you, I had fun".

26. Which rpg provides the most useful resources?

What?

Does this mean the core rules, or anything published for it?

I use the d1000 mutation tables from Realms of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness whenever I can, but that's not an rpg.

27. What are your essential tools for good gaming?

Whahuh? These are getting vague and weird now.

A game and some people to play it. Anything else is optional. I mean, it doesn't even have to be a good game as long as you have good people.

I keep thinking of when I played Mutant Chronicles when I was seventeen and it was terrible so we drank whisky as we played and I was sick in a bush.

28. What film/series is the biggest source of quotes for your group?

We don't do quotes. Stupid comedy accents, on the other hand, we do a lot. Comedy German is a popular one.

(Sorry, Germany.)

29. What has been the best-run rpg Kickstarter that you have backed?

The standard for rpg Kickstarters seems to be set so low that "deliver what was promised and on time" is considered some sort of achievement, rather than basic competence. That said, the Mutant Year Zero people know what they are doing and the Hubris Kickstarter was run well.

30. What is an rpg genre-mashup you would most like to see?

I'm not a singer as I lack both the ability and the confidence, and it would probably be insufferable torture to watch in action, like a thousand Frozen Youtube videos in one, but I reckon there's potential in an rpg in which singing is used as some sort of resolution mechanic.

31. What do you anticipate most for gaming in 2018?

That's a bit odd. Why not "the next twelve months" so it ties in with the next time everyone does this?

(Mental note: remember the first mental note.)

Anyway, the thing I'm most excited about is that there will be not one but two new editions of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay coming out soon. One will be based on the first and second editions and the other will be based on the absurd high fantasy of Age of Sigmar; I'm keen to see both. I have no idea if they will be out in 2018 but let's say they will be just to end this on a positive note.

I didn't get involved in the February Dungeons and Dragons blog event meme thing because I didn't want to clog up the blog -- blogclog? -- with half-hearted recollections of a game with which I have little connection. Then someone pointed out Tedenkhamen's non-D&D version and so here we are.

You're getting it in one big chunk because I don't think you need me wittering on at you every day for a month.

1 What was the first roleplaying game other than D&D you played? Was it before or after you had played D&D? 

The first role-playing game I played was the multiplayer version of Fighting Fantasy. I remember my friend Gareth introducing me to the book and I think we ran through a fight using the rules but I don't know if we got any further than that. I didn't play Dungeons and Dragons for the first time until a good five or six years after that, although I was aware of the game.

2 In what system was the first character you played in an RPG other than D&D? How was playing it different from playing a D&D character?

I'm pretty sure we used the sample characters from the example of play -- Armstrong, Bigneck and Crystal -- in that first FF not-game so I'm not sure that counts. If not then the first character I created would have been Mister Majeika, an ork street samurai in Shadowrun. At the time I still hadn't played D&D but Majeika was an ork on a motorbike and he had a submachine gun so I like to think that I had some sort of nascent awareness of the differences.

3 Which game had the least or most enjoyable character generation?

I did not like Traveller: The New Era at all but I enjoyed the way characters entered the game complete with this little biography telling the player where they'd been and what they'd done. I haven't played any other versions of Traveller -- not because TNE put me off but because no one I know plays it -- but I understand that they all take a similar approach.

4 What other roleplaying author besides Gygax impressed you with their writing?

I'm not that impressed with Gygax's writing to be honest but perhaps I've not read enough of the classics to appreciate his prose. +Chris Hogan's Small But Vicious Dog is a delight to read and I'd love to see more role-playing books follow his lead and move away from the technical manual style that seems to dominate the hobby.

5 What other old school game should have become as big as D&D but didn’t? Why do you think so?

This is a tricky one but given the fact that Star Wars turned up at around the same time as the role-playing hobby was taking off I'm surprised that Traveller didn't become more popular. It is popular, I know that, but it seems like it should have been able to capitalise somehow on Star Wars and so rival D&D in popularity.

6 What non-D&D monster do you think is as iconic as D&D ones like hook horrors or flumphs, and why do you think so?

It may be a bit of a cheat but I'm going with Cthulhu and I'd say he's more iconic than most D&D monsters. More so than the flumph anyway.

7 What fantasy RPG other than D&D have you enjoyed most? Why?

I love Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. I like the simplicity of the system and the wonderful career-based character development, but it's the sense of humour that I like the most. I know a lot of people consider it to be dark fantasy or even horror but I see it as a comedic game, sort of Blackadder does D&D.

8 What spy RPG have you enjoyed most? Give details. 

I haven't played any spy games, at least not in the strictest sense. I enjoyed aspects of the first edition of Conspiracy X but I'm not sure that counts. Cold City and Hot War are excellent games that both involve espionage to a certain extent but I don't think they could be called spy games either. I really want to play Night's Black Agents.

9 What superhero RPG have you enjoyed most? Why?

My superhero gaming experience consists of one session of the 1980's Marvel rpg so I suppose by default that's my answer. In fairness it was good fun; I played Death's Head in a team with Deadpool, Cable, and the Human Torch and we nuked St. Petersburg. It was an accident. Sort of.

10 What science fiction RPG have you enjoyed most? Give details.

I enjoyed running Rogue Trader even if the campaign spluttered to a halt. I had great fun playing Shadowrun in my teens -- see 2 -- if the presence of magic, elves, and dragons doesn't discount it. That said, Rogue Trader has elves, orcs, and magic too.

11 What post-apocalyptic RPG have you enjoyed most? Why?

I know it's one of the classic genres but I don't think I've ever played a post-apocalyptic role-playing game. I did play Twilight 2000 a couple of times but the GM was using the rules to run an X-Files pastiche so that probably doesn't count.

12 What humorous RPG have you enjoyed most? Give details.

See 7.

13 What horror RPG have you enjoyed most? Why?

I love Call of Cthulhu more than any other role-playing game. I first played it some time after being introduced to Shadowrun and Star Wars and it was so different; we were playing normal people with no special abilities -- beyond an aptitude for accounting or natural history -- investigating a haunted house. It opened my eyes to the possibilities of the hobby and to this day it's the only game that's scared me and the only game with which I've scared players. I also consider it to be one of the most heroic rpgs; you play librarians pitting themselves against nigh-omnipotent alien space gods that they cannot hope to defeat but they try anyway.

14 What historical or cultural RPG have you enjoyed most? Give details.

I can't say that I've played any such game. Call of Cthulhu is historical but the alien space gods probably disqualify it.

15 What pseudo or alternate history RPG have you enjoyed most? Why?

Again, I'm not sure I've played one of these unless Call of Cthulhu counts. This exercise is making it look like I've only ever played about five games in my entire life.

16 Which RPG besides D&D has the best magic system? Give details.

I wouldn't say D&D has a good magic system, let alone "the best" but that's not an answer. I like the way that magic in WFRP2 is so unpredictable and even the smallest spell has a chance of going wrong and causing a mutation or summoning a major daemon; it's also a nice simple spellcasting system based on rolling a small pool of dice and adding up the numbers. Easy.

My favourite magic system though is probably that of Shadowrun circa the second edition. I like the little details; spellcasting is limited by the caster's toughness and so a mage can be exhausted or even killed if she pushes herself too far.; spells leave a trace in the astral plane so can be tracked back to their casters; urban shamans can conjure spirits made out of rubbish; it's packed full of fun ideas but they've all been thought out and make sense within the context, or as much as magic can make sense anyway.

17 Which RPG has the best high tech rules? Why?

Technology in rpgs tends to translate to "stuff to buy" in my experience and I don't really care about equipment lists. I will say that if a game has construction rules -- for starships, vehicles, robots, and so on -- then it has an above average chance of winning me over.

18 What is the crunchiest RPG you have played? Was it enjoyable?

Traveller: The New Era had rules for calculating the effect the gravity of various planets would have on the range and damage of bullets fired upon said planets. An admirable attention to detail but in no way enjoyable.

19 What is the fluffiest RPG you have played? Was it enjoyable?

I assume this means the rpg with the most setting and fewest rules. Fighting Fantasy uses 2d6 for everything and has a wealth of setting information if you count the fifty-odd gamebooks. Was it enjoyable? Read on, Macduff.

20 Which setting have you enjoyed most? Why?

This is tricky. My favourite rpgs each have their own settings -- Call of Cthulhu has umpteen -- but I can't say that I have any particular attachment to them divorced from their associated rulesets. That said, Cthulhu Invictus is amazing but who doesn't like Romans?



If I do have a favourite setting then it is probably Titan, the world of the Fighting Fantasy books; I haven't played a game set in Jackson and Livingstone's jumbled patchwork world in many years now, but I spent many happy hours bashing GOBLINS there and I'd love to return one day.

21 What is the narrowest genre RPG you have ever played? How was it?

I'm not sure what this question is getting at. What's a narrow genre? I suppose it's referring to something like Pendragon where you all play male, English knights in Arthurian Britain and there's not a lot of wiggle room; the game doesn't support Sir Cedric of Slough going dungeon crawling or getting in a boat and sailing off to discover America, or of being Lady Cedric instead.

If that is what the question is getting at then Pendragon -- despite its narrow focus, or perhaps because of it -- is an excellent game and is in my top five rpgs.

22 What is the most gonzo kitchen sink RPG you ever played? How was it?

One of my great regrets is that I've never played Rifts, a game which must be near the pinnacle of gonzo gaming. I have played Feng Shui though, and that's not only bonkers but also a great deal of fun.

23 What is the most broken game that you tried and were unable to play?

I recall trying to play the Mutant Chronicles rpg once. We gave up and drank cheap whiskey instead.

24 What is the most broken game that you tried and loved to play, warts and all?

It is clear that the first edition of Advanced Fighting Fantasy had almost no playtesting whatsoever but even so I remember running and playing a long campaign using the rules that was bonkers and brilliant and only stopped when the rules couldn't support it any more.

25 Which game has the sleekest, most modern engine?

I think this may be two questions masquerading as one. I find Chaosium's d100 system to be quite sleek as it's intuitive and light and gets out of the way but it also originates in the late 1970's so is not in any way modern.

26 What IP (=Intellectual Property, be it book, movie or comic) that doesn’t have an RPG deserves it? Why?

I am astounded -- astounded, I say -- that there isn't a series of Final Fantasy tabletop rpgs. It seems like such an obvious thing to do. I'm no fan of the franchise but I'm also surprised that there's no Harry Potter game.

27 What RPG based on an IP did you enjoy most? Give details.

See 7.

28 What free RPG did you enjoy most? Give details.

I don't think I've played a free rpg. I've got a few and they're stacked on the shelf ready to be played but the opportunity has never arisen. When it does I'd like to give Lady Blackbird a try.

29 What OSR product have you enjoyed most? Explain how.

This is an odd question. I'm not supposed to be talking about D&D in these answers -- it's the whole point of the exercise after all -- but the OSR is dominated by D&D so I'm not sure what to say here. If people in the OSR are producing swathes of material for WFRP, Shadowrun, Call of Cthulhu, and Pendragon, they haven't told me, the blackguards.

30 Which non-D&D supplemental product should everyone know about? Give details.

I really want to say Vornheim here because it's one of the most useful and innovative rpg products I've ever seen but it is sort of D&D focused. Instead I will go for the d1000 random mutation tables from either the old Realms of Chaos books or the more recent Tome of Corruption; both are for Warhammer but can be used with any game with just a bit of work and they're so much fun to use.

31 What out-of-print RPG would you most like to see back in publication? Why?

This is perhaps a bit of a cheat as it's D&D-derived but Dragonlance: Fifth Age was a fun and promising game that got sucked into the demise of TSR and I would love to see a new edition with the Dragonlance stuff left behind.

Zak's latest idea looks useful, so here goes.

I'm currently running (at home): The Enemy Within for third edition Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, only I'm running it in the second edition. You can read session summaries here.

Tabletop RPGs I'm currently playing (at home) include: Nothing; we just finished a big Pathfinder campaign and we only meet once a week so I'm not playing anything right now. Once The Enemy Within is done I'll get to play for a bit again.

I'm currently running (online): Nothing. There was a plan to run some Rogue Trader on G+ but I ran out of time and courage.

Tabletop RPGs I'm currently playing (online) include: Nothing. I haven't played online in ages. I'd love to get back into it.

I would especially like to play: 13th Age; I bought it ages ago but haven't had a chance to play it yet.

...but would also try: Almost anything.

I live in: Brighton, on England's sometimes-sunny coast.

2 or 3 well-known RPG products other people made that I like: The AD&D2 Monstrous Manual, Vornheim, pre-100 White Dwarf.

2 or 3 novels I like: Dracula, The War of the Worlds, Wuthering Heights. I need to read some more recent books.

2 or 3 movies I like: Halloween, My Neighbour Totoro, Princess Mononoke.

Best place to find me on-line: Here most of the time or Google+ on occasion.

I will read almost anything on tabletop RPGs if it's: got at least one good idea.

I really do not want to hear about: how rule system X is the best rule system ever and is perfect for anything and all other rules systems are inferior in every possible way.

I think dead orc babies are: a good indication that some angry orc parents are coming your way soon.

Games I'm in are like: a cultural cliché. We drink a lot of tea.

Free RPG Content I made is available here: under the stuff you can use tag on this blog or under the same tag on my older blog. I also wrote two One Page Dungeon winners.

You can buy RPG stuff I made here: I did the art for Death Love Doom and some of the art in The B/X Companion and The Complete B/X Adventurer and a few of the later issues of Fight On! but everything I've written is so far available for free.