In alphabetical
order:
- 1%er: The Outlaw Motorcycle Game
- Belly of the Beast (Playtest Version)
- Dungeon World
- Godbound: A Game of Divine Heroes
- Golden Sky Stories
- High Strung
- ICONS Assembled
- InSpectres
- Lovecraft Academy (Playtest Version)
- Masks
- Monster of the Week
- Ninja Burger
- Rolemaster
- The Shab al-Hiri Roach at Hogwarts
- The Sprawl
- Swords Without Master
- Touch of Evil (Playtest Version)
- Tweaks
- Urban Shadows
- World Wide Wrestling: The Roleplaying Game
- The Yellow King RPG (Playtest Version)
I had a character concept I thought fit with the setting.
But I hadn’t listened well or really thought about the set-up. My guy ended up
being incredibly difficult for the GM to hook in and I did no favors with my
play. I had a lot of backstory in my head I didn’t get to the table, so I
seemed more off than interesting. We fixed that for the second session, but I
still feel crappy about that first one.
Game Which Made Me
Immediately Order the Hard Cover
I don’t know what I thought this’d be when I agreed to
play. Maybe fantasy OSR with a couple of additional feats? Instead our
characters had the awesome right out of the gate. Not in a power-gamer way, but
more play at a different scale. It gave me most of what I wanted Exalted to be. The book itself
compounded that. It has great material and amazing campaign generation tools. I
hadn’t checked out Kevin Crawford’s work before. Godbound’s the pinnacle, but it got me to look at Scarlet Heroes, Stars Without Number, and eventually Silent Legions. Godbound’s
great and if nothing else, you should download the free copy.
Game Where I Used
the X-Card
Rich offhandedly said they used teeth for currency. Nope.
Welcome to my nightmares.
I dug this game about garage bands trying to make good. In particular I liked my character. We had a pushy player in session one, but I finally got some serious spotlight in session two. It took us a long time to grok the mechanics, and even by the end I don’t think we had it completely right. I’d like to go back and maybe tweak this to how I had it in my head. A travelling band game’s one of my “White Whale” RPGs.
Game That Left Me
Hungriest for More
Touch of Evil
This collaborative horror rpg has a weird and wonderful
scene-framing structure. You move through stages with different structural
effects and limitations in each. The designer said it needed several sessions to
work. I can see that. You move along a road with branching choices. We only
managed the first several steps.
Game I Thought I’d
Hate, but Then Dug
I’ve no desire to watch Sons of Anarchy. It has no appeal; the romanticizing bugs me. Even
if things go bad for the characters, it offers more gloss than cautionary tale.
But that’s my own hang up and tastes. I signed up for this because I wanted to
play more Gauntlet City Limits (see
below). Despite my reservations, I enjoyed both sessions. I loved the other
players’ choices and moves. It had a great PC dynamic, but beyond that the
system clicked. That surprised me.
Game Which Ended
Up Being Very Different Than I Expected
When I read The
Sprawl, I got in my head a vision of a highly abstract mission game. Any particular
scene resolved with a single roll. An operation would be a series of narrated
obstacles. A single check settled any combat. Don’t ask me why I thought that. When
we actually sat down to play I had a moment of cognitive dissonance. The Sprawl is abstract, in the
PbtA mode. But it isn’t like- I don’t know- Kingdom
or something. I enjoyed the sessions but it weirded me out a little. How could
I so misread based on expectations. I went back and found that yes, The Sprawl is more granular than my
imagined version. I want to run it now so I can see exactly how it works under
the hood.
Rolemaster
Let me tell you about my character. [insert long-winded
description]. And then I rolled open-ended twice on the Large Creature Critical
Table in the Magic Weapon Column. I got a 250+ and blew the giant sorcerous
lobster apart!
Game with Best
Action Sequence
I can’t really do it justice. But essentially our stealth
food-delivery agents got called in to drop off an order in the middle of Die Hard. Awesome office-themed carnage.
Game That Wasn’t
My Cup of Tea
Not sure exactly why. We had a couple of players I enjoyed
and would play with again. But we also had one who kind of didn’t get it. And
had the X-Card been on the table, I would have hit it a couple of times. The
play felt fitful; stops and starts that didn’t hold together for me. I know
many smart people dig this so I want to give it another try. Does my reaction
come more from that session or the game itself?
Game with Most
Engaged and Active Play
I played this at GoD Gen Con. Every moment I felt energized
and excited to see what came next. Great group who did a superb job of playing
off one another. I hope I gave a good impression of myself. I had such a good
time I fear I jumped in too often. But that may be my usual social anxiety.
Anyway, a fun game with a satisfying story arc.
I’d been wanting to try this out, but I hadn’t looked
closely at what you actually did in play. Our role as animal spirits in a rural
Japanese town surprised me. As did the conflict resolution approach. But the
session sucked me in. We had an enthusiastic GM who kept things moving. It
offered a great last game before we headed out from Origins on that Sunday. I’m
still thinking about how to do a Harvest
Moon hack for this.
Bonus: Cool Idea
Gauntlet City Limits
Rich Rogers created a “shared universe” city for his
Tuesday night online games for The Gauntlet. Players in any session make up a
neighborhood, building it up piece by piece. He’s run a bunch of games in this
setting: ICONS, InSpectres, Don’t Rest Your
Head, Cat, and more. It’s a smart
approach that makes use of the medium. You have an episodic structure where
players can drop in and out. But there’s a reward for those who play several
games. They pick up on the references and connections. They can also bring in
elements of their created neighborhood. A good thing that he’s continuing in
2017.
Any awesome, ambiguous, or absurd games you played in
2016?
