Road trip canceled on account of there being slightly less car than I last remembered. So, while that’s being fixed, let’s push on ahead with the challenge!
“But Tom,” you say, “you’re supposed to do these as the days come up in the calendar. If you do them now you’ll effectively be going into the future!”
“Pshaw!” I counter, as I put on my neon and wrap-around sunglasses. “Where we’re going, we don’t need roads! Trips. Roadstrips…. Shut up and get in the car.”
QUESTION THE ELEVENTH: Favourite RPG Writer
Easy one. Because I don’t think I’ve ever paid attention to the people who write the adventures I’ve played, I can only answer with the only name I actually remember. Me! I have written all of my favouritest games, and the ones my players talk about the most. Simply put, I am great and people should pay me to do this for a living.
QUESTION THE TWELEVFTH: Favourite RPG Illustration
Are you ready for this?
No seriously, are you f*****g ready for this?
This is out of the Whitewolf “Changing Breeds” book. Don’t ask my which edition. I can never keep track of Whitewolf’s editions. It was recent but wasn’t the Kickstarter one. Anyways, behold the picture that I keep pointing to whenever my friend who runs World of Darkness games asks what I want to play and am always told no to.
Weremoose
That’s a weremoose, kids.
QUESTION THE THIRTEENTH: Favourite RPG Podcast
This site. Duh.
But if I had to be more specific, because there are so many amazing groups on here that occasionally upload audio, I’d have to say I learn towards the Whartson Hall sub-channel. It’s easy listening, they’re usually shorter adventures, they play a lot of weird and unusual settings and games, and it’s always fun to listen to. I very much enjoy whatever group Hal and Lindsay are in, as well, and I’ve enjoyed Baggies and Pantless and so many others.
QUESTION THE FOURTEENTH: Favourite RPG Accessory
The Ribbon. It protects against all status ailments. If only there were enough for the entire party to wear, but if I Junction this Materia into the right Polarity slot then I can get a similar result.
I had to think about this one, actually. I don’t use a lot of physical components to my games because we usually play online. I also debated what could and could not be considered an accessory. Do my dice count? probably, but while I like them they’re hardly my favourite. I don’t have a set of any particular note. I don’t generally use screens or props. I would totally do costumes but what’s the point when we don’t meet in person or do webcams? So it has to be something digital, for me.
What are things that have been useful in that realm, then? I remembered really liking MapTools back when we played 4th ed and maps were necessary. But the moment I didn’t need it I stopped using it, so clearly not a favourite. Google Docs/Drive has been invaluable because it keeps all my notes accessible no matter where I go so I can always work on them. We’ve also built a number of spreadsheets to use as character sheets with macros and everything which I then copy and share with my players so I always have their characters on hand as well. Definitely the most useful tool I have. But favourite? Seventh Sactum and 20000 Names have helped my name countless characters, NPCs, towns, businesses, and farm animals.
However, I think I’ll reserve my actual plug for the site that I always recommend to my players, and that is Rolz.org. It’s a wonderful dice roller made by a single guy whose name starts with a U but I don’t remember the rest. It’s ad-free, he keeps updating it, and it has every feature I’ve ever wanted from an online dice roller aside from visual representations of rolling dice. He’s got a suite of macros you can use to make a roll for any system, no matter how convoluted, and even has private dice “rooms” your group can log in to so everyone can keep each other honest. Fantastic site.
QUESTION THE FIFTEENTH: Longest Campaign Played
I believe I talked about this in the last challenge but that’d be my Eberron campaign. We played it solidly for well over a year and have come back a few times at it since for short stints. It’s changed game systems a few times from its original DnD4e structure to Heroquest to Pathfinder to Mutants and Masterminds, which is where I am confident it will stay because it’s allowing a lot more freedom for both GM and players while still having the numbers we love to crunch so much. I’m currently working on reviving it once more because I’ve had this story I’ve wanted to finish in my head for nearly 6 years and I’m going to do it if it kills me! Which, considering my upcoming courseload in school, may just well happen.
QUESTION THE SIXTEENTH: Longest Game Session Played
I don’t remember which campaign it was but I do remember it was 4th edition. We played from 6 in the afternoon until 2 in the morning. I think we managed to have 3 whole combats! It was insane and I have never felt physically wiped out from roleplaying before or since that time. 6 hours seems to be my comfortable limit.
QUESTION THE SEVENTEENTH: Favourite Fantasy RPG
I love Dungeons and Dragons. Maybe that’s a failing of mine because I haven’t looked into other options but I can’t help it. I even love parts of editions I say I hate, like 4E and 4E’s worse knee-jerk reaction, Essentials. I love it despite the questionable business decisions of Wizards, the headaches of rules systems that often think they’re more clever and complete than they are, and the fact that it’s overplayed and generic. If I’m planning a fantasy game, chances are it’s in one of the DnD systems or possibly its spinoff which must now be considered its own thing, Pathfinder.
But.
If I had to say which was my absolute favourite? It’s not DnD. It’s a game we play in my group far less because it’s less dependable for the epic campaigns we enjoy on account of the characters not having a high life expectancy. However we’ve had more laughs, memorable moments, and unbelievable stories from just a few sessions of this game than we’ve had in months of play in others. I speak, of course, of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (2nd edition). God that game is fun. It’s rules are simple, its mechanics fit the theme of the world, and it makes me super happy every time we play.
QUESTION THE EIGHTEENTH: Favourite Science Fiction RPG
This is a tough one. We don’t play a lot of games in the scifi genre because I have trouble running them and the rest of my group runs games far more rarely than I do. I quite liked a star wars game I played in. It was a d20 edition, but there have been a number of Star Wars games so I couldn’t tell you which it was. I also adore, despite never having played them, randomized and super complicated character generaors like you find in Traveller – which I think is still the only game I’m aware of where you can actually die in character gen – or if you want to go completely insane the one from Cyberpunk v3.0. Because that shit is nuts.
QUESTION THE NINTEENTH: Favourite Supers RPG
I don’t think it’ll come as a surprise to anyone who’s followed my comments on this site that the answer is Mutants and Masterminds 2e. It’s versatile, easy to improvise with, and it handles overpowered character builds by allowing anyone to be broken and overpowered. I wrote a big thing about it somewhere else, so we’ll just move on.
QUESTION THE TWENTIETH: Favourite Horror RPG
Once again my experience limits my answers to an obvious choice but I feel no shame in saying that it is Cthulhu. I have dabbled in the World of Darkness, a bit, but Whitewolf’s games don’t inspire me like the eldritch terrors of Lovecraft inspired works. I don’t think I really need to go into the virtues of Cthulhu mythos or even the system (we play 6th edition, but it seems there haven’t been too many major changes between editions) to this crowd.
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Aside from the weremoose, this entry was actually pretty boring. Oh well, next tie I’ll work extra super hard to make it an extravaganza!
