#RPGaDay #FavoriteLicensed#Game

Hands down, it's Star Wars. I refer the out of print West End Games version.

I have run this as a run and gun game, a pick up game, a campaign, and a game of mostly Jedi characters. I think it does a great job of emulating the universe.

My friend Wojo ran a campaign that ended with the player's characters taking on the roles of leaders at the Battle of Endor, as the movies characters were incapacitated.

Second choice would be Buffy, for all of the opportunities she gave Eden Studios and myself.

#RPGaDay #RPGWillStillPlayin20Years

Do you honestly have to ask? It's All Flesh Must Be Eaten. I own all the books, have most of the rules memorized, and who doesn't love killing and being killed by zombies? It's a past time around here!

I could also see some WEG Star Wars being played, as well. I have gone nearly a decade between running campaigns, so it could happen. 

Anything I haven't played in 20 years is highly unlikely to be picked up, again, today. I think that's all of D&D, AD&D, and 2nd ed AD&D.

#RPGaDay #FavoritePublishedAdventure

I have not run many published adventures. A few F20, a few Werewolf:  The Apocalypse, and demo games for AFMBE and Con X.

Out of all of those, James Wilber's "Dead Ops" from Eden Studios Presents #2 is my favorite. The story is a military op to rescue American scientists goes awry in South America, due to zombies. It's great fun and we use to keep track of how many characters die per convention. Jim even brought headstone stickers to put on his ZM Screen for each kill. 

Good times.

#FavoriteGameSystem #RPGaDay

This is another hard one for me. I ran 2nd ed Storyteller for years. I ran it long enough that I had my own tweaks to it and even layed out my own character creation booklet.

The other system I know and live to run is Unisystem. The system reminds me of a Storyteller - GURPS mashup. I've done a lot with it and I have tweaked it, as well. There are gaps in parts of the rules for the different magical beings, but what game doesn't have gaps.

I've recently tried out #GUMSHOE and #ActionCards! . Both are good systems, but they are too new to me. I've never been a fan of F20 rules, I can take or leave them.

I am going with #Unisystem for this one. I recently ran some nWoD and it just didn't do it for me.

#RPGaDay #FunniestGameYou'vePlayed

I have two that fit this category.

For games played at a convention, I have to go with Gregor Hutton's Best Friends. I have discussed it elsewhere and it is a crazy, silly game worth the price of admission.

For games played not at a convention, I have to go with Lowell Francis' Freakish Band of Adventurers campaign. The game was set in his 2nd continent fantasy setting using a homebrew system that was one part GURPs, one part BRP, one part RoleMaster with a heavy dose of Glorantha influence. The group was large, for me, 8 players at one point. I think I played the only straight human in the group. We had a half-demon, a cat person, a couple of elves, a dog person, a wizard of indeterminate heritage, and myself. The game was a disaster around every corner: we were constantly bumping into things, knocking plot points on their sides, releasing gods from imprisonment, and travelling to the moon to fight evil ratkin. We traversed the continent finding adventure and mayhem wherever we went. It ran for several years (3?) before being wrapped up. We lost a player due to him moving down to Indy at one point in the campaign.

I believe Lowell has some write ups on the game over at his blog, Age of Ravens.

#RPGaDay #GameYouWishedYouOwned

Pendragon 4th edition.

We may be doing a 5th edition game here in the near future, but I am curious to read through this one. It has material in it for expanding the cast of characters to include spell casters and a few other items not included in other editions. I looked for it at GenCon, but could not find it. I will just have to order it from an online store like Noble Knight Games.

#RPGaDay #FavoriteConventionGame

I am going with game to run at a convention with this one. Hands down, it's All Flesh Must Be Eaten. The players show up expecting to die and hoping they go out in a very cool way.

I have run "Road Trip of the Damned," "The Burning Wheel of Karma," and "Dead Ops" for AFMBE. All three of them give me fond memories.

Not a single one of the memories from RTotD are for polite discussion and they all tend to revolve around the first reveal. You can pick this one up for free at the Eden Studios website.

TBWoK was written by Derek Guder and myself. It involved a flashback, which turned out to be very tricky when one character tried to kill the other during the flashback sequence, and involved a reveal at the end that often ended poorly for over half of the party. This is the only one of the three scenarios not available to the public.

DO was written by James Wilber and is an awesome military with zombies scenario. You can find it in Eden Studios Presents volume two. We use to keep track of how many characters died during this game. We even had one group make a huge mistake after the first reveal and died in the first two hours of the game.

#RPGaDay #FavoriteConPurchase

Finally, another easy one for me!

My first convention was Origins. I went with a handful of friends and had a horrible experience in the hotel connected to the convention. Our rooms were atrocious and the staff were no help.

Still, I made a purchase at this convention that would change my place in the world of roleplaying games forever. Little did I know, that the Greek guy who wanted to sell me a copy of a monster book for a modern conspiracies RPG would later hire me to do stuff for him in the RPG world.

At this first convention of mine, I purchased a copy of of all three Bodyguard of Lies books and the All Flesh Must Be Eaten core book. I loved all four books. I already owned the Conspiracy X core book and screen. In the back of a Conspiracy X book there was an ad calling for people to help the cause. I had no idea what it would lead to, but I knew I loved the product. So, I shot off an email late one night to the address listed in the ad.

Within a week, either George Vasilakos or Alex Jurkat got in touch with me. They needed help play testing material for All Flesh Must Be Eaten and was I interested in helping. Was I? Absolutely, I was! Within the week I was pouring through material for Shane Lacy Hensley's Fistful o' Zombies and loving every word on the page. I ran play test sessions with my group and even submitted the archetypes I made up for the sessions. We had a great time playing the scenario I ran.

This would start a series of firsts for me. First time play testing material for a game company. First time submitting material and being published via a game company for those archetypes. The following year I would run events at Origins for the first time in my life with demo scenarios for All Flesh Must Be Eaten. I ran "The Burning Wheel of Karma," a scenario I wrote with Derek Guder. (Rumor is, it may become available for use with Fate. Maybe Unisystem, too.) I think I also ran Dead Ops that year. Maybe it was the following year.

So, those four books are my favorite convention purchases. They led to where I am today as the Unisystem developer for Eden Studios, Inc.

#RPGaDay #MostMemoriableCharacterDeath

Here is another hard one for me. I run so many games that it is rare that I actually play. However, this one time, I lost a character and gained a wife.

I was playing 3rd edition Vampire:  the Masquerade. I had come up with a Toreador and was working my way up through the Clan, burning down the homes and business of enemies, and getting the Malkavians to help. Then, one night, the characters were travelling through an underground tunnel. Suddenly, we were attacked by Sabbat or anarchs or something.

My character was a Toreador complete with Toreador-related skills and abilities. His combined total dice for Dexterity plus Firearms was 2. His total dice pool for Dexterity alone was 2.

I think he died in the second, maybe third, round of combat. I managed to hit one of the enemies with my revolver. I didn't do any damage, as they were combat monsters. Even the most experienced characters were getting their asses handed to them.

As the combat started, I got a text message. A woman I had met the night before was interested in meeting up. I was mad about the character death. I had spent a lot of time and energy developing the character and that point, it was best if I simply left. So, I agreed to meet up with her for a pint or two.

That woman would agree to see me again in two weeks, move in with me a few months later, and a couple of years later, be my wife. Thus, this was my best character death ever!

#RPGaDay #OldestRPGYouStillPlay/Read

The oldest RPG I still pull off the shelf and look through is likely All Flesh Must Be Eaten. There are others from the era of the first printing of this game that I might pull down and review for a quick memory jog. However, none are as much read as this one.

And the thirteenth printing of the game sold out at GenCon 2014.