If you had your druthers, what would you play right now?

[OgreBattle]

1. You're going to have to explain why you think Rifts the way it was intended to be run would be any good.

Because I'm curious, and RIFTS is a fun setting.

2. I'm fairly certain that with x amount of time the chances of your heartbreaker getting finished or not has nothing at all to do with anyone's attention but yours.

His expertise is valuable, and I pretty much want to hear more about SAME

[Bihlbo]

I'd pay an obscene amount for a good Star Wars RPG, but as far as I know such a thing never existed.

By far the best Star Wars game I've ever played was one that used Mutants & Masterminds. We played Jedi with non-Jedi sidekicks and it was quite good. I'd share the conversion document if I still had it. I hope someday someone tries to redo his work, because it was great.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Legend/M&M/Paranoia/Everyone is John/Toon, in decreasing seriousness.

[Josh_Kablack]

First Choice: Someone hits the lottery so those involved can get out of conflicting work schedules, Gator gets the band back together and we pick up the Forefront Champions game(s).

Second Choice: I get a month or two notice to revise my Enkopja quasi-tome D&D game into more coherent files (like Koumei's Disgaea stuff) and a mix of old and new players to run it for.

Third Choice: A monthly Munchausen game night with someone else buying the wine.


List of honorable mentions:

• Feng Shui
• Everway
• Mole runs a 4-6 session arc of Gamma World (the best thing done with the 4e engine)
• A firmly deadpan over-the-top melodrama Street Fighter game with people who actually play fighting games.
• A "playtest" session of the actual released final version of D&D Next played entirely with Denizens who actually write meaningful playtest reports with actual math involved.

[Schleiermacher]

Nobilis 3e, because it is an awesome game that I've played all too little.

Deadlands (Classic for preference, Hell on Earth if I had to run it) -not because I think it's objectively good, it's far too mired in 90's excess, but damn is it fun!

[sabs]

I'd be playing Ars Magica if I had my druthers.
Instead I'm playing Pathfinder.. sigh.

I've only tried AM once. I hadn't even played half a dozen rpg sessions when someone invited me to the game. 11 people in a board room saying how their stodgy old Euromonk who universally hated God but had to pretend to be a Christian, spouting off Latin like I was supposed to know it, and just generally telling 11 self-contained stories about what happened over the Summer, Fall, and part of the Winter that without context I couldn't possibly care about. No fireballs, no monsters, no cool loot, no adventure. Didn't like it.

Now that I'm more used to RPing I can see how the pretense is interesting, but I'm still a bit at a loss as to what makes it fun.

Well, those 11 people were playing it very differently than I or the people I have played it with do. We usually do have a Game Master who sets the world, and each player has a Wizard, a Companion, and several grogs they are responsible for. We also used to pair off, so that 1 player would play all the grogs for another wizard, and vice versa in a round table sort of way. So that the NPCs had more life and were not just.. cannon fodder.

I miss it, but it certainly wasn't Euro Monks in the boardroom.
Oh and I played a Flambeau fire specialist in one game. Fireballs the likes of which even Fizban has not seen before.

[Ancient History]

I've been debating a couple different RPG campaigns I could run as Den games. One possibility is resurrecting my old Conan/Call of Cthulhu d20 crossover adventure.

[Prak]

1. You're going to have to explain why you think Rifts the way it was intended to be run would be any good.

Because I'm curious, and RIFTS is a fun setting.

I think it's mostly a fun setting because it's not played the way it's intended to.

[Bihlbo]

Well, those 11 people were playing it very differently than I or the people I have played it with do. We usually do have a Game Master who sets the world, and each player has a Wizard, a Companion, and several grogs they are responsible for. We also used to pair off, so that 1 player would play all the grogs for another wizard, and vice versa in a round table sort of way. So that the NPCs had more life and were not just.. cannon fodder.

I miss it, but it certainly wasn't Euro Monks in the boardroom.
Oh and I played a Flambeau fire specialist in one game. Fireballs the likes of which even Fizban has not seen before.

We were literally in a board room. I didn't mean to imply the characters just sat in a board room. We played it the same way you do, but because the grogs were uninteresting and ignorable parts of the game that seemed like an afterthought that didn't help the game in any way, I didn't mention them.

[Aryxbez]

Thieving gypsies and tree-hugging, drugged-out assassins, that's all they are.
... Orcs became an interesting civilized ethnicity rather than a dark-skinned ugly baddy you get to kill without feeling like a monster.

Especially in terms of the Khajit, that's because of racial stereotypes, whereas they actually have a more in depth culture that the games simply have not made use of. Argonians have some cool stuff like becoming Werecrocs, and simply just haven't been explored for some reason or another. True most of their interaction has been enslavement, defying of that, Shadowscales culture and their symbiotic relationship with the Hist. Though it's the idea they're truly quite different, that can make them an appealing race to play for other characters, opposed to a different flavor of human, some people like to play non-humans (and don't think I need to say why people tire of gallons of elves that exist).

Orsimer are actually my favorite race, like the more civilized analogue, and how take a bit of traits from Fantasy Dwarves (like Wielding axes, good at smithing). On top of that, even a counter to magick by being more resistant to it (Skyrim errata'd it out,but that's what Atronach sign is for).

As for limitations, does seem like Bethesda might be drawing themselves into a corner with how treating the story currently, and certain other factions/cultures fading out.

Your talk of Conan kinda solidifies the notion of how been said he's basically just a Rogue (most of that's just rogue stuff, with good str and "noble" represented via social skills). Even the afamed MMO admits as much making the barbarian class into a Rogue.

[Judging__Eagle]

"Conan/Call of Cthulhu d20 crossover adventure"

History Trivia: Lovecraft and Howard made that an official crossover before you were a twinkle in your father's eye.

[Ancient History]

Yes, but there's a certain symmetry between the two magic systems that I was inordinately fond of and wanted to see how it worked out in real play. Not bad, as it turned out.

[OgreBattle]

I really enjoy the Conan setting, what Conan RPG ruleset do you use?

[JigokuBosatsu]

I'd play that. Throw in some Clark Ashton Smith and you've gotcherself a good ol time.

[Ancient History]

I really enjoy the Conan setting, what Conan RPG ruleset do you use?

It's pretty much Conan d20 with the additional layer of some monsters and magic fron Call of Cthulhu d20. So if you have Conan 2nd edition from Mongoose and the CoC d20 book, you're all set. Scrolls of Skelos optional.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

For whatever it's worth, I'd be terribly interested in a game like that. I'd have to look over CoCD20 again, but the combination of mesmerism/small scale potion and talisman crafting/rituals/overt effects having a potentially debilitating cost is pretty much my sweet spot for magic in fantasy gaming.

[Bihlbo]

The main thing that bothers me about Conan is the world is so darn dumb. It would be great to have so many cultures... if you didn't know enough about real world cultures to realize he didn't really invent anything so much as remake the stuff he knew with playdough. The maps being used are based on the worst possible interpretations ever made, which admittedly only affects my love of maps and not the game. Howard engaged in the worst of Darwin's racist stupidity that humans evolve, devolve, and evolve again in different places, from different creatures, and at different rates. So the Picts are totally just devolving humans... because. Nothing you can do can make it make sense, so you just have to turn that part of your brain off.

[OgreBattle]

I really enjoy the Conan setting, what Conan RPG ruleset do you use?

It's pretty much Conan d20 with the additional layer of some monsters and magic fron Call of Cthulhu d20. So if you have Conan 2nd edition from Mongoose and the CoC d20 book, you're all set. Scrolls of Skelos optional.

I'll give it a look, but how would you sum up the difference between Conan d20 and D&D? Or is it like playing 3e where the only magic users are bards or what

[Ancient History]

I really enjoy the Conan setting, what Conan RPG ruleset do you use?

It's pretty much Conan d20 with the additional layer of some monsters and magic fron Call of Cthulhu d20. So if you have Conan 2nd edition from Mongoose and the CoC d20 book, you're all set. Scrolls of Skelos optional.

I'll give it a look, but how would you sum up the difference between Conan d20 and D&D? Or is it like playing 3e where the only magic users are bards or what

There's a number of changes. Races and classes are mostly cosmetic, but combat in general is more deadly - armor reduces damage but doesn't make you harder to hit, and defensive options are split into a Defensive Dodge Bonus and a Defensive Parry Bonus, there is no penalty for multiclassing, there are Fate points for thematic ass-saving, and at 6th level and every 4 levels thereafter all your ability scores increase by 1. It's not perfect, but I think it might be one of the more balanced (if fiddly) d20 variants out there.

Magic is non-Vancian; characters have a Magic Attack Bonus for casting spells that target other creatures, and technically anybody of any class can learn a couple spells by taking the right feats, though only Scholars are really designed to be real sorcerers because they can preferential access to different styles of sorcery and more Power Points (which are used to cast spells). Spells have prerequisites before you can learn them, and there are various fiddly bits about possible madness, corruption, and using ritual sacrifice to harvest more power points from your enemy's lifeblood, that sort of thing. It actually dovetails fairly nicely with the CoCd20 magic nicely in many respects.

Since there is some interest, I'll see about putting up a thread for anyone that wants a look at it maybe Saturday or Sunday when I get back from Florida-da.

[Bihlbo]

A setting in which I've wanted to set a game for a while is in the universe of Gene Wolfe's Solar Cycle. Specifically in Ushas, a not-too-distant time after the final events recorded in the coda to his Book of the New Sun tetralogy.

If you haven't read it, you should. It's better than good. But the rest of what I'm going to say will be gibberish to you.

In my mind, the people Severian talks to in the final scene of The Urth of the New Sun are not the only ones whose fate was determined by the cacogens. Baldanders gets everything he ever wanted. Abaia, Erebus, and perhaps others of their ilk barely survive, but their goals are either met or stymied and their lives no longer have purpose. A select few of the autocthons, exultants, and others survive in cavern pockets or surviving technological chambers. How will the world reach the timeline of the Green Man? Do any time-altering devices survive? What animals still exist? How much of a hand in events to the cacogens still have? Is this whole thing the future or the past?

[Mask_De_H]

all rpgs ever made are utter garbage

We're done here.

If I had my druthers, I'd be playing Yuuyake Koyake/Golden Star Stories and Fiasco. The MTP side has become more fun for me because it's easier and I was never big on tjeeze or figuring out proper optimization. I only did it for D&D out of necessity for utility and the characters I wanted to play.

A firmly deadpan over-the-top melodrama Street Fighter game with people who actually play fighting games.

That game was made by a scrub. I'm certain of it after finally getting a chance to play it. I also found a speed-dependent infinite throw loop while trying to make Makoto in it.

[Koumei]

As is basically standard fare for White Wolf, the Street Fighter RPG has some interesting ideas that could be worked with, once you actually excised the massive tumour that is "everything else". You might want to tjeck out Thrash, a fan-made free thing (which has its own sourcebook and Guilty Gear splat). It's assumption is King of Fighters (Rage bar instead of Super Gauge), however it provides options for Street Fighter, Guilty Gear and such.

It is, however, very fiddly, and it took me like zero effort to make a character with a Soak value of "No you don't deal damage".

[Midnight_v]

The main thing that bothers me about Conan is the world is so darn dumb. It would be great to have so many cultures... if you didn't know enough about real world cultures to realize he didn't really invent anything so much as remake the stuff he knew with playdough. The maps being used are based on the worst possible interpretations ever made, which admittedly only affects my love of maps and not the game. Howard engaged in the worst of Darwin's racist stupidity that humans evolve, devolve, and evolve again in different places, from different creatures, and at different rates. So the Picts are totally just devolving humans... because. Nothing you can do can make it make sense, so you just have to turn that part of your brain off.

Yolo!

Seriously, I'd play it but how do you have a conan kill a shoggoth? Also... uhm... I remember a story where conan chocked out the avatar of silence or some such. That's kinda where I don't get how to tell those stories. I mean the ones where Lovecraft meets these otherworldly horror and his heroes wig the fuck out and gibber... then die.
Where as Conan and crew... punch that shit in the face till it either dies, capitulates or gets pushed back into its shithole for another 1000 years.
I like the howard stories better, but they're action adventure stories, more than horror once the protagonist shows up.

Still I'd play it if it existed in action adventure mode.

[LeadPal]

My current campaign is a weird hybrid of Tome and Pathfinder, but I think I've weaned my players off of Pathfinder enough that my next one won't have to compromise. But while running Tome would be a step up, it isn't the game I really want to run. I've got an idea for an Utena-inspired magical girl campaign using Feng Shui, but I doubt I'd be able to hold onto enough players long enough to finish it.

[Neon Sequitur]

If I could run anything? Right freaking now?

Savage Worlds, using the sci-fi setting I just finished writing, and the plot point campaign I'm currently working on, with my very best group of play-testers. We'll get around to it soon enough, I think.