The Gaming Den

If you could only play three currently existing TTRPGs for the rest of your life, which games and which editions of these games would you choose?

Does this assume that you can always find a group willing to play no matter how niche the game might otherwise be?

They’re all gonna be homebrew. Probably a homebrew d20 3e. Homebrew Shadowrun 4e. And maybe my Shadowrun Rifts mashup since I already have a dicepool and d20 game and cover most genres I care about so I can have something gonzo. If that’s not allowed then Deadlands 1e just for nostalgia.

Champions ( 5th / FRed or ReFred edition )

D&D. (3.5, but with the Koumei interpretation of Tome Material)

Not sure I need a third slot, but I'd look at rules-light and map agnostic games to fit in there.

I have the weird consideration of financial viability to worry about, because I run games professionally. Given that, I need to stay glued to the games with the most likely long-term profitability while still trying to slide in ones that I will actually want to play myself. That list is probably going to be 5e, Pathfinder 1, and FATE.

But while that's an interesting complication to the exercise, it's definitely not what the OP had in mind, so if I've just won the genie lottery and no longer need to worry about money ever again, then I'm going to go with 3.X, Shadowrun 4, and FATE, with the stipulation that all three are going to have house rules. FATE's nice for this exercise because of how flexible it is, so if I ever want to play X-Men or Star Wars or whatever, I can pop open FATE.

deaddmwalking wrote:Does this assume that you can always find a group willing to play no matter how niche the game might otherwise be?

That's a good question. Let's say that you can always find a group to play with.

BRB writing a ruleset for sex roleplay, and a very special expansion pamphlet for financial domination.

Pathfinder, Shadowrun, my own d20 homebrew. Despite pf also being d20 as well I work more than full time so I like having premade content.

If they could only be three...

1) M&M... not only it's my favorite game and genre, also I can get a lot of mileage out of it for different types of games.

2) V5. Vampire will always have a place in my heart. Always.

There are many other games I like, but none I feel so strongly about.

3.5, with pathfinder if im allowed to call them the same thing. Otherwise 3.5.
Paranoia
Shadowrun 4e.


shadowrun is chosen mostly for its rules, not so much its setting (which is fine). between it and d20, i can probably write my own variant for any setting i feel like playing.

RIFTS is a contender, but its probably better to house rule a shadowrun mod than it is to play with the actual rules. [/list]

D&D 3.5, Shadowrun 4E, and FFG's 40k RPGs, which are all more or less the same system repeating itself.

House-ruled M&M3 for d20, Microscope with optional use of Fiasco or Munchausen during Scenes for rules-lite, Home-brew nomic of semi-randomized task resolution methods which my friends calll Substance Abuse Shuffleboard for something in-between.

1st: Mongoose Traveller (1e)
2nd: DnD (3e)
3ed: Hero System (5e)

An honorable mention goes to After Sundown. It and Hero are contenders for the 3ed spot for me. Shadowrun (4e) would be 5th.

Hicks wrote:1st: Mongoose Traveller (1e)
2nd: DnD (3e)
3ed: Hero System (5e)

An honorable mention goes to After Sundown. It and Hero are contenders for the 3ed spot for me. Shadowrun (4e) would be 5th.

Wow I'm sorry to hear you will never be playing with us again

If I'm gonna have to play RAW without any houserules or rewrites or backports (but with 3PP content allowed), then it's probably gonna be PF1e, Shadowrun 4e, and Exalted 3e.

If houserules are on the table and I can change the content of the system while still adhering to the base ideas (Shadowrun = cyberpunk+fantasy on future Earth, D&D = heroic fantasy with a rigid class/level system, etc.), then I'd go for a weird 3.PF amalgam, Shadowrun 4.5 (which I'm currently in the process of making) and, hell, I don't even know. Maybe something generic like HERO 5e.

1.) 3.X D&D w/Tome Houserules especially Red Rob's Magic Item/Wish Economy.

2.) Shadow of the Demon Lord: It's become my comfort food of an RPG to run at this point, I got fair amount of adventures left, and I have a fair understanding of its meta to do more builds for years, and make my own adventures.

3.) Shadowrun 4e??: I'm unsure on my final choice, I've always wanted to run Shadowrun campaign, using Frank's Houserules (I could try the combat overhaul too, if I'm getting bored of the old meta), so being stuck with it forever could be a good way to finally run that game.

Runner-ups would be M&M 2e, or Mutant: Year Zero, the latter because I bought lot of material for it, and have wanted to play it at some point, while former because: Superheroes, & D20 is easy.

What RPG books have the most fappable art

Most are pretty tame, so it's going to depend heavily on your fetishes. (Note that I am definitely not asking what those might be.)

OgreBattle wrote:What RPG books have the most fappable art

Probably something made in Japan.

OgreBattle wrote:What RPG books have the most fappable art

I have addressed this question before. Short answer, anything by Avalanche Press (except the one about horses) is a pretty sure bet if you're interested in scantily clad women - cover only, but it should clean up nicely. If you want more bang for your buck, pick up a fantasy art book like Clyde Caldwell's Savage Hearts

The genie isn't banning you from owning any number of RPGs, though. You can buy (or otherwise acquire) as many RPGs for the art as you want. You can just only play three of them.

deaddmwalking wrote:If you want more bang for your buck, pick up a fantasy art book like Clyde Caldwell's Savage Hearts

Ironically I feel like his art seems kinda flat.

Chamomile wrote:The genie isn't banning you from owning any number of RPGs, though. You can buy (or otherwise acquire) as many RPGs for the art as you want. You can just only play three of them.

That seems like an improvement on my current situation, where the only games I get to play are Pathfinder (1ed) and Call of Cthulhu (7ed, not that it matters much).

It seems a bit churlish to complain, when I get plenty of opportunities to play RPGs, but it would be nice to try out something different.

Well, sure. I don't think the idea here is that this situation is necessarily a terrible curse. It's just a thought experiment designed to get people to think about which games have the most staying power, without getting distracted by what happens to be shiny and new or a game that you'd really like to play once but probably wouldn't pick up often or even ever after you'd had a good one-shot or mini-campaign. If you asked me which three games I would most like to play, no edition of D&D would even be in the running, because I get plenty of that already. Paranoia and Vampire would dominate (Shadowrun would get to stay), but neither of those were serious considerations for my list in this thread's scenario, because Vampire can be accomplished well enough by FATE and I doubt I'd want to play Paranoia very often after having a couple of one-shots to get it out of my system.

Ars Magica 5th edition
Exalted 3rd edition
Mage 20th Anniversary

All have problems galore in different ways... But they remind me of the fun I had in my youth with my best friends. It's hard to let that go.