#RPGaDAY Day Twenty Seven

"Game you'd like to see a new / improved edition of" is what the menu says for todays #RPGaDAY.

Easily, hands down, without a doubt, KULT.

Kult was the game I ran the heck out of. Loved the setting, didn't mind the system at all and enjoyed coming up with dark evil shit to happen in the games.  Kult was MY game for many years.

But it really needs a fucking reboot.

I mean stick with the main cosmological setting as it is.  Just move everything else forward to now.  How technology is working within the illusion, how some of it cracking it while some of it is sealing us deeper into the false reality.  Adjust who is and isn't in control among the Archons and Death Angels.  The powers at play have all sorts of shifts within a world where the political and social structure is collapsing.

Then pull the system out and streamline the hell out of it.  Take it to the bare minimum of what is needed in concern with physical stuff like skills, abilities and all that.  Make the magic system a bit more dynamic and interacts with the illusion and reality.  Ease of doing the rituals based on knowledge of the actual reality than just a skill rating, doing the rituals near areas where the veil is crumbling can cause the desired effect to be multiplied, things like that.  Buff up the mental stuff, something akin to the Madness Meter from Unknown Armies grafted onto the positive/negative mental balance chain.  Make it affect play more often.

Put some work into the production values, get some new, cutting edge, layouts along with artwork to make your jaw drop.  Make the book look good.  Like a tome of freaking evil ready to be cracked open and used to abuse characters.

Go controversial with it, make most grim and dark settings look like a fucking walk in the god damned park.  Show them what twisted and evil shit there is and then crank it up a few more notches. 

At least that's what I would like to see. 

#RPGaDAY Day Sixteen

"Game You Wish You Owned" is for day sixteen on #RPGaDAY.

I pretty much own every game that I really want.  But then again I've evolved into an odd breed of gamer where I don't hunt down specific printings of certain editions.  Feel no need to have the 'little brown box' or the re-release they did of it recently.  There are a couple variations and one or two modules for Twilight 2000 that I don't own, but I'm not worried about them at all.  Same with Cyberpunk from R. Talsorian games.

So I'm going to cover a rpg that I wish more people owned.

Sla Industries.  A dark cyberpunkish, psychothriller of a game that can't decide if wants to be an involved horror game or a big guns and armor game.  The creators claim its not a big guns game but some of the setting, rules and overall feel say that it is.  I think it's more of a mash of several ideas.  But damn if its not a great setting.

Lots of room to work in there, great character options, races and all that.  A really dark setting where you play what would be the bad guys in most games.  Plus the material is set for use for which ever you want, horror, psychological or big guns.  Been playing it for years and it's pretty popular in my local area.  But it seems to be popular in small pockets scattered here and there without any over all coverage.

The corebook is up for 'pay what you want' on drivethrurpg you can find it on the Nightfall Games products page.

#RPGaDAY Day fifteen

Its time for "Favorite Convention Game" for #RPGaDAY.

First off I don't have a RPG for this one.  I cannot recall playing the same game twice at any convention.  Usually when I pick games to play its the stuff I haven't tried out but have heard good things about it or ones where my friends want me to play with them. 

So I'm just giving you my favorite game to play at conventions.  Well at least it used to be.  Lunch Money from Atlas Games was a hell of a good time.  Kids on the playground beating the crap out of each other, how could you go wrong with that?  Easy to play, all you need to play is the one box of cards and something to keep track of your life on.  There was an expansion that had some fun new stuff in it but was nowhere near being necessary. 

However... it used to be my favorite game.  Then some folks wanted to play it all the time.  Getting together to talk about a campaign you are thinking of running "Hey lets play a few games of Lunch Money!".  Hanging out watching movies "Hey lets play a few games of Lunch Money!" at the pizza place eating down a few slices "Hey lets play a few games of Lunch Money!".  It began replacing rpg time in the end.  This got old really, really quick.  Currently I don't ever want to play another game of it again.  But nothing has replaced this as my favorite pick up type of game at a con.

#RPGaDAY Day Fourteen

Well here we are at #RPGaDAY number fourteen with "Best Convention Purchase".

The only time I made it to Origins was for two reasons.  First was the final official Doomtown storyline tournament and second was to pick up a specific being released there.  The tournament was sorta 'meh' but the rpg turned out to be awesome.

Of course I'm talking about Little Fears.  A simple rules light system that seemed to fit the dark and terrifying setting like a glove.  Jason Blair made one hell of a game and I wasn't the only one who thought so.  I ran the hell out of the game, had people waiting to play, multiple groups going on during the week and great times had by all.

I got to playtest the next version of the game, the Nightmare Edition, and I liked it as well.  While all the rules changes or additions make complete sense and it's a great game I still prefer the original.  But that's all just personal preference. 

You can find both editions (the original is the 10th anniversary edition) over on Drivethrurpg along with Jason's other game Streets of Bedlam.  Give them a look here.

#RPGaDAY Day Thirteen

#RPGaDAY day thirteen says "Most Memorable Character Death".

I really don't have much for this one.  In most games I rarely die as I think ahead, try to get everyone to work as a group, try to think ways safely around problems and all that.  Then when I do get a character killed its usually not in any spectacular memorable ways.

Honestly I have more memorable 'near death' character scenes than anything else.  Like managing to press the switch setting off the explosives I planted earlier to kill the cultists before blacking out from blood loss (the other PCs drug me away and kept me alive).  Being held up by the throat by a bad guy after a long fight, unarmed and about to bite it I reach down and hit the switch on my belt buckle firing off the two rounds in the hidden gun there (had it on my character since creation, it took months before I ever used it).  No telling how many times Finn ran through almost assured death.  Or Joe Genero, a traveler character rolled up just to die, who somehow becomes almost invulnerable whenever the GM rolls to hit him (yes the name is taken from the Joe Genaro comics that used to be in Shadis Magazine).

Deaths are usually, killed by a lucky shot from a guard during a small skirmish, random gunshot from a goon just happens to hit me in the head, etc.

#RPGaDAY Day Twelve

"Old RPG You Still Play/Read" is the topic for today on #RPGaDAY.

The one old RPG I still go back to, still pick up, still read bits of from time to time would have to be Cyberpunk from R. Talsorian Games.  I simply love the setting, the way most of the books are done and just the overall feel.  While some of the tech ideas are WAY out of synch with the direction and depth that modern technology has gone it's still fun.  A bit of 'retro cyberpunk' if you will. 

The original boxed set took place in 2013 and the second edition was set in 2020.  The third edition, I will just not talk about.

Metaplot was there, with some token bad ass NPCs running around.  But none of it was necessary for the game unless you really wanted to get into the 'end game' battle of the Firestorm books.  Our group never went that way and we felt no less for it.  Most of the sourcebooks were set up as a sandbox type of resource, even before people started referring to them as such.

Also I love to run this game, I love to be a player in it, I enjoy coming up with random bits for it and I just enjoy reading it. 

Cyberpunk on drivethrurpg if you are interested.

#RPGaDAY Day Eleven

It's day eleven for #RPGaDAY and it's "Weirdest RPG Owned".

For this one I give you....  The Lawnmower Man RPG from Leading Edge Games.

A company best known for either the overly detailed system that was Phoenix Command, which they then used to make a nearly unplayable Aliens RPG.  Or for created a cult favorite game setting with Living Steel.  They also got some licenses for odd movies to make games out of along with miniatures for those said games.

The one that always made me turn my head sideways and go WTF was Lawnmower Man.  The movie was okay at its best parts and not really something I would look to base a game off of.  But they did.  A virtual war of sorts taking place after the ending of the movie.  Using the same watered down version of their wanna be in-house game engine they made a game that wasn't really okay at its best parts. 

They even produced miniatures for it.  Which boggles the mind.  Ah well.