#7RPGs In Kickassistan

I think this thing started last month when someone posted a pic of their gaming shelf on their blog or G+. I want to say it was James Maliszewski, but I know I saw some pics on G+ before I saw James's blog post, so my sense of what happened when is more than a little off. The gaming shelf pics meme mutated a few weeks back into the #7RPGs meme, where folks discussed the 7 rpgs they played and ran the most often, sometimes with some commentary. The more I thought about what rpgs I've played the most, the more I started to second guess how much time I actually spent really playing or running the games, rather than just prepping stuff for them. And then I thought my gaming group was going to implode (see the entirety of my posts for this last week) and started looking long and hard at what I wanted to do, gaming-wise.
Image too cool not to use

#7RPGs - Player
  1. D&D (3e, BECMI)
  2. Marvel Super Heroes
  3. Vampire: TM
  4. Robotech
  5. Rifts
  6. Shadowrun
  7. Star Wars (WEG d6)

#7RPGs - GM
  1. Star Wars (WEG d6)
  2. D&D (4e, 3e, 2e)
  3. Vampire: TM
  4. Mage: TA
  5. Call of Cthulhu
  6. Earthdawn
  7. Dungeon Crawl Classics
Some thoughts:

D&D: I started with BECMI (my pal Destin ran it way back in the day; I'm pretty sure everyone played elves), then I ran 2e for a long time (although my first 2e group mashed in a lot of Palladium stuff because we didn't really know any better, nor can I say that we ever actually ran just Palladium without any D&D). During 3.xe, I played more than I ran, but I did run a bit. My current run of GMing began with 4e (coming off a pretty long hiatus) and has bounced around from there. 

Marvel Super Heroes sure was a blast, wasn't it? I wish I had room on my GM list for this one, but really, I only ran it for awhile in very late 90's. Maybe a few weeks or so. We played the hell out of this one back in the day, though, and my friend Roger ran this, Shadowrun and the oft-maligned (oft-by-me-maligned) Mythus. I don't recall spending much time playing Mythus as much of a GAME and more of a ROLE PLAYING exercise (which may be why I still have positive memories of it). 

It was my pal Andy who introduced us to the WEG d6 Star Wars RPG back in middle school (it was 1e back then) and I immediately played a bounty hunter. Who learned to use the Force. And I did that whole "Potentium heresy" thing back then when it was cool before you had to drop planets on Chewbacca to work a reasonable investigation of morality into the Star Wars universe and then suddenly everything's relativism all the time and it all gets terrible. Yup, back then. The Zahn trilogy rekindled interest in SWd6 in high school and I started running it then, broken up with my renewed interest in AD&D (2e). I brought this one back out in college and it was a hit, particularly because I used a lot of Star Wars tropes (like the cut scene) and have this ability to improv Star Wars like no other setting. 

Vampire: Yeah, that happened. I think it happened to all of us back in the 90's, didn't it? At least we got Mage out of the OWoD. Only part I still enjoy.

Earthdawn was awesome back in the day, wasn't it? I used to (back in high school) run this at the local gaming club every other week for dudes who were like twice my age. I wonder whatever happened to those guys. If anyone knows what happened to the guys who used to run MAGI (Michiana Area Gaming something-that-starts-with-I), let a brother know. I miss those bastards. 

Rifts got played a lot. A lot. Other than our home game, we also had a game at the aforementioned MAGI gaming club that ran every week or two (again, most of the other players were twice my age) that Roger (see MSH & Shadowrun above) and I went to religiously, not so much because Rifts is awesome as because the guys we played with were a blast and taught us a lot about gaming. Alongside the Rifts game was lots and lots of Robotech because, goddamnit, Veritechs/Valkyries are kick ass. 

It surprised me that DCC made the list, but with the Game of Taps running as long as it has and the Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad being the runaway success that it is, I've spent a lot of time running DCC. 

Comments