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MY FAVOURITE TABLETOP ROLE-PLAYING GAMES EVER

16/5/2017

16 Comments

 
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I was a nerd, alright? Albeit a nerd who never possessed the academic qualities most often associated with nerds. I loved so many of the nerdy things, but my nerd credentials fell apart when it came to stuff like science and numbers. It's for this reason that I loved the storytelling aspect of role-playing games, but mostly ignored the roll of the dice. Or die.

See? I don't even know which is right. Worst. Nerd. Ever.

RPGs were a huge part of my life for a good ten years. From the age of 14 we'd spend entire days playing through another chapter of months-long campaigns. As I got older, I found a new gang to play with - through which I met Mr Cheese, who later came to work at Digitiser. We'd meet every Tuesday night, but the group broke up eventually, as everyone drifted back towards their real lives.

For me, I always preferred being the GM - the Games Master - to being a player. I'd spend the entire week dreaming up the story for the following week's session, drawing pictures of monsters, creating maps of locations... It scratched that itchy part of my brain which still has a need to tell stories, to create worlds, and characters. Role-playing fuelled and satisfied my imagination.

I still miss it terribly. Video game RPGs don't quite do it for me in the same way that the old tabletop ones did. They're too restrictive, too many rules - which my group would always be prepared to ignore in service of the story.

Tabletop role-playing isn't the phenomenon that it used to be, but it's still around; my step-daughter is an avid Dungeons & Dragons player, a fact I take great comfort in .

Also: I take great comfort in doing this - listing my favourite tabletop role-playing games ever. Here they come now!
ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS
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The daddy. Like most role-players, Dungeons & Dragons was my way into the hobby. I was invited by a friend to one of their regular groups. We started, I believe, with few hours of the basic game, before moving onto the more complex, broader, rules of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Being an enormous nerd, creating my D&D characters by throwing dice was the most exciting "rolling-up" I ever did.

It fired my imagination; it felt like an acceptable form of play-acting, at an age when running around in the woods pretending sticks were guns would be considered unseemly for a teenager. One of my favourite AD&D memories was of visiting my sister - then living on Edwards Air Force Base in California - and playing a game with her none-more-80s-American neighbours. The husband looked like Ned Flanders, and they had a US flag on their wall, and we drank Kool-Aid and ate chips.

Though I loved the thick, hardback, AD&D books - the Dungeon Master's Guide, the Player Handbook, the Monster Manual - with their gorgeous cover artwork, I was never a massive fan of fantasy as a genre. I've tried, and failed, on a number of occasions, to read The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

When I discovered that there were other role-playing games out there, which were more in line with my sensibilities, I left Dungeons & Dragons behind.

But I still remember it fondly as my gateway drug. Harthor The Hound (yes, I know!), you will never be forgotten.
SPACE 1889
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Steampunk at a time when steampunk didn't really exist, Space 1889 was set in an alternate Victorian era, where The British Empire had spaceships, and the Solar System was colonised.

The most thrilling part of this game for me were the huge fold-out maps of other planets. When I studied the map for our own Moon, I discovered that several of the craters had been named after members of Marillion (not a joke).
DC SUPER-HEROES
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Though I was always more a Marvel fan than a DC fan, the Marvel Super-Heroes role-playing game wasn't a patch on Mayfair Games' DC Super-Heroes system. We used it as the basis for the longest-running campaign - heavily influenced by 2000AD's Zenith, and DC's own Watchmen - I was ever a part of. We swiftly ditched the DC heroes in favour of our own characters and super-hero mythos. 

However, I loved its Watchmen modules. Written by Dan Greenerg, it filled in a ton of the classic graphic novel's backstory, using the notes Alan Moore had written for the creation of the series.
TWILIGHT 2000
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Another long-running campaign of ours, Twilight 2000 was a dour post-apocalyptic RPG set in Europe post-World War 3.

Rather than go all Mad Max, and have mutants running around (though I believe there was a mutant expansion) it tried to keep things grounded. Though real-world events have rendered the game obsolete, at the time it felt real and believable in a way that most other RPGs never strived to be. It may also hold the honour of being one of the most depressing games ever created.
PARANOIA
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From one extreme to another... Paranoia was a "comedy" role-playing game. Set in a 1984-ish future city, where all information is controlled by an omniscient computer - whose dedication to secrecy extended even to the rules of the game itself - the core conceit of Paranoia is that players couldn't die.

Well... they could, but every time they did (and it happened frequently; almost any wound was lethal) their consciousness was downloaded into a new clone body. Everybody had a secret - missions kept from the other players - and the general vibe was a bit wacky, and dripping with heavy-handed satire. 

We also spent some time playing Toon, an RPG set in a Looney Tunes-styyle cartoon world where being blown up by TNT, or having an anvil drop on your head, would merely put you out of action temporarily rather than kill you. Intended as a parody of other role-playing rules systems, the players and the Games Master - here styled as a "The Animator" - were actively encouraged to break the rules. 

Fun, but limited. 
CYBERPUNK 2020
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Inspired by the writing of William Gibson, Bruce Sterling and others, Cyberpunk was set in the far-off future world of 2020, where everyone wears mirror shades, has cybernetic implants, and is ruled over by sinister mega corporations. Hacking into cyberspace was a big part of the core gameplay, though it was released at a time when the Internet was still a way off - and I confess that I struggled to get my head around the notion of bulletin boards and newsgroups.
SHADOWRUN
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Possibly my all time favourite RPG, Shadowrun was a mix of Cyberpunk and Dungeons & Dragons. It took place in a dystopian, cyberpunk-y future, where magic has reawakened.

It mixed hacking, mega corporations and cybernetic implants with spell-casting and dragons. Animals evolved overnight into new magical forms, and some humans transformed into orcs and goblins (though, in a Europe sourcebook, it rather racist-ly implied that orcs mostly came from humans of Indian and Pakistani descent).

Nevertheless, my favourite aspect of Shadowrun were its gorgeous full-colour rules and sourcebooks, which depicted the world beautifully. It was popular enough to become a series of trading cards, novels, and video games. Surely it's overdue for a movie? 
STAR WARS
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Oddly, I never played this much, but I absolutely devoured the sourcebooks. By 1987 I'd very much drifted away from Star Wars, but the sourcebooks reignited my love, and became hugely influential in laying the foundation for much of the Star Wars fiction which followed.

It created names for races only glimpsed in the films, offered schematics of never-seen-on-screen ships and locations, and even provided a full floor plan of the Millennium Falcon that successfully made sense of what was shown in the films. Most significantly, it signalled to Lucasfilm that there was still very much an appetite for Star Wars.

The Star Wars Roleplaying led directly to Timothy Zahn's trilogy of novels that kicked off the so-called "expanded universe", and it's possible that without it we wouldn't still be getting Star Wars movies today. 
CALL OF CTHULHU
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A game I only GM-ed once or twice, Mr Cheese was our DM supreme when it came to Call of Cthulhu. Set in the dark, mysterious, insanity-filled worlds created by H.P. Lovecraft, it was all old gods, vampires, and massive interdimensional things with tentacles. Unlike most RPGs, sanity was as much a resource as a character's health.

As a setting I always slightly struggled to wrap my head around it. In my efforts I tried to read some Lovecraft novels, but just found them a bit weird.
UNDERGROUND
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One of the last RPGs I ever bought - which I picked up in the role-playing section of the Virgin Megastore on Oxford Street - I was drawn to Underground due to its gorgeous cover art by Frank Darrow, who'd illustrated Frank Miller's Hard Boiled graphic novel.

Inspired in part by Pat Mills' Marshall Law comics series, it was a wry, cynical, satirical spin on superheroes - alien technology, super soldiers, a heroic origin, and Virtual Reality brainwashing were all considerations when creating a character.

​With its tongue firmly wedged in its cheek, it was set in a world where Chuck D had a national holiday in his honour, Europe was ruled by fascistic Scientologists, Halloween is banned, and US military veterans are hated by the public, but given privileged status by the government.

​Players assume the role of super-powered mercenaries, who have been brainwashed into thinking they were former super-heroes, who'd lived in a stylised Silver Age comic book world.
JUDGE DREDD
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Another RPG I played only a few times, but which - like Star Wars - was worth buying for the sourcebook alone. It offered a coherent timeline of Dredd's world, and fleshed out Mega-City One. Like Star Wars The Roleplaying Game, it brought coherence and functionality to Dredd's chaotic world.

Expansions offered maps of whole city areas, and blocks, and - having been produced by Warhammer creators Games Workshop - there were a range of rather lovely lead miniatures.
FROM THE ARCHIVE:
THE 10 BEST FIGHTING FANTASY COVERS EVER
THE 10 WORST FIGHTING FANTASY COVERS EVER
​THE ART THAT INSPIRED NO-MAN'S SKY

16 Comments
RichardM
16/5/2017 11:24:24 am

Would love to get into some tabletop RPG stuff, but it wouldn't fly with my circle of friends sadly. Have been tempted to join the local University society, but I might look like a crazy old(ish) man.

Satisfying the itch by watching Dice, Camera, Action and Penny Arcade's The C-Team on Twitch, both of which are great fun. DnpD 5e seems to be very much the definitive edition of the system: although I suppose I would get that impression watching only content produced/endorsed by Wizards of the Coast.

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+4 Biscuits of brandishing
16/5/2017 11:37:32 am

I've played 'D&D' once, when I was asked to fill in for a friend's friend. It was about ghosts in a castle, and I decided I was an elderly retired spy. I was partnered with a fellow playing as a homeless alcoholic. Writing the character sheet (at work) was really fun, but the game itself was a bit boring, all we did was wander around corridors and had a chat (in character, which made me feel silly until I had a few beers, then I was really into it). At one point I 'found a pen' (rolled a 4 after entering a room) and everyone liked that a lot, much to my bemusement. I guess you had to be following it from the start.

Halfway through the night I was asked back as everyone really liked 'Dennis', but then I said something comically out of character and it didn't go down very well. I honestly can't remember what it was, but it was a bit cheeky

To be honest I'd quite like to do it again, but with a more humorous campaign. I can see how it would be good fun with the right group. Are there any funny tabletop RPGs? At this point there must be some with a more 'meta' take on the whole fantasy business

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Chris
16/5/2017 12:05:45 pm

I'm currently running Call of Cthulhu and playing in a D&D game and I'm getting on a bit now, but that'll never stop me. People are always talking about emergent gameplay in videogames, but pen and paper games are always emergent, because the rules give you just a skeleton and everything else the DM or GM has to make up as they go along.

I haven't played quite the range that you have, but I have stories from every game I've tried. Paranoia brings back memories of having a secret mutant power to communicate with machines, only when I first tried this on a submarine that the computer had given us to get somewhere with, I crashed it into the ocean floor and killed everyone. Shadowrun I never quite understood, but I enjoyed the recent simple CRPGs they made.

I'd like to start an online game, broadcasting on Twitch or something, but finding people who aren't complete dullards when it comes to roleplay is not easy.

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Chris
16/5/2017 12:07:15 pm

Oh and I forgot I was going to say that I owe quite a lot to my early years of D&D. My first character's name became my internet 'handle' or whatever the kids call it these days, and it's stuck. At university I was once shouted out by said name across the lecture hall and I got a lot of weird looks after that.

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Torpid womb
16/5/2017 01:22:15 pm

Chris? I've got a mate called that

Chris
16/5/2017 01:42:52 pm

Well I obviously use my real name here because this is super serious professional stuff.

Spiney O'Sullivan
16/5/2017 01:29:19 pm

If you like D&D, check out Harmonquest. Dan Harmon (Rick and Morty/the better seasons of Community) and a bunch of his celebrity buddies do very amusing D&D, accompanied by animation of their quest. It's really funny.

(Also I can't agree enough on Lord of the Rings. It is impressively boring. The Hobbit was decent, though.)

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King of Duckhenrys
16/5/2017 02:01:21 pm

The mechanics of role playing always put me off of it. Seems like too many rules for my brain to keep a handle on. It's why I don't really enjoy proper board games or complex card games.

I am a simple man, or perhaps a simpleton. One or the other.

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paul
16/5/2017 02:11:19 pm

I played role play games a bit, but I was never drawn into them as I was board games and that ilk. There was much the same experience with those - friends gathering at a house to play something like Diplomacy, or pother more obscure games like Circus Maximus. Somewhere in my parent’s house is a pre Warhammer Games Workshop game called Railway Rivals.

Eventually, for my group of friends, the games stopped as people seemed to grow up, move away, or just stop being interested. For the rest of us, computers and consoles crept in and nudged the board games out of the way.

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Jabberwoc
16/5/2017 05:55:48 pm

I welcomed the advent of computers and consoles which I hoped would relieve the tedium of die rolls and looking stuff up.
Then I yearned for the smell of quality printed rulebooks and table varnish.
I guess the grass is just always greener on the other side.

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RoboJamie
16/5/2017 06:23:02 pm

For me, the holy trinity was Shadowrun, AD&D 2nd ed, and the best of them all, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

Long dropped by Games Workshop as they can't sell many miniatures for a RPG, WFRP was a brutal, grim, unheroic setting, loosely based on the holy-roman empire era of Germanic Europe. Absolutely loved it.

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Penyrolewen
16/5/2017 09:50:37 pm

Chuck D SHOULD have a national holiday. Maybe Jeremy Corbyn will create one along with the other saints' days.
And watch yer onnabout with Lord of the Rings? It pretty much tied fantasy up. The rest of it is just trying to be Lord of the Rings. I mean, yeah, the films are a bit cack ("let's hunt some Orc!"), and Tom Bombadil can do one, but the rest is great (at a certain point in your life, maybe). The Hobbit is an annoying kids book and doesn't even tie up well with LotR. How what's his face got 3 films out of it I just don't know. Anyone seen his early films Braindead and Bad Taste? Wonder if they're on his CV now.
As for RPGs, I liked AD&D too, and Runequest, but spent a lot more time playing Car Wars (a board game with some rpg elements and a really, really bad name). Anyone else play that?

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Jabberwoc
16/5/2017 10:25:17 pm

I didn't play Car Wars but LOVED Games Workshop's "Battle Cars".
I made one car detonate as soon as the driver inserted the keys. I didn't the player much. We were only round his house as he had an Amiga with Sam Fox Strip Poker on it.

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Cc
16/5/2017 10:20:47 pm

Love the idea of emergent gameplay inherent in this kind of stuff, and sadly missing in computer games these days. Everything seems too scripted, even GTA doesn't really offer too many surprises.
I remember once dm'ing, as it isn't called, and my friend amusingly leaping out a window to escape some orcs. He broke both his legs and still hasn't forgiven me. Blame the dice, man!

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Kelvin Green link
17/5/2017 12:48:20 am

A Shadowrun movie you say?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GPGQoR6f6w

This is a good, solid list, Biffster, with many of my favourites on it. Although you're wrong about the Marvel Superheroes rpg. it's much better than the DC one.

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PeskyFletch
17/5/2017 06:46:37 pm

Champions FTW!

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