Graph Paper Games

When: 1991 GM: Andrew Capsule: a horrific collision between the immovable GM preparation and the irresistible PC creation phase. The Story: My college gaming group had been playing Champions out of the Big Blue Book like nobody's business, sometimes even two campaigns at once.  But fantasy had been dying off as the 2nd Edition of D&D was really beginning to show its age and so many new games were coming onto the market.  The fantasy genre still had its fans in our gaming group, and when Fantasy Hero came out Andrew saw a chance to take a popular game system and meld it to a fantasy book series he really enjoyed.  And for the life of me I can not remember the series, except that it was this high fantasy that takes place in historical Europe complete with the Christian Church and this family of people with magical/psychic powers and some such thing. Andrew went all out on the planning, compiling a huge three-ring binder of material detailing the culture and backg...

Describe the ideal game room if the budget were unlimited. Isn't it "was unlimited"?  Whatever, let's go big! First, the Vizier table . The company has a larger, more ornate table called the Sultan, but that's over the top. Speaking of Sultans, though, for the "we don't need a table" RPG's, let's throw in a few Sultan bean bags . From here's it's down to details: a smartboard, a minibar with sink, and plenty of wall-mounted shelving for books, miniatures, and terrain.  And decent AC/heating with airflow, because some times people have been messing around with skunks before coming to the gaming table (you know who you are...)

Blacksteel recently referenced MegaTraveller in a comment, which got me briefly reminiscing about the one time I played another Traveller offshoot, Traveller: the New Era .  Which got me thinking about games I've only played once, and why.  Which got my thinking about making a regular column about games I've only played once.  So, here we go... RPG: Traveller the New Era When: I'm guessing 1994 or thereabouts. GM: Paul, a friend of mine Capsule: As far as I can tell, the GM was angling for a gritty, noir-esque storyline featuring criminal underworld figures, helpless ingenues, etc.  I played a doctor (the medical type). What happened: my PC decided the best way to get information from one of the aforementioned ingenues was to go full-on Rico Suave, backed up by some pretty impressive social skill rolls.  The GM was very uncomfortable roleplaying this, and even after some prolific hand-waving of the action never came back to this game.

You can game anywhere on Earth, where would you choose? Craigdarroch castle , located on Vancouver Island.

Thing you'd be most surprised a friend had not seen or read This one is easy.  A member of my gaming group in her late 20's said recently that she had not seen either The Dark Crystal  or  Labyrinth .  I think you would need to be a hair older to have that be really shocking, but still....

Most unusual circumstance or location in which you've gamed Wow, I must be pretty boring, because mostly I've gamed in college dorm common rooms or game stores or people's houses. Wait, wait!  I once ran a quick pick-up game of Star Wars at my brother-in-law's bachelor party because the best man had really dropped the ball on planning something.  It was a bit of a thrown-together mess but WEG Star Wars is really good for that kind of thing.

What hobbies go well with RPG's? Wargaming with miniatures is my easy answer, what with my having a whole other blog about that. But drawing, creative writing, cooking...there's a lot of things that can go with RPG gaming.  That's one of the things that is so cool about it.