Carpe Blogiem: Games I’d Like to Play

I was asked by a couple people what I thought about Doug’s post “Games I’d Like to Play.” Well, I don’t typically like to play games, but run them. It’s really better off for everyone I’m playing with if I’m not actually a player. I tend to get cranky when things don’t work like I expect them too and it just leads to folk being miserable. Besides that, I genuinely enjoy running a game and prefer crafting stories to just about any other activity. That said there are a few things I think I’d be willing to play in should there be a GM I trust and like.

FATE
Like Doug, I’ve read FATE back to front and if I never run it I’d like to play it at least once. It’s the opposite side of the coin with GURPS on the other end. I like how your stats are intentionally vague, but descriptive. One of the best games I ever played in was when my girlfriend ran Amber Diceless. The end of that campaign was so wonderful I literally cried. How often does that happen? FATE reminds me of Amber Diceless – it has the same feel too it. Were I able to pick what sort of game I played (or ran) I think I’d choose a campaign based on ElfQuest. L.A. has the old chaosium ElfQuest RPG and the few times we played it I found myself wanting more. The setting itself would be perfect for FATE too given it’s storied nature. I’d also play the Dresden Files RPG in a heartbeat. Regardless of whether I play in a FATE game I’ll eventually be running one because I plan to write for EvilHat in the future.

GURPS: Dungeon Fantasy
My background is pretty varied, but it’s mostly DnD from 2nd edition all the way to 3.5. I’d love to play in a DF game that emulated some of the common tropes you find in DnD…but it wasn’t actually DnD.

GURPS: Madness Dossier
I’d love to play in Ken Hite’s inspired setting – I don’t think I could run it just because I always feel settings constrain my creativity and half of the fun of a GURPS campaign for me is creating new stuff for my PCs. Still…who wouldn’t want to play a sandman facing the evil annunaki?

Night’s Black Agents
I got a chance to read the book from cover to cover and…wow. I think I’m a Hite fanboy – he’s certainly a role model. Any game designer who wants to go far should watch what Ken has done in his career. Anyways, NBA…Ken himself described it as “Jason Bourne combating vampires” and that is a very apt description. It does use the GUMSHOE engine which I don’t particularly like, but a good GM could change that for me. The setting material for Night’s Black Agents is pretty deep and though the idea is simple “Kill vampires till you reach Vlad” there is just so much more to it then that.

Nobilis
I’ve only gotten to play it once and the GM was just awful. That didn’t poison me to the system however and The Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine RPG came out recently generalizing the rules more and I think it’d be a wonderful system to play in.

Posted in Carpe Blogiem.

Leave a Reply