Saturday, December 3, 2011

RPG Thoughts; What's Your Number?

I've played a lot of RPGs over the years. And I do mean a lot. So I was thinking of doing a list. Since I have trouble remembering the names of everything I've played I enlisted the help of the Wikipedia List of RPGs. This list I wrote is a bit like a little black book for me. There's the one night stands and brief dalliances, and then there's the loves of my life. It's very interesting to reflect back on these games. Maybe someday I'll do a little piece on each one of these, but not today.

How I qualify if I've played a game;
1. Time Played as a Player. I have had to play either multiple sessions or at least one 6-8 hour marathon session.
2. Ran the game. If I DM'd/GM'd/ST'd a game, regardless of how long that game lasted, it counts.
3. Owned the game. This one is iffy. However, I think it counts if I owed at least 3 supplements for a game, regardless of how much I actually played it. I can reasonably account this, at least in my mind, because owning that much means that I MEANT to play it at some point but never got around to it.

The List in Alphabetical Order;
Aberrant
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1st and 2nd)
Adventure!
Alternity
Big Eyes, Small Mouth
Call of Cthulthu (5th)
Changeling; The Dreaming
DeadLands
Dungeons & Dragons (Basic and 3rd Ed)
Earthdawn
Exalted
Heroes Unlimited
Hunter: The Reckoning
Kindred of the East
Mage: The Ascension
Marvel Super Heroes (Saga System)
Mech Warrior
Middle Earth Role Play
Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game
Paranoia
Rifts
Shadowrun
Star Wars RPG (2nd Ed d6 and d20)
Tales from the Floating Vagabond
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness
Traveler (or is it Megatraveler? I have no idea, it was 15 years ago)
Trinity
Twilight 2000
Vampire: The Masquerade
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
Werewolf: The Apocalypse
Wraith: The Oblivion

So, that's 32 games. All of them fit into those three broad categories as I've mentioned above. I didn't count the different editions, that would be cheating, and it would fluff my numbers. Not that it needs any padding. Looking at it though, there are several games that are really all the same system, notably all the Palladium stuff and all the White Wolf stuff. I guess you could say if you played one, you've played them all. There are significant system and game differences that I feel that they are worth placing in separately.

To be more honest with you though, I think it would be beneficial to list my top games in sheer amount of play time. These are the ones that I keep coming back to over and over again. This is in order from most played to least, a top five so to speak.

1. Dungeons and Dragons; With the sole exception of 4th Ed, I've logged more time playing variations of D&D then any other game. Multiple campaigns lasting multiple years, both as DM and as a player.
2. Star Wars; Yet another edition spanner. I've had more characters in d6 then I've GM'd, and this is the game that we all really cut our teeth on in High School. We made so many mistakes and learned how to actually PLAY an RPG on this game.
3. World of Darkness: I'm just going to lump these all together, because the big three (Vampire, Werewolf, and Mage) would crowd out the rest of the list. Besides we did a lot of crossover campaigns with this.
4. Alternity; Regardless of my love of Star Wars, this is the TRUE everything Sci-Fi game. We've run Star Wars, Star Trek, Space Marines, Ringworld, Lost in Space, Transformers, and other things that were vaguely Sci-Fi with it and didn't have a game of its own.
5. Marvel Super Heroes (Saga): I love this game. It didn't do well at all in sales, but it had the single best supplement ever- 'The Reed Richards Guide to Absolutly Everything'. I find myself always going back to that game anytime I want to do any type of super hero game. Stating out Green Lantern and Superman is fun...

So, what's your number? And more importantly, what's your REAL number?

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