RPG meme bandwagon

From the journal of LJ user matt_snyder, the RPG meme bandwagon.

I figure I might as well…

RPG meme bandwagon

1. What is the first RPG you ever played?

Dungeons & Dragons, Basic Set… the one with the Erol Otus covers.

2. What RPG do you currently play most often?

Fudge, in as freeform a mode as I can. Just how freeform is variable… I'm rather experimental right now.

3. What is the best system you've played?

Played, not counting GMing? Hrm… have I actually played Fudge? Yeah, Bruce ran a game in Fudge. So I'll have to say Fudge.

4. What is the best system you've run?

Fudge again, though only because I can't quite find anything that does what I want better.

5. Would you consider yourself an: Elitist/ Min-Maxer/ Rules Lawyer?

Well, that's a biased question, now isn't it? Elitist.

6. If you could recommend a new RPG which would you recommend? Why?

Who am I recommending to, and what is meant by "new"? New to the recommendee, new on the market, new to me? (Are we sure I'm not a Rules Lawyer? No, I'm just a computer programmer, and like the computers I program, I usually want clarity.)

Insufficient data. As evidenced by recent discussion in my journal, I'm not sure I'm up to recommending Fudge. Maybe Theatrix for someone trying to break out of the mold and into that "higher" Elitist mode. Maybe I should go back to Theatrix myself. It's kind of what I'm turning Fudge into, in a way.

7. How often do you play?

About every other week nowdays, but I've had a lot of long hiatuses… school, baby, school, etc. I'd like to have the time to game weekly, but I don't know that that'll happen in the rest of my lifetime.

8. What sort of characters do you play? Leader? Follower? Comic Relief? Roll-Player/ Role-Player?

I rarely play, though I'd like to play a lot more. I'm a Role-Player, and I often try to play "supporting roles." Let someone else do the leading, I want to try to keep people talking in character, and I'll try to create a talkative character who can have some kind of conflict with other party members. (Not violent conflict… my last character was a coward, and thought entering forests full of goblins was a bad idea, no matter that "we have to go there, that's where the plot is!"

9. What is your favorite Genre for RPGs?

Hrm. I like many of them. SciFi, Fantasy, Superheroes. Love 'em all. I think that, in the end, Fantasy probably holds a special place in my heart… it's where I started gaming. I came into the whole sf/fantasy/horror genre by way of horror, reading Alfred Hitchcock collections in middle school, and then reading science fiction. But the mystery of magic trumps the cold heartlessness of science. And there's Tolkien, of course.

10. What Genres have you played in?

What haven't I played in? I've done fantasy, sf, horror, superheroes, comedy.

11. Do you prefer to play or GM? Do you do both?

I GM far, far more than I play, but I'd really like to play a lot more. I think I prefer to GM, though. Roleplaying is a creative outlet and there's a lot more room for creativity on the GM's side.

12. Do you like religion in your games?

Religion is often very important in my games, though I haven't really touched on Christianity or other modern, "real" religions. My primary fantasy world uses their beliefs in the afterlife as the primary shaper of culture. (Which, according to some anthropologists, is what drove real-world religious belief up until the 20th century.)

13. Do you have taboo subjects in your games or is everything "fair game"?

"That depends." I'm not big on sexual themes, which includes rape. While I don't game merely as escapist fantasy, there are just some things I don't want to deal with in my escapism.

14. Have you developed your own RPG before?

Well, of course. A couple of them. I never finished Impact! because I found Fudge and thought I'd found the game I was trying to write. Cinematique… well, that's an on-going thought experiment. Kind of in the same genre as Theatrix, except it's not diceless. Someday I'll put it up on the web, but it's not ready.

15. Have you ever been published in the Gaming Industry? If so…what?

Well, of course. :) I wrote "The Gramarye" in Grey Ghost Games' A Magical Medley, which is a compilation of magic systems for Fudge. The Gramarye is available online. (I'm not so happy with it now. I've had a second edition in the works for a few years, but other things keep getting in the way.)

I've got another article accepted for a Fudge supplement I'm not sure will ever see the light of day. I wrote it two or three years ago, and I'm still waiting.

And I have forever stalled the publication of GURPS Dark Places by submitting something to it. It was supposed to come out in SJ Games "Summer of Horror."

Fudge Factor probably doesn't count, but Department 13 has been pretty popular. And it's not very rules-oriented, so it can be easily adapted to any most game systems.

And I wrote the original two-die crash tables for the Car Wars Compendium rules. Charles Oines then mucked them up and published his revision without playtest review.