Tag: RPGaDay

RPGaDay2023 Day 6: Favorite game you never get to play

Written by TardisCaptain August 6, 2023January 11, 2024

So I had to think about this topic for Day 6 of the #RPGaDAY2023 Challenge. “Favorite game you never get to play.” Between physical copies and PDFs purchased online through DriveThruRPG or charity bundles I have a lot of games. Some I’ve read and they were OK, while others I’ve read and I’ve really wanted to try them out. So which one do I choose? Some of these covered science fiction, espionage, post-apocalyptic and more. I’ve never played the Star Trek RPG that was released by Last Unicorn Games, but considering how big of a fan I am of FASA Star Trek and Star Trek Adventures, I wouldn’t mind playing LUG Trek once to try it out, but it’s not really at the top of my list. I want to pick a game that not only would I want to play in a campaign, but I’d want to homebrew for like I have with FASA Trek and STA Trek.

So when I narrowed it down, I felt that Frontier Space by DWD Studios is my selection for this topic. It barely beats out Castles and Crusades (I’ve been told that I can hopefully get into a C&C game if I can get on their discord), Apes Victorious (I don’t know anyone who plays this, but it’s a D20 retro so it should be easy to pick up) and White Lies (an espionage game also by DWD Studios).

I’ve created a character for Frontier Space in a past Character Creation Challenge. The system is rolling a percentile to see if you succeed in a task with your Ability and Skill scores combined creating your target number to roll under (kinda similar to the 2d20 system seen in Star Trek Adventures) The character creation process is pretty straight forward and I thought was easy to understand. The universe it is set in sounds intriguing to play, but the system could easily be adapted for other franchises if desired. I love the use of percentile dice and I am a big fan of science fiction. So perhaps, someday I’ll be able to get some friends into a game?

I’ve actually talked with some RPG fans in my local Star Trek club about an idea of them showing up for a game night not knowing which game we will be experimenting with. I’d run a one-shot for them, explaining the rules and gathering their feedback for a future blog post. I need to get this done because I think it would be fun. Now I just need to get the time set aside to put something like this together. I hate the dreaded real-life/schedule curse.

What roleplaying game would you like to play that you haven’t had a chance to yet? Tell me about it. This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.

Dungeons and Dragons, Role Playing Games

RPGaDay2023 Day 5: Oldest game you’ve played

Written by TardisCaptain August 5, 2023August 4, 2023

I have to think about this question for Day 5 of the #RPGaDAY2023 challenge. Oldest game you’ve played. I know it’s one of the early flavors of Dungeons and Dragons, but which one? When I was playing with my buddies in junior high, one friend had the blue cover Dungeons and Dragons book written by Eric Holmes (but I don’t recall if we actually played it or just referenced the book), another had the Basic/Expert Dungeons and Dragons book and another had Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (back before it was called 1st edition) and my first official purchase was the Basic Dungeons and Dragons book that was the start of the BECMI line. The version we played depended upon who was the Dungeon Master.

So my answer is, one of these three versions of Dungeons and Dragons. We didn’t limit ourselves. I preferred B/X (later BECMI) but played any of them.

Do you recall what was the oldest roleplaying game that you have played? Tell me about it. This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.

Role Playing Games, Science Fiction, Star Trek

RPGaDay2023 Day 4: Most Recent Game You Bought

Written by TardisCaptain August 4, 2023August 6, 2023

For day 4 of the #RPGaDAY2023 challenge, the topic is “Most recent game bought”. I basically have two answers.

The latest dead-tree purchase was the Star Trek: Lower Decks Campaign Guide for the Star Trek: Adventures system by Modiphius. You can read about my un-boxing of the book here.

Of a complete game system, the latest purchase was Sorcery and Super Science by Expeditious Retreat Press. I picked this up from a Bundle of Holding sale that happened in earlier this year.

Sorcery and Super Science is a post-apocalyptic game that appears to be heavily influenced by the 1980’s cartoon series “Thundarr the Barbarian“. I clearly remember a world thousands of years in the future where the moon was cracked and the land was ravaged by sorcery and super science. Dang it, now I need to watch the series again.

I haven’t had a chance to go over all of the rules yet. But I’m certain that I’ll be using this in the 2024 Character Creation Challenge.

What was your latest RPG purchase? Was it a full game or a supplement? Tell me about it. This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.

Dungeons and Dragons, Role Playing Games

RPGaDay2023 Day 2: First RPG Gamemaster

Written by TardisCaptain August 2, 2023January 11, 2024

For Day 2 of the #RPGaDAY2023 Challenge the topic is “First RPG Gamemaster”. From what I’ve read on the message boards, this could have (this year) on it like the Day 1 entry.

So the short answer is, I haven’t gamemastered anything since January 1st. However, I did run a session of Basic Fantasy RPG in December. I was introducing an OSR style game to some 5th Edition players over a holiday break. When I had offered to run an OSR game for them, their first request was “No 4th Edition.” I had to laugh and explain that OSR was a lot earlier than that.

Instead of re-typing everything about that happened in that great gaming session, I’ll give you a link to the blog entry where you can enjoy the after-action report and see the artwork the players came up with while we were playing. 5E players trying OSR for the first time.

Do you remember your first game that you GMed this year (or in the past year)? This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.

Alien, Conventions, Dungeons and Dragons, James Bond, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction, Star Trek

#RPGaDay2023 Day 1: First RPG Played (this year)

Written by TardisCaptain August 1, 2023February 25, 2024

Alright I was able to get through the month of July, so let’s start the #RPGaDAY2023 challenge that I had posted about previously. The day 1 topic is “First RPG played (this year)”. OK, this should be easy.

Except it wasn’t. I had to go back and check. I thought it was my FarTrek game, but it appears that the first half of the year was under the dreaded “schedule curse”. So my first games were at SaltCON in March. At this gaming convention I was able to play the following roleplaying games in one shots.

Pathfinder 2nd Edition- The GM was really good. If I had a good GM like that, I could see myself participating in a campaign. Lots of stuff in Pathfinder that could become too overwhelming if not handled well.

Alien– I had a lot of fun in this game. It was my first try at the system and I could see that I’d prefer a character that I had made instead of a pre-made one. Besides being a big fan of the Alien franchise, I had met the author of the RPG at a previous FanX: The Salt Lake Comic Convention.

Dungeon Crawl Classics– I’ve always wanted to play in a level-0 funnel and SaltCON gave me the opportunity to try this out. DCC is another game that I could see myself playing as part of a campaign.

Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition- A filler game after another game I had scheduled was canceled.

Mistborn– I didn’t really have fun on this game. See the SaltCON Spring 2023 After Action blog post.

James Bond 007– The classic game from the 80’s. It was my first time playing it and I had a blast.

Star Trek Adventures– The GM ran us through a scenario that was inspired by Star Trek: Lower Decks. This was before the new Lower Decks Campaign Guide had come out.

GURPS– The scenario was set in the Aliens universe. This was where I was glad that I didn’t have to create a character.

Cyberpunk RED– It was good to step back into this universe after I had played the original Cyberpunk many years ago.

What was the first role playing game you played this year? This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.

Role Playing Games

Prepping for RPGaDay2023

Written by TardisCaptain July 1, 2023

So 2023 marks the 10th Anniversary of the RPGaDay Challenge. Starting on August 1st there will be 31 days of RPG posts based upon various suggestions as seen in the image above. The suggestions this year sound really interesting. When I saw them, it got the creative juices flowing. Something that I need for this blog. I’ve participated in this challenge in 2021 (daily) and 2023 (via catch up posts due to circumstances). I plan to attempt a daily challenge for the entire month of August.

While I will be posting my entries here on this blog, I will be posting links on social media with the hashtag #RPGaDay2023. I also plan to post entries on the RPG.net message boards. I’m looking forward to seeing what I type up.

Do you have any interest in participating in this challenge? Does the list inspire you? Let’s have some fun.

This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.

Dungeons and Dragons, Role Playing Games

RPGaDAY 2022 catch up #5

Written by TardisCaptain September 3, 2022September 4, 2022

You can find my past RPGaDAY2022 catch up posts here in Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four. The last week of August was just as equally busy. In fact this whole summer has been extremely busy or extremely crappy. I have been grateful for the distractions when I get to blog about geeky subjects such as the #RPGaDAY2022 challenge. I’ve got several projects in mind that I want to get put up on this blog to share with my fellow geeks. I look forward to posting them soon. Here are my entries for Days 29-31 and a bonus question.

Day 29: Who would you like to see take part in #RPGaDAY?

I’d love to see what my wife would post in such a challenge. I would also be very interested in how a friend and gamemaster Jeff Sullivan would fair with these questions.

Day 30: What should #RPGaDAY do for its 10th Anniversary next year?

Perhaps run a “Best Of” with subjects from the past ten years? I haven’t ready any of the earlier years.

Day 31: When did you first take part in #RPGaDAY?

2021 was my first year after I had read about the challenge on other gaming blogs. You can read all of the posts from this year and last year here. Specifically from 2021 I was quite proud of these entries: Origin, Memory, Challenge, Flood and Weapon.

Bonus: Anecdote Alternative: Roll 1d8+1, tag that many friends and tell a gaming story about them.

The recent Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 campaign that ran from 2013 to 2019 had many different adventures. But one of the things that probably frustrated our Dungeon Master. If he set up a big bad guy, our party worked like a well oiled machine and quickly defeated the final challenge. However the smallest of opponents would sometimes come up with the biggest threats. I’m not certain what the creature was called, but there were these creatures that looked like gold coins. When they were disturbed, they started to come to life and attacked us. I don’t think we were in danger of a total party kill, but it took quite a while to get the battle under control. Just before they revealed themselves as alive, one of the player characters had picked up a coin and licked it (for reasons I can’t remember now). I think the fact that the coins came to life may have scared that player. This was early in our campaign so she was cautious when we recovered treasure after future victories.

And with that final post, I’m considering myself done with the #RPGaDAY2022 challenge. My second year was a little different than last year. With real life issues, I could not post once a day. While it may not have stayed with the spirit of a once-a-day challenge, I felt like I was participating in the event with what I could. Since next year is the 10th anniversary, I’ll be interested to see what questions/options are presented. Thank you, I hope you enjoyed reading these entries.

Dungeons and Dragons, Role Playing Games, Star Trek

RPGaDAY 2022 catch up #4

Written by TardisCaptain August 27, 2022August 28, 2022 1 Comment

You can find my past RPGaDAY2022 catch up posts here in Part One, Part Two and Part Three. Another busy week in another busy month in another busy summer has come and gone. Again I’ve been very grateful to the family members who came to help out with our summer projects. With how things have been things are starting to look up. I can’t wait to get this cast off of my foot so I can start doing normal things again. I’ve been enjoying reading the #RPGaDAY2022 posts that I’ve come across. It makes me wish that I could get a bunch of friends around a table to actually game. When some of these time-sink projects are done, I may be a step closer to actually hosting again. Until then, here are my RPGaDAY2022 entries for days 22-28.

Day 22: Who is your current character?

This is Dr. R’imr, the Caitian Lieutenant CMO of the Saladin Class USS Acrux. This is in an online Far Trek game that is being run on the Roll20 virtual tabletop website. So far none of the other players have noticed that the character name came from Red Dwarf.

Day 23: What situation is your character currently in?

We were sent to find out why a colony was not responding to Starfleet. When we arrived we discovered Klingons on the scene who were looking for a weapon. What’s really interesting is that the adventure was written by my friend Roger Taylor and adapted to Far Trek. I’ve been on my honor to not pull up the adventure and look at the notes.

Day 24: When did you start playing this character?

At the beginning of 2022. If we are lucky we get a chance to play once a month. Even then, I’ve had to miss a few sessions due to real life getting in the way. Yes the eternal struggle of gaming.

Day 25: Where has that character been?

Boldly going. Oh, more specific than that. The colony is named Tannos IV with “Madsen’s Hope” being the main colony population center.

Day 26: What does your character do what they do?

R’imr studied medicine and joined Starfleet to get away from the homeworld of Cait. He didn’t feel like he was making a difference there so he decided to leave and offer his services to Starfleet. He loves dispensing wisdom when he uses his catchphrase “Now listen to your doctor when he says…”.

Day 27: How has your character changed?

I’m still exploring this. As I noticed changes, I’ll try to report them here.

Day 28: Style Sunday: Roll 1d8+1, tag that many friends with your favorite RPG cover art.

Well once again I can’t really tag anyone in this format. So here is my favorite cover art.

Dungeons and Dragons, Role Playing Games, Star Trek

RPGaDAY 2022 catch up #3

Written by TardisCaptain August 20, 2022August 21, 2022 1 Comment

Here is my catch up post for #RPGaDAY2022. Links to Part One and Part Two. It has been a very busy week for me and I am eternally grateful for all of the friends and family that came over to help sheetrock a wall in my garage while I was out with my broken foot. This blog post covers days 15-21.

Day 15: Who would you like to Gamemaster for you?

I noticed a lot of people were listing celebrity GMs that they would like to try out. For myself, I’d like to have my friend Jeff Sullivan return to the GM chair. He did such a wonderful job with the Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 campaign that lasted several years with a group of friends. You could see his love of the game, skill in being a referee and how he used the game to make teaching moments for both experienced and new players. Some of his house-rules I’d like to use in my own campaigns.

Day 16: What would be your perfect game?

The game that is so enjoyable that we talk about it afterwards and can’t wait to return to the table. I know that I’ve mentioned some of my past gaming exploits in various blog posts, but I’m going to talk about another one again. We had a FASA Star Trek RPG session where the night ended on a cliffhanger. All of the players kept in contact with each other during the break talking about how we were going to pull our fat out of the fryer. And this was in the days before text messages, instant messages or even the common use of email. We did this all by various phone calls between the individual players. I’ve also noticed that I’ve done the same with computer or card games. If I’m thinking about strategy or how I can improve my gameplay, then I must be enjoying the game.

Day 17: Past, Present or Future? When is your favorite game set?

This is a hard one because I can play in all three settings. Some specific things, like horror, don’t appeal to me. Not because I don’t like that genre, but I had a hard time seeing it translated into a theater of the mind style RPG. If I really had to pick one setting, I think it would be future.

Day 18: Where is your favorite place to play?

At my house. My snacks are there. I’m comfortable. I didn’t need to travel far. Sure I had to prep the house for guests, but that’s a good thing. I also wouldn’t mind playing at a friends house as well, but I worry about games that go into overtime. I wouldn’t mind playing at a convention or a gaming store, but I worry about the noise and distractions.

Day 19: Why has your favorite game stayed with you?

As most of my readers know, it’s the FASA Star Trek RPG. This is because of several reasons. 1- It’s a licensed Star Trek game. 2- The character creation process fascinated me. 3- I thought the percentage system gave us more unique characters. 4- Starship construction rules helped fueled my imagination and creativity. 5- It inspired other Star Trek media and episodes. There are FASA Star Trek references even in Star Trek Discovery episodes and recently released IDW published comics.

Day 20: How long do your games last?

Playing a game, that’s up to the GM and other players. On games that I have run, I try to limit a gaming session to 3-4 hours. If we can’t get at least two hours of game play in, then we need to try again. We get so little time to actually sit down that we need to make sure we get value out of our time.

Day 21: Setting Sunday: Share an intriguing detail from a game setting you enjoy.

I had to think about this one. The answer that I finally decided was the exploration of the unknown. I don’t know what is behind that door, over that hill, across that ocean or on that planet. There are new things out there and I get to discover them with my friends.

Dungeons and Dragons, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction, Star Trek

RPGaDAY 2022 catch up #2

Written by TardisCaptain August 13, 2022August 14, 2022 1 Comment

So after completing the RPGaDAY catch up #1 last week, I knew that I was going to try for a second week. So here are my entries for days 7-14.

Day 7: System Sunday- Describe a cool part of a system that you love.

I’ve been thinking about this one for a while. There have been quite a few cool features in a few different role playing systems. Some I’ve actually tried, some I’ve only read about. I think I’m going to talk about the first cool thing that stood out to me in a system. The Star Wars RPG by West End Games had a feature where each character had a quote that helped define that character. Even in all of the different supplements, if there were stats for a non-player character, they had a quote. It helped make the characters seem like more than just a set of numbers on a piece of paper.

Day 8: Who introduced you to RPGs?

I really wish I could remember the names of the people I played with over thirty-five years ago. I would like to thank them and ask if they are still playing now. I remember a lot of other names and faces from over the years, but I couldn’t tell you who first showed me that Dungeons and Dragons book back in elementary school.

Day 9: What is the 2nd RPG you bought?

This one was easy. While I cut my teeth on Dungeons and Dragons like most players at the time, I was also a big Star Trek fan. When I finally had the money to get the Star Trek Role Playing Game by FASA, I picked it up. While I didn’t get a chance to play it until later, I’ve still be a fan of this system even today.

Day 10: When did/will you start Gamemastering?

While I may have run a few friends through a session, my first memory of being a Dungeon Master was an attempt to introduce my bothers to the game. An attempt that became a complete disaster. You can read about it in my RPGaDAY2021 entry here. I have several other memories of running Star Trek sessions later.

Day 11: If you could live in a game setting, where would it be?

Another question I had to seriously think about. The fantasy setting of Dungeons and Dragons would be interesting with the wonderful magic and the variety of creatures that are found there. But when it comes down to it, I’d really love to be in that brave new worlds that we see in Star Trek.

Day 12: Why did you start RPGing?

Friends. Pure and simple. I got to hang out with friends and laugh with them. We had to scheme, we had to work together, we had to be creative, we had to use our imaginations. I heard someone call RPGing a drug-free group hallucination. I actually believe this as a good thing.

Day 13: How would you change the way you started RPGing?

That was so long ago, I’m not even certain. Perhaps introduce my father to the game so that he would understand my interest in it. I inherited a lot of my geeky interests from him. It would have been nice to share one back.

Day 14: Suggestion Sunday- Roll 1d8+1, and tag that many friends and suggest a new RPG to try.

Well any chance to roll a die. I rolled a six. I can’t really tag anyone in this format so I’ll just list some names.

Erica Abner
Jeff Sullivan
Dave Stock
Stewart Hunsaker
Marla Trowbridge
Kevin Hancock
Erin Ruston

The game I’d like to try would be FrontierSpace. I don’t know the scenario yet, but I’d love to try out the system.

Conclusion:

Another week of good questions. It will probably be another week before I can post on this subject again. I’m not a doctor, but I believe the foot is healing. I can’t wait to have this behind me. Re-learning how to do a lot of things has been a pain. I’ve been very thankful for the family and friends who have been supportive during this time. I would like to also thank those who read my blogs and send me feedback.