If you're in here, you know about one of my favorite pasttimes: Roleplaying. I love it. It's almost my favorite hobby (my favorite being art which if you need to see it is here. But, on to gaming.
Gaming has for years been deemed a hobby for degenerates needing to escape from reality. If that's the case, than brand me a degenerate and I'll walk home happy. I love this stuff and as a service to others who share this enthusiasm, I have chosen to list my favorite games so that those who are not familiar with then will have something new to turn to if they haven't played them already. So here they are folks. The greatest tabletop RPG's and LARPs of all time:
10 - Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying: To hell with D&D. This is what you really want to play if you want fantasy role-playing. The system is simple percentile rolls, magic is fairly simple and the world is very intriguing. I watched my father and his students at Salem High play this every couple of weekends as I grew up. It's part of the reason I'm playing today.
9 - Ghostbusters: Okay, this game was cheesy, but it was my first, and if you had to play a game with cheese, this was the place to start. It was the first gameI ever played in or ran, so once again, it gets an honorary place in the countdown. Dice rolls were handled with all six siders and was quick and to the point, also making for some ridiculously improbable results.
8 - Paranoia: For when you just have to kill the other players, this is what you need my friends. Go ahead and just blast people who annoy the hell out of you. Everybody gets six clones anyway. This is the ultimate break game for folks just needing to get away from the "serious" dark future and fantasy games. Grab a laser pistol and start shooting commie, mutant traitors, citizen!
7 - Star Wars: Poor West End Games. They always seemed to get the worst end of things. Ghostbusters, Paranoia, and Torg all turned out to be either total losers or sleeper hits, but with Star Wars, they struck gold. How can't you when you're talking about the Millenium Falcon, the Force, Tatooine and all of the other trappings of one of the world's greates movies. Another straight shooting six sided die game that never failed to deliver all sorts of great roleplaying and action.
6 - Mage: The Ascension: The only reason that this incredibly cool concept game has not made it to the absolute top of the list is because of two reasons. The first is because I've never actually played it. The second, and more important reason, is that in a game where characters can do, quite literally, anything. Not that that's bad, but it makes the game difficult to play and even harder to GM.
5 - Vampire: The Masquerade (Tabletop): White Wolf has dedicated the past decade towards making roleplaying games for the dark side of the street. Their World of Darkness games have become legendary all because of this game, Vampire: The Masquerade. The most recent rulebook, VTM Third Edition, only makes the old game better. Players take on the night as the walking dead. Damned souls cursed to walk the earth, feeding off of what they once were. This game of personal horror is a ten sided system, with easy to grasp concepts and rules that make most other horror games a moot point.
4 - Werewolf: The Apocalypse: With as much as I sing the praises of VTM, I've always liked werewolves more. WTA is a game not so much of personal horror (although anyone, even Garou, could drop a brick at the sight of a formori or bane spirit...) as it is a tale of the end of all things. The dark nature of the Wyrm, a necessary force of destruction, has been twisted my mortals and supernaturals alike and has gone out of control. The only thing that stands between Gaia and the dark minions of the Wyrm, are the werewolves, and they put up one hell of a fight. A companion game to VTM, Werewolf uses the same ten sided system and uses the same game concepts to create a truly great atmosphere all of its own.
3 - Wraith: The Oblivion: Remember when I said Vampire made almost any other horror game seem to be a moot point? This is the exceptional one of which I spoke. A sleeper hit next to Mage, Vampire, and Werewolf, Wraith manages to invoke the darkest force imaginable and bring it to the players doorsteps. In Wraith, players take on the personalities of the deceased; the wandering bodiless souls of those whose wills were too strong to be crushed by anything so trivial as death. Once again, it uses White Wolf's award winning system of ten sided success tests, and brings the horror of death, and what lies beyond into play.
2 - Vampire: The Masquerade (LARP): For those unaware of Live Action RolePlaying (LARP), go learn. Go learn now. This kind of roleplaying is a different experience entirely. By physically taking the role as your character, if forces you to do what so many others can't do: actually roleplay. So many people claim to roleplay but rweally do nothing more than say, "My character whips out his sword and cuts the ork in half," and then claim that it was roleplaying. This forces you to do it. It's not necessarily for everyone, but if you can dig it, go do it. You won't regret it. VTM LARP uses (quit laughing) Paper-Rock-Scissors as a basic succes/faliure test system. Sounds corney, but hey, it works.
1 - Cyberpunk and Shadowrun: Anyone who knows me knows of my passion for the dark future. Cyberpunks live on the edge of society, taking on the function of dark darwinism. Removing those too weak from society through chem warfare, cybernetics, or the ability to hurl chunks of lead at insanely fast speeds into big nasty crits and solos. The rush of screwing over megacorporations drives all things. The incredible technology that blurs the line between man and machine. And if you can't roleplay without magic, there's more than enough of that to sate your appetite in Shadowrun. Everyone who knows me will know that it has been a constant race for dominion inside of me for which game is better. But I really can't choose one over the other. Cyberpunk 2020 used a ten sided additive system while Shadowrun uses a wholly six sided success based system. Both deliver the most bangs for the buck (for either game you can get incredibly detailed and in depth adventures and supplements for as low as eight bucks!) and will provide you with enough combat stories and roleplaying greatness for years to come. Go out and buy both. CP 2020 costs about $20 and SR costs about $25. you know you want to.....
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