X Rounds of Combat

Day 9 - CRITICAL Just because we love something doesn't mean we cannot be critical about it. There are many problematic things especially in the older games. Different stats or available classes for different genders, different treatment of people of various ancestries…  I like to think that we are past those and unless you're playing a historically accurate simulationist game there’s no point to them. Unless you're playing whatever that bigoted hateful mess was that Varg has published. Fifth edition of Dungeons and Dragons has done a lot of good in terms of representation of genders and various cultures. Just look at PHB illustration of fighter, monk, paladin, or wizard. Same with Pathfinder. Pathfinder iconic heroes and heroines There's no need to play out the racism when playing games set in early 20th century. Make your games pleasant for everyone, be critical of the sources and have fun.

Day 8 - OBSCURE A short one today. The hidden folk are the Icelandic and Faroese elves. They are basically fey in D&D - supernatural beings that exist in parallel worlds, can make thems-elves visible at will, and their homes look like rocks.  The hidden folk - all the peoples of Changeling: the Dreaming I'm talking these guys... Going back to the source material, making the fairy more obscure, whimsical and fantastical can give your game a fresher feel.  Try Dolmenwood for example, a lot of the stuff is free: How can you not want to play here?

Day 7 - FAMILIAR Choose your Pokemon So, you're in this weird situation where you only have GM and one player that has little experience playing roleplaying games. I had this idea where you can give the player a familiar as a sort of pet. That means that you don't have to change the published modules so much because there are almost two characters now (but tone it down a bit anyway). The other, main thing is that since familiars are celestials, fey or fiends (intelligent creatures) you the GM can occasionally voice them and help the newbie out by providing ideas and help. It's like having a talking Pikachu that suggests best tactics in the tutorial.

Day 6 - ANCIENT It was supposed to be a longer post but it is my mother's birthday so we went to Capilano Suspension Bridge which is kind of in an ancient forest, so there. Sword and sorcery games and settings I like ancient cultures and ancient settings as opposed to pseudo-medievalisms of D&D and Warhammer. As it has become tradition here is a podcast recommendation on ancient cultures - Ancient World by Scott C. My favourite games and settings are as follows: Robert E. Howard's Conan: Adventures in an age undreamed of Relatively new game from Modiphius, based on writings by Robert E Howard more than his followers. Co-written by Jason Durall, based on a very cinematic 2d20 system, with a free quickstart available. Conan not the Governator Primeval Thule I know the least about this one but it is set in an ancient pre-history, 5e based, mostly human centric, magic is dark, twisted and evil. What more do you want? Sword & sorcery 5e ...

Day 5 - SPACE Space.  Allegedly the final frontier. The guys from the magnificent Grognard Files podcast (seriously, they are awesome, go and listen to them) have a thing fittingly called Prime Directive - GMing exclusivity for a game. Couple of years back in college one guy in our group decided to run Dungeons and Dragons 5e. Naturally that meant that if I wanted to run something it could not have been D&D. I decided to run something completely different - science fiction. So, for fantasy there is D&D, obviously. If you are into less main stream games there are Runequest, Warhammer Fantasy. For supernatural horror the obvious choice is Call of Cthulhu. But science-fiction? Nothing really comes to mind (Star Wars is science-fantasy, fight me!) So I did some digging. Star*Drive, an old TSR game, their own attempt at having a sci-fi game along publishing D&D. I read about it and kind of lost interest. That was not what I was looking for. Traveller seeme...

Day 4 - SHARE I like sharing stuff that is important to me.  I'm guessing that most adult RPG players are in some sort of relationships and would like to share the fun with their partners. My wife has known some people in high school that played Warhammer but has never had much interest in playing. RPGs are the things I collect and sometimes talk about.  There is a light at the end of that tunnel though.  Kids on Bikes She did express some interest in playing when I told her about  Kids on Bikes  (because she loves Stranger Things ) and The Secrets of Cats  (because she loves cats) .   The Secrets of Cats It almost seems like you have to do some homework and go beyond D&D to get some people interested.  If you want to share your hobby with people from outside of it find a game about something that they like. 

Day 3 - ENGAGE This could have been a very different post about something else. But then the trailer for " Star Trek: Picard " came out. "Engage!" - Picard, Jean-Luc, every time he wants the pilot to engage Most of my life I played various fantasy games. Then, last year, I played Star Trek Adventures from Modiphius once as a Denobulan engineer. I barely knew what I was doing, didn't know the 2d20 system very well, only from reading a  quickstart for Robert E. Howard’s Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of . I had a blast! Conclusion? Play different games. ENGAGE with them so to speak.