Answers to RPGaDay 2023
RPG a Day is a set of questions answered every day of August in Social Media, organized by Casting Shadows. Here are my answers from 2023.
1) FIRST RPG played (this year)
The dark Eye 2, when a friend brought it from a summer camp. I was hooked at "you play together", playing elves, and slaying Orks. About 1992.
🇩🇪 Erstes jemals gespieltes #Rollenspiel: Das Schwarze Auge 2, das ein Freund aus einem Ferienfreizeit mitbrachte. Ich liebte "ihr spielt nicht gegeneinander" und Elfen — und wir metzelten Orks in Zweier-Runden (1SL, 1 Spieler). Etwa 1992.
2) First RPG GAMEMASTER
The first GM I had was my best friend. We played in a group of two people on the floor in his room.
The first #RPG I GM’ed was #TheDarkEye version 2.
🇩🇪 Meine erste SL war mein bester Freund — wir spielten zu zweit auf dem Boden im Kinderzimmer.
Das erste von mir geleitete Spiel war #DSA 2.
3) First RPG BOUGHT (this year)
I think a German The Dark Eye Box „Mit Mantel, Schwert und Zauberstab“. I still have it, though I read it so much that the corners of the box are wholly ruined.
🇩🇪 Das erste gekaufte Rollenspiel (überhaupt): „Mit Mantel, Schwert und Zauberstab“, DSA 2.
4) Most RECENT game bought
🇩🇪 Neustes Spiel: Fabula Ultima — obwohl ich mir geschworen hatte, nie wieder ebooks ohne Druckversion zu kaufen¹, weil es einfach so gut ist. Obwohl wir es am Ende als Crossover mit #1w6 Regeln gespielt haben.
¹: seit der Europäische Gerichtshof bestimmt hat, dass ebooks nicht wiederverkauft werden dürfen.
5) OLDEST game you've played
🇩🇪 Ältestes gespieltes RPG: DSA 2 (mit dem ich angefangen habe).
6) Favourite game you NEVER get to play
If that’s what I never could play: Engel. https://web.archive.org/web/20060509173954/http://www.white-wolf.com/engelweb/ehtml/index.html
If it’s about a game I played but never get to play these days: Mechanical Dream. https://web.archive.org/web/20081103090839/http://www.steamlogic.com/
🇩🇪 Liebstes Spiel, das ich nie spielen konnte: https://web.archive.org/web/20160413095828/http://www.feder-und-schwert.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=58&Itemid=65
Liebstes Spiel, dass ich heutzutage nie zum Spielen komme: Mechanical Dream: https://web.archive.org/web/20081103090839/http://www.steamlogic.com/
(I just rewired two of the homepages on Wikipedia to archive.org)
7) SMARTEST RPG you've played
The original #Dungeonslayers with its one-sheet adventures. That masterfully played on the tropes, was very easy to get into, and in passing fixed the biggest shortcoming of the D20.
🇩🇪 Das cleverste Spiel, das ich gespielt habe: Das ursprüngliche Dungeonslayers mit den One-Sheet Abenteuern. Wir konnten instantan einsteigen und das Spiel lief toll. Smart: „Dein Ergebnis ist, was du auf W20 würfelst, solange du nicht über deinem Wert bist“ #pnpde #rpg
8) Favourite CHARACTER
That’s hard to decide. One is Sskreszta, the psi-pilot who became a healer and the Character I played the longest — over more than a decade: https://www.1w6.org/deutsch/kampagnen/w-chter-der-zeit/charaktere/sskreszta
But the one who still resonates the strongest in my life is Eschrandar, the Nayan War Engine drugging daily to forget that his Volkoi friend had been manipulating him for ages—and cut ties in the end.
9) Favourite DICE
There are many dice I like — including the banned die with which one of our players in the old Dark Eye group consistently rolled so unbelievably well that his mage killed more enemies with his staff than the fighter and mercenary — but these three are the ones it would pain me most to lose. They are just simple and beautiful and have accompanying me in https://www.1w6.org development for over two decades.
10) Favourite tie-in FICTION
The first three Earthdawn novels. They are harsh, intense, and awesome!
11) WEIRDEST game you've played
Puppetland is what comes to mind first, but Plüsch, Power & Plunder wins: play stuffed animals that awake in the shopping mall. Both times we played it led to absolute carnage, once involving aliens.
12) Old game you STILL play
That’s Cthulhu, though I have only started playing it recently.
13) Most memorable character DEMISE
That’s from our crusaders Cthulhu campaign: almost totally insane, in a pact with a zombie demon, and lusting for human flesh, my once noble and still naive knight managed to pierce the dark gods arm pit with his longsword which helped force him into the dimensional vortex that then consumed them both.
No one has seen him since but by Cthulhu rules saving the world might have given him enough sanity back to not become an NPC. Though whatever he’s seen on the other side might have well thrown him back deep into insanity.
14) Favourite CONVENTION purchase
A good bowl of Chili late in the night.
15) Favourite Con MODULE / ONE-SHOT
The Trekk which Taysal (RIP 2021) and me wrote together: Steampunk Fantasy at the frontier: https://www.1w6.org/deutsch/regeln/downloads/flyerbuecher
As non self-promotion: the one page dungeons by Dungeonslayers are still my favorite: minimal preparation time for a lot of fun.
16) Game you WISH you owned
A game whose name I forgot about spirits inhabiting human beings.
17) FUNNIEST game you've played
Kagegami High. Japanese schoolgirls at a school for supernaturally gifted battle it out with a crazy world, all built on the raw chance of dice rolls on lunatic random event tables.
18) Favourite game SYSTEM
My own ☺ https://www.1w6.org
Excluding that: Gurps. You can actually create balanced groups and challenges for every conceivable combination of settings with it, and it provides the raw material to realize every idea you toy with. A well of inspiration.
19) Favourite PUBLISHED adventure
I really dig the phileasson saga, but we never managed to finish it.
20) Will still play in TWENTY years time
Yes :-) (I dearly hope so)
21) Favourite LICENSED RPG
I only played two: Dresden Files and Star Wars. Of those Star Wars clearly wins, but mainly because I played a pretty long campaign with the kid in which the padawan got to save and teach a group of younglings.
We didn’t use the official rules though — but one official adventure.
22) Best SECONDHAND RPG purchase
None. Sorry …
23) COOLEST looking RPG product / book
Mechanical Dreams: it has this mix of sketch and quality, of giving you a strong foundation for your game and intense archetypes that shine through the illustrations and style, that’s utterly great.
It also never had commercial success, but it is a work of art.
24) COMPLEX / SIMPLE RPG you play
Looking back the past 5 years: Splittermond is the most comlpex I played. It’s action-duration based combat is pretty complex but works well, though it brings combat pretty far into board game territory.
Simplest RPG I play is my own 1w6.org / One Die System ☺
25) UNPLAYED RPG you own
Engel. It looks awesome, but I did not get to play it yet.
26) Favourite CHARACTER SHEET
The Deadlands ones. Marking your health stats and ammunition with paperclips is wonderfully haptic.
27) Game you'd like a new EDITION of…
Mechanical Dreams. There’s a ton of potential in it that could be unleashed by editing and tightening of the rules.
28) SCARIEST game you've played
Mechanical Dream. There’s a whole other level of dread that builds up when you know that the world around you is several orders of magnitude bigger than you — and when the game manages to actually evoke that feeling of lying below a tree the size of a skyscraper with leaves falling that can crush entire villages while the knocking of a wood bug spells terrible danger.
29) Most memorable ENCOUNTER
When my houseruled Dark Eye Character fell in the battle against a daemon pactist who went through several gates of daemonization during a battle in the sevenfold stroke campaign (Siebenstreich).
His Character sheet hung in my room for years, along with the d20 I used in the battle.
30) OBSCURE RPG you've played
Blue planet. That a pretty nice, pretty scientific, and wholly interesting world.
31) FAVOURITE RPG of all time
My own one ☺ ⇒ https://www.1w6.org
Excluding that, it’s tied between Gurps for the flexibility and Mechanical Dreams for the awesome world and deepest psychological concepts.
Honorable mentions: Shadowrun and Fate — awesome Cyberpunk-Fantasy and the system that gave Free Culture its breakthrough in RPG. And actually The Dark Eye. It does more things right than it appears to.