One of the unfortunate things about living on this side of the world is that if I want to do one of these, it's too early in the day to cheat and copy everyone else's answers. 
That said, welcome to my humble contribution to #RPGaDay2023. FWIW, I'll try to provide links to the games I mention, to make them easier to pursue should they catch your eye.
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1. The first RPG I played this year was Parsely, which I’d best describe as half parlour game, and half Infocom text adventure. I found it a real challenge to mentally track all the players’ commands, our inventory, and progress through the game as our communal character repeatedly died and needed to be reloaded from a single allowable save point. A lot of fun, and a real hit of 1970s/80s nostalgia. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/248491/Parsely #RPGaDay #RPGaDay2023 #TTRPG
2. My first GM was Nigel, my mother’s then-boyfriend’s son, way back when I was 6yo. Whilst the adults did whatever the adults were doing, Nigel half-heartedly ran me solo through the Judges Guild adventure Tegel Manor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tegel_Manor. A skeleton killed my very first character.
It’d be another 3-4 years before I played again—this time, Keep on the Borderlands—with a group two brothers, Karl and Pieter, started at the local library. #RPGaDay #RPGaDay2023 #TTRPG
3. My first #TTRPG purchase this year was the Kickstarter for Stefan Surrat’s #DCCRPG supplement “Elfland: Beyond the Fields We Know” (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/422473/Elfland-Beyond-the-Fields-We-Know--DCC-Dungeon-Crawl-Classics). It came with a couple of adventures, and I picked up his collection of vintage comic VTT tokens as an add-on, too. #RPGaDay #RPGaDay2023
4. My most recent purchase (as of writing this) was Marzio Muscadere’s #DCCRPG adventure “The Shadows About Hope” (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/425491/The-Shadows-About-Hope-An-Adventure-for-the-DCC-RPG). I was lucky enough to play in one of Marzio’s games earlier this year, and had so much fun I decided to see what else he’d written for DCC. Turns out I already had a lot of it. 
FWIW, I’ve also recently backed #XCrawlClassics, which has about a week left to go on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/devillich/xcrawl-classics-ttrpg
5. The oldest game I’ve played? Classic #Traveller or Holmes Basic #DnD, I guess.
FWIW, the facsimile edition of Classic Traveller, which compiles the first three books, is still available free in PDF from DriveThruRPG: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/355200/Classic-Traveller-Facsimile-Edition
And Humble Bundle has a pretty sweet deal going on Mongoose Traveller, 2nd edition (AKA #MgT2e): https://www.humblebundle.com/books/traveller-mongoose-publishing-books
6. I love #13thAge (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?filters=45211_0_0_0_0), #ShadowOfTheDemonLord (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?filters=45587_0_0_0_0) and #WarhammerFRP’s second edition (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/54/Cubicle-7-Entertainment-Ltd/subcategory/179_4943/Warhammer-Fantasy-Roleplay-2nd-Edition). Choosing between them is like choosing between children… who you also don't play with. 
I hear #WHFRP 4e is fairly close to 2e, but I’ve not had time to look into it, sadly, and it also strikes me as a bit premium-pricy anyway—not something I can do much anymore.
7. I’m not sure how to characterise the “smartest” #TTRPG I’ve played.
That said, I find chargen an interesting point of comparison between games. Mechanically, I like how #UnknownArmies’ madness meters were brought front and centre in 3e, tying in much more closely to other character stats.
(Honourable mention—as I’ve not yet played it—I also think character generation in Gregor Hutton’s #BestFriends was brilliantly conceived: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/20630/Best-Friends.)
8. My favourite character? A three-way tie:
• Poor Cosmo Portwine, the #DCCRPG halfling, such a giving soul that he laid down his life for his friends, but when they checked his body, he’d sacrificed too much Luck to revive. 
• Neil Ditchitt, the opiate-addicted ex-lawyer in #TheBetween (https://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/the-between.html), from a family of witches, who courted spirits via increasingly extreme acts of self-harm.
• And Puddlebutt, of course: https://dice.camp/@davej/109531170826574338
9. I have LOTS of favourite dice. I keep four sets of Chessex mini polyhedrals in a skull-and-crossbones mull tin for when I’m travelling light. I use licensed #CallOfCthulhu dice to GM. And a set of Shanna’s Weird Dice for #DCCRPG. I also have a gorgeous set of virtual Australian wildlife-themed dice for #FoundryVTT’s #DiceSoNice plugin that I long to use in a game someday: https://q-workshop.com/en/virtual-dice/1648/australian-wildlife-nightlife-dice-set-vtt #RPGaDay #RPGaDay2023 #TTRPG #CoC
10. I confess I don’t really read #TTRPG-related tie-in fiction; I tend to even skip the flavour fiction in rulebooks. It’s just not how I consume game lore. I do, however, read a lot of scenarios that I know I’ll never run or play. Maybe this serves the same purpose? #RPGaDay #RPGaDay2023
11. It was some years before either film, but imagine a cross between Cool World (1992) and Conspiracy Theory (1997). I ran a short campaign like this until my high school friends became sick of my antics. What’s worse, because we all loved the #TTRPG at the time, I ran it in #Shadowrun 1e, itself already an odd mix of gunbunny/American Ninja/Tolkien pastiche aesthetics. *That* was my weirdest game ever, only vaguely approached by the occasional #OverTheEdge one-shot. #RPGaDay #RPGaDay2023
12. Barring the occasional one-shot, I don’t know that I play many old RPGs any more in their original forms. I play #Traveller (though usually mixed in with MegaTraveller and Mongoose 2nd Edition), #CallOfCthulhu (always 7e these days), an occasional game of #RuneQuest (albeit RQG), and a number of #OSR systems, but most are either retreads of old systems or spiritual homages.
(FWIW, for the most part, the modern versions are better written and edited, IMO.)
#RPGaDay #RPGaDay2023 #TTRPG #CoC
Spoiler for the Dracula Dossier
14. My favourite con purchase—does bottomless hot chocolate at MacquarieCon count?
I rarely attend big cons, so don’t often buy stuff. Way back when, though, I did manage to pick up an auction lot of not one but *four* copies of WG7 Castle Greyhawk at CanCon one year, widely touted as #ADnD’s worst adventure ever (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Greyhawk_(module) ). All had the same printing issues, it turned out, but that just sparked a quest to find serviceable replacements…
#RPGaDay #RPGaDay2023 #TTRPG
15. My favourite *recent* one-shot’s probably “Cliff Canyon and the Dangernauts vs the Spider Queen of Mars” for #CallOfCthulhu, which sees actors in a Flash Gordon-style pastiche investigate their co-star’s disappearance. It plays up #PulpCthulhu’s pulpiness nicely, and generously tips its hat to pulp sci-fi.
Going back further, though, I’ve run John Tynes’ “In Media Res” (also #CoC, albeit an older edition) a bunch of times, and it’s always come off well. #RPGaDay #RPGaDay2023 #TTRPG
16. There are lots of games I wish I owned in hardcopy that lack of space or money forced me to buy in electronic form, like #YellowKingRPG or #UnknownArmies3e. That said, though, I’d love to own a hardcopy of #BluebeardsBride (https://magpiegames.com/pages/bluebeards-bride). I don’t see myself ever playing it again, and I’ll never run it, but the books are just so damn *beautiful.* #RPGaDay #RPGaDay2023 #TTRPG
17. I’m in a game of #GettingAwayWithMurder (https://gawm.link) that’s due to resume shortly after a 4 1/2-month break.
Picture my character as like Alan B’Stard (from “The New Statesman”—https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094519/), only he’s a student in a Grand Guignol-esque Ivy League dorm. It’s horrible and sprawling and random and hilarious, and I think our GM suffers PTSD now.
It may not be the funniest game I’ve played ever, but it’d have to be close.
#RPGaDay #RPGaDay2023 #TTRPG
18. If you go merely by hours played at the moment, #DCCRPG would be my favourite #TTRPG system. In previous years, I’d’ve nominated #CallOfCthulhu or #ShadowOfTheDemonLord for the mechanics and the lore. I also have an abiding love for #Traveller.
Truth be told, however, as I play more and more different RPG systems (over 100 since the COVID pandemic began), I’ve increasingly come to realise that I don’t play for the systems—I play for the people.
19. It’s hard to pick out ONE favourite published adventure.
@montecook’s “The Banewarrens” (#DnD3e, https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/520/The-Banewarrens) masterfully breaks up a megadungeon with social interludes; Alison Huang’s “From the Forest They Fled” (#DnD5e, from Uncaged, Vol 1: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/267545/Uncaged--Volume-I) uses subtle Australiana to lend terror to a run-of-the-mill monster; “Eternal Lies” (#TrailOfCthulhu, https://pelgranepress.com/product/eternal-lies/) turns the Mythos globetrotter campaign on its head…
20. TBH, I don’t know that *I’ll* be around in 20 years, but if so, I’ll likely be playing some version of #Traveller or #CallOfCthulhu. Or (just as likely) some weirdarse #BOSR retroclone, online at 3am, with other geriatric folks on the opposite side of the globe. #RPGaDay #RPGaDay2023 #TTRPG #CoC
21. I don’t go in much for licensed RPGs, but #GhostbustersRPG was pretty cool, and I liked #LeverageRPG a lot. The latter’s flashback mechanic seems obvious in retrospect (like many brilliant ideas), and I like how a given character’s primary and secondary roles interact to define their problem-solving style and personality. Honourable mention goes to #CyberpunkRPG’s lesser-known licensed sourcebooks like “Hardwired” or “When Gravity Fails”. #RPGaDay #RPGaDay2023 #ttrpgf
23. I mentioned how gorgeous #BluebeardsBride was last week (https://dice.camp/@davej/110897281421581064), and both #VampireTheMasquerade and #ChangelingTheDreaming were cases of love at first sight. But one #TTRPG that I don’t think gets enough attention is #Aquelarre.
Its mechanics are fairly straightforward #BRP, and Reconquista-era Spain appeals to the history buff in me, but the art is really where it shines: faux-mediaeval portraiture rendered in vivid colour. Just beautiful.
24. As I get older, I find I eschew mechanically complex, simulationist RPGs. #RuneQuest’s likely the most complex #TTRPG I play with any regularity, its body of lore immense, and its resolution system merely inconvenient. (OTOH, I find #DnD5e less lore-heavy, but fiddlier to play. YMMV.)
#TroikaRPG—https://www.troikarpg.com—is at the other end of the spectrum. Not the simplest game I play, but easy to pick up, and its engine appeals to my nostalgia for #FightingFantasy.
(Sorry for getting this out late. I wasn’t feeling well yesterday.)
@davej they are indeed so very beautiful, I gave them as a gift to my eldest, so tough to let go
@elStiko If you’re looking to adopt, I’m *technically* an orphan. Just putting that out there.
@davej You know if I had the space, you'd be very welcome. You also know what I've been doing to my space, consistently