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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 . FWIW, I'll try to provide links to the games I mention, to make them easier to pursue should they catch your eye.

[🧵 1/lots]

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. drivethrurpg.com/product/24849

www.drivethrurpg.comParsely - Memento Mori Theatricks | DriveThruRPG.comParsely - Relive the glory days of floppy disks, dot-matrix printers and 128K RAM with this collection of party games inspired by

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: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tegel_Ma. 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.

en.wikipedia.orgTegel Manor - Wikipedia

4. My most recent purchase (as of writing this) was Marzio Muscadere’s adventure “The Shadows About Hope” (drivethrurpg.com/product/42549). 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 , which has about a week left to go on Kickstarter: kickstarter.com/projects/devil

www.drivethrurpg.comThe Shadows About Hope: An Adventure for the DCC RPG - Marz Press | DriveThruRPG.comThe Shadows About Hope: An Adventure for the DCC RPG - WARNING - This book is 98 pages of glorious sword and sorcery adventure and gritty location setting guide that will resu

7. I’m not sure how to characterise the “smartest” I’ve played.

That said, I find chargen an interesting point of comparison between games. Mechanically, I like how ’ 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 was brilliantly conceived: drivethrurpg.com/product/20630.)

www.drivethrurpg.comBest Friends - BoxNinja | DriveThruRPG.comBest Friends - What Is Best Friends?OK, it's a game about being Best Friends and all the little hatreds that Best Friends have for each

8. My favourite character? A three-way tie:

• Poor Cosmo Portwine, the 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 (gauntlet-rpg.com/the-between.h), from a family of witches, who courted spirits via increasingly extreme acts of self-harm.

• And Puddlebutt, of course: dice.camp/@davej/1095311708265

THE GAUNTLETThe BetweenThe Between  is a tabletop roleplaying game about a group of mysterious monster hunters in Victorian-era London. They are residents of a place called Hargrave House, and their job is to investigate...

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 dice to GM. And a set of Shanna’s Weird Dice for .

I also have a gorgeous set of virtual Australian wildlife-themed dice for ’s plugin that I long to use in a game someday: q-workshop.com/en/virtual-dice



q-workshop.comVirtual Australian Wildlife Dice Set: Nightlife VTTAdd both this virtual and a physical copy of AUSTRALIAN WILDLIFE DICE SET: NIGHTLIFE to your cart and this software will be discounted to $0.25 when finalizing your order.

10. I confess I don’t really read -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?



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 at the time, I ran it in 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 one-shot.



12. Barring the occasional one-shot, I don’t know that I play many old RPGs any more in their original forms. I play (though usually mixed in with MegaTraveller and Mongoose 2nd Edition), (always 7e these days), an occasional game of (albeit RQG), and a number of 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.)

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 ’s worst adventure ever (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_G ). All had the same printing issues, it turned out, but that just sparked a quest to find serviceable replacements…



en.wikipedia.orgCastle Greyhawk (module) - Wikipedia

15. My favourite *recent* one-shot’s probably “Cliff Canyon and the Dangernauts vs the Spider Queen of Mars” for , which sees actors in a Flash Gordon-style pastiche investigate their co-star’s disappearance. It plays up ’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 , albeit an older edition) a bunch of times, and it’s always come off well.



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 or . That said, though, I’d love to own a hardcopy of (magpiegames.com/pages/bluebear). I don’t see myself ever playing it again, and I’ll never run it, but the books are just so damn *beautiful.*



Magpie GamesBluebeardMagpie Games

17. I’m in a game of (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”—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.

Getting Away With MurderGetting Away With MurderA co-operative role-play game of drama, wit, and mystery.

18. If you go merely by hours played at the moment, would be my favourite system. In previous years, I’d’ve nominated or for the mechanics and the lore. I also have an abiding love for .

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” (, drivethrurpg.com/product/520/T) masterfully breaks up a megadungeon with social interludes; Alison Huang’s “From the Forest They Fled” (, from Uncaged, Vol 1: dmsguild.com/product/267545/Un) uses subtle Australiana to lend terror to a run-of-the-mill monster; “Eternal Lies” (, pelgranepress.com/product/eter) turns the Mythos globetrotter campaign on its head…

www.drivethrurpg.comThe Banewarrens - Malhavoc Press | Adventures | Ptolus | DriveThruRPG.comThe Banewarrens - Ptolus Tie-In, was originally priced at $10.00  By Monte Cook136-page mega-adventureFree previewArt galleryFree web enh

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 or . Or (just as likely) some weirdarse retroclone, online at 3am, with other geriatric folks on the opposite side of the globe.



21. I don’t go in much for licensed RPGs, but was pretty cool, and I liked 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 ’s lesser-known licensed sourcebooks like “Hardwired” or “When Gravity Fails”.



22. My best secondhand purchase would be the 1st printing, gold foil, black hardcover rulebook, along with a handful of printed modules. Collectible value aside, it’s given me hundreds of hours of fun at the table.

Ten bucks—Australian—for the lot, bought from a friend at .

23. I mentioned how gorgeous was last week (dice.camp/@davej/1108972814215), and both and were cases of love at first sight. But one that I don’t think gets enough attention is .

Its mechanics are fairly straightforward , 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. ’s likely the most complex I play with any regularity, its body of lore immense, and its resolution system merely inconvenient. (OTOH, I find less lore-heavy, but fiddlier to play. YMMV.)

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 .

TROIKA! RPGScience Fantasy RPG | TROIKA!

25. I backed on Kickstarter, but confess I’ve not had a chance to look at it (or its supplements) yet. I moved house soon after I received them, threw them into a box, and have only recently unearthed them again.

It’s a about solving mundane crimes, with expansions covering fantasy, sci-fi, and Lovecraftian mysteries. The author, Bogdan Constantinescu, gives an overview at gmshoe.wordpress.com/2019/03/2. You can buy them all at drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/Da.

The Hardboiled GMshoe's Office[Q&A] Bogdan Constantinescu (Grey Cells)<+Bogdan> Hi everyone! I’m Bogdan Constantinescu, and I’m making a detective fiction based tabletop roleplaying game called Grey Cells! <+Bogdan> The focus of the game is on…
Dave J

26. playsets aren’t quite character sheets—they’re primarily campaign templates. But as Fiasco characters aren’t defined as individuals—rather, by their relationships to other characters—they’re also templates for the ENTIRE party.

I love the design @nickwedig chose for the “Dragon 2000 All You Can Eat” playset (drive.google.com/file/d/0B7tke). Set in a suburban Chinese eatery, the playset’s presented as a stereotypical, three-colour, risographed takeout menu.

Google DocsDragon 2000.pdf

27. I’d like to see *an* edition of . It Kickstarted successfully, but its creator vanished about three years ago…

That aside, I wouldn’t mind a new : Dream Pod 9 hit the scene back in 1992 with a very cool setting for I’d describe as , but with fewer aliens and more space mecha, debuting its dedicated (and their in-house system) five years later.

28. I don't really do scary experiences. It's not my thing. But thrilling?

I'm sure I'm painful to watch, and I wouldn't normally advertise this, but I play on ' GrapeApe's Reaver Express stream: twitch.tv/goodmangamesofficial.

Matt—the eponymous GrapeApe—has pulled out some real edge-of-the-seat, nail-biting, sweating-bullets encounters these past few sessions. At least that's how it feels to me as a player.

TwitchGoodmanGamesOfficial - TwitchWe are best known for our popular Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and associated adventures. Goodman Games also publishes popular titles such as Mutant Crawl Classics, Xcrawl, Fifth Edition Fantasy, and the hit Original Adventures Reincarnated series.

(Apologies, again, for the delay. Not feeling the best lately.)

29. Given how bad my memory is, my most memorable encounter is usually the most recent. 😉

A few others stand out, though, like throwing rice at Dracula's wedding ( for ), then swooping in—and dismally failing—to stake him as he stooped to count the grains, or reliving my character's bizarre teenage sexual encounters with things from beyond the Veil as part of 's mask mechanic.

Tolerant fellow players really ARE a gift. 💕

30. Somewhere on YouTube, you can see me bumbling through a rare English-language session of , one-on-one with a very patient GM.

Instead, though, I’d like to highlight , by NZ writer Steve Hickey: drivethrurpg.com/product/16364.

In Soth, you play small-town cultists, scheming to summon an eldritch horror to devour the world before the heroes can stop you. It’s described as “a mix between Breaking Bad and the stories of HP Lovecraft.”

www.drivethrurpg.comSoth: a game of cultists vs investigators - Steve Hickey | DriveThruRPG.comSoth: a game of cultists vs investigators - In Soth, you play cultists in a small-town, trying to summon a dark god. If you complete three more rituals, Soth will

31. My favourite of all time is .

I like 7e’s mechanics a lot better (chases aside) than earlier editions, but since it went full-colour, and the Miskatonic Repository took off, feels to me less Mythos and more kitchen-sink horror, the same way stopped being Western-inflected and became its own brand of fantasy. The game’s changing to meet the next generation’s demands.

Also, I’m getting old, and there are kids on my lawn. 😉