15 games in 15 minutes
“Meme” via sir sacha3791
What games have influenced my roleplaying? I found it hard to think about 15 games in short notice which is one of the reasons why this was so delayed.
1 - RuneQuest III -. the game system I ran my longest campaign with - the campaign in Glorantha that last a bit more than a decade in real life time. I also used the Chaosium's BRP rule system as a basis for other games, including modern adventures. It is still my longest campaign so I've probably developed manners I've stuck with even if I may not be aware of them.
2 - D&D - I'm one of the many Finnish players that consider that D&D may be something you begin with but you'll eventually ”grow up” and move to better game systems. I still not like even the current version that much - it's still basically ”killing NPCs for XP”, now with special bonuses to do so.
3 - Call of Cthulhu - the first BRP game I bought and I remember exactly when - in 1987 just before the Brighton Worldcon in Britain (my first Con overseas). I ran a short campaign to couple of my mates during the military service and it was the first game I ran when I joined Excalibur, the roleplaying club of Tampere University of Technology (despite of the fact that I never actually studied there).
4 - MERP or the Middle Earth Role Playing. Meet Middle-Earth dwarf Gloin the son of... somebody, who was a wannabe alchemist. So he ended up using the significant portion of experience received from traveling, killing brigands, being wounded and surviving the very common landslides to increasing knowledge of alchemy from the book he was always carrying. He never had a chance to get XP by dying but was rather close (damned nauraugs). The GM was very good even though he used his own version of Rolemaster to run the game.
5 - CORPS - The system I'm currently using. CORPS is a decade-old generic system of BTRC and suits my needs perfectly (their current generic system EABA does not). Unfortunately the players in my CORPS campaign have been more and more absent for various reasons.
6 - Werewolf: The Apocalypse. I've never been fond of vampires (even before Anne Rice and teen-conservative Twilight saga) but when White Wolf published a werewolf game I decided to give the system a chance. The background was interesting but the books were full of typos and references to ”page XXX”. When I ran an introductory scenario some of the players who were also playing in a Vampire campaign were mystified why rules were so different for the same purpose and kept chancing supplement by supplement. I eventually voted with my wallet and gave up.
7 - Ars Magica - meet Magnus Tetra, young Magus who thought that the Four Elements are all you need (I planned to play him in such a way that he'd learn it's not that simple.). As for the Companion and Grog characters, they became practically expendable in that campaign and were killed left and right, sometimes by other player characters (except for the only female grog). Still, the most interesting campaign I've ever played in - until the GM got married and stopped running it.
8 - 2300AD - meet Simon Rawson, ex-policeman from the British colony of Crater who left the service and took his riot armor with him. Or, actually, the GM ran couple of side campaigns on the side so I ended up playing a Japanese mercenary and filthy-rich Azanian in Aurore against Kafers and, after Rawson's death in a booby trap (during a session when I was absent), Japanese guy whose ”sister” was an AI spacecraft. By that time the GM tried to run a game based of Stanislaw Lem and some of the other players were not sure if their characters were still linked to the virtual reality system or not because the game style had significantly changed. I Quit after the last character died in a random bar brawl.
9 - Traveller - or should I say the Classic Traveller because I still have the 1st edition Traveller Book and many of the small black books. The short campaign in the Spinward Marches sector managed to reach Gvurrdon sector before petering out. I still occasionally buy Traveller books, including those of the Mongoose's Traveller (which is very good variant IMO).
10 -Pendragon - One of the reasons I picked up Pendragon was that the system was a variant of BRP but the idea of a full-length Pendragon campaign is, well, magnificent. I did run a short campaign for a friend but a scenario-in-a-game-year idea didn't agree with him. Still, due to influence of Pendragon and Ars Magica, I'm still dreaming of running that kind of campaign in my own background world.
As for the rest, I've never managed to play or run any of these but I still think they are interesting.
11 - Sengoku
12 - Heimot (“Tribes”, a Finnish SF RPG)
13 - Albedo RPG
14 - Nephilim
15 - Shadowrun
What games have influenced my roleplaying? I found it hard to think about 15 games in short notice which is one of the reasons why this was so delayed.
1 - RuneQuest III -. the game system I ran my longest campaign with - the campaign in Glorantha that last a bit more than a decade in real life time. I also used the Chaosium's BRP rule system as a basis for other games, including modern adventures. It is still my longest campaign so I've probably developed manners I've stuck with even if I may not be aware of them.
2 - D&D - I'm one of the many Finnish players that consider that D&D may be something you begin with but you'll eventually ”grow up” and move to better game systems. I still not like even the current version that much - it's still basically ”killing NPCs for XP”, now with special bonuses to do so.
3 - Call of Cthulhu - the first BRP game I bought and I remember exactly when - in 1987 just before the Brighton Worldcon in Britain (my first Con overseas). I ran a short campaign to couple of my mates during the military service and it was the first game I ran when I joined Excalibur, the roleplaying club of Tampere University of Technology (despite of the fact that I never actually studied there).
4 - MERP or the Middle Earth Role Playing. Meet Middle-Earth dwarf Gloin the son of... somebody, who was a wannabe alchemist. So he ended up using the significant portion of experience received from traveling, killing brigands, being wounded and surviving the very common landslides to increasing knowledge of alchemy from the book he was always carrying. He never had a chance to get XP by dying but was rather close (damned nauraugs). The GM was very good even though he used his own version of Rolemaster to run the game.
5 - CORPS - The system I'm currently using. CORPS is a decade-old generic system of BTRC and suits my needs perfectly (their current generic system EABA does not). Unfortunately the players in my CORPS campaign have been more and more absent for various reasons.
6 - Werewolf: The Apocalypse. I've never been fond of vampires (even before Anne Rice and teen-conservative Twilight saga) but when White Wolf published a werewolf game I decided to give the system a chance. The background was interesting but the books were full of typos and references to ”page XXX”. When I ran an introductory scenario some of the players who were also playing in a Vampire campaign were mystified why rules were so different for the same purpose and kept chancing supplement by supplement. I eventually voted with my wallet and gave up.
7 - Ars Magica - meet Magnus Tetra, young Magus who thought that the Four Elements are all you need (I planned to play him in such a way that he'd learn it's not that simple.). As for the Companion and Grog characters, they became practically expendable in that campaign and were killed left and right, sometimes by other player characters (except for the only female grog). Still, the most interesting campaign I've ever played in - until the GM got married and stopped running it.
8 - 2300AD - meet Simon Rawson, ex-policeman from the British colony of Crater who left the service and took his riot armor with him. Or, actually, the GM ran couple of side campaigns on the side so I ended up playing a Japanese mercenary and filthy-rich Azanian in Aurore against Kafers and, after Rawson's death in a booby trap (during a session when I was absent), Japanese guy whose ”sister” was an AI spacecraft. By that time the GM tried to run a game based of Stanislaw Lem and some of the other players were not sure if their characters were still linked to the virtual reality system or not because the game style had significantly changed. I Quit after the last character died in a random bar brawl.
9 - Traveller - or should I say the Classic Traveller because I still have the 1st edition Traveller Book and many of the small black books. The short campaign in the Spinward Marches sector managed to reach Gvurrdon sector before petering out. I still occasionally buy Traveller books, including those of the Mongoose's Traveller (which is very good variant IMO).
10 -Pendragon - One of the reasons I picked up Pendragon was that the system was a variant of BRP but the idea of a full-length Pendragon campaign is, well, magnificent. I did run a short campaign for a friend but a scenario-in-a-game-year idea didn't agree with him. Still, due to influence of Pendragon and Ars Magica, I'm still dreaming of running that kind of campaign in my own background world.
As for the rest, I've never managed to play or run any of these but I still think they are interesting.
11 - Sengoku
12 - Heimot (“Tribes”, a Finnish SF RPG)
13 - Albedo RPG
14 - Nephilim
15 - Shadowrun