#RPGaDAY - Day 31: Favourite RPG of all time...

First of all, many thanks to everyone who has taken part in #RPGaDAY. It's been far wider, more accepted and cooler than I'd ever imagined. Thank you all.

Favourite RPG is a tricky one, but I've had to narrow it down by thinking of the RPG I had the most fun with and have the fondest memories of playing.

#RPGaDAY - Day 30: Rarest RPG Owned

I do have a bit of a thing for those collectors editions, like the leather bound D&D 3.5s, the collector's Buffy RPG books, and the leather bound Deadlands... but Dune deserves a special mention...

#RPGaDAY - Day 29: Most Memorable Encounter

John used to run some amazing Call of Cthulhu games, and having a player character go mad and become our new recurring villain was easily one of the many highlights...

#RPGaDAY - Day 28: Scariest Game You've Played

Kult is the only game I've GM'd where I've actually felt jittery with nerves while playing...

#RPGaDAY - Day 27: Game You'd Like to See a New / Improved Version of...

Oh, there are so many! How about a new Ghostbusters game? Though it's hard to beat the original first edition... maybe a new printing of that with full colour images?

What about Dune? There was that one, incredibly rare one, but then nothing...

Instead, I've picked a couple of games that have existed before but haven't had new versions in many, many years...

#RPGaDAY - Day 26: Coolest Character Sheet

There are a lot of very cool character sheets out there, I'm going to post a few below, but the coolest as far as I've seen recent games has to be Numenera.

The Numenera character sheet is pretty darn gorgeous. Just look at it!!

Numenera Character Sheet (c) Monte Cook Games

Phenomenal.

Other games with cool character sheets that deserve a mention are:

ICAR Character Sheet

Tephra Character Sheet

#RPGaDAY - Day 25: Favourite RPG No One Else Wants To Play

There's been a little confusion with today's topic, especially as it sounds very much like Day 6 "Favourite RPG Never Get To Play". The theory behind it was that Day 6 was more of a "I don't get chance to play this one", even though I went for Leverage - a game I've not played as it's hard to find players who are into the series (Jarval and Ellie, we'll have to play Leverage soon! Never knew you were fans!), whereas today's topic is a "no one else wants to play this one"...

Everway is a beautiful set, and I'm ashamed to say that I actually bought my copy from a discount bookstore for £1. It's just really intriguing, but I've not experienced the way it plays. Really should give it a go and find out what's going on. Whatever it's like, it has been incredibly inspirational for my work on WILD.

#RPGaDAY - Day 24: Most Complicated RPG Owned

I like simple games. Ones that I don't have to keep looking things up on charts, tables and supplements. Maybe that's why I've always gone for simple systems that you can remember what to do pretty easily - Ghostbusters, Star Wars D6, World of Darkness, Unisystem and so on...

It doesn't mean I haven't bought or tried many incredibly complex game systems in the past.

The worst culprit in my recollection is Space Opera.

The whole game just seemed to be a mass of charts, tables and pages, upon pages, of character creation and combat rules. Just rolling up a character took multiple evenings, and it just put us off completely.

However, it's not a game I've ever owned, I only spent hours generating a character in my youth...

No, the winner of this title for Day 24 of #RPGaDAY is an edition of a game I used to play a LOT as a kid, that became far, far, FAR too complicated for me to ever consider playing, even though I bought the posh slipcase of the rulebooks.

#RPGaDAY - Day 23: Coolest Looking RPG Product

Day 23 of #RPGaDAY is "Coolest Looking RPG Product". There are a lot of very cool looking books, dice and minis out there at the moment, some of them are really quite new like Numenera, but I've decided to look at some of the older books and some of the coolest bits of book design I've seen in RPGs over the years.

#RPGaDAY - Day 22: Best Secondhand RPG Purchase

Day 22 of #RPGaDAY is "best secondhand RPG purchase" where I look at a couple of convention purchase I made to get signed when I was on the Eden Studios stand at the second to last Gen Con UK.

1st Edition Armageddon

1st Edition Witchcraft

#RPGaDAY - Day 21: Favourite Licensed RPG

Today's post harks back to something I wrote about at length before on here - Harry Potter. The wife and I love Harry Potter and the wizarding world. We'd do just about anything to be able to write the official RPG...

#RPGaDAY - Day 20: Will Still Be Playing in 20 Years' Time

An odd one that one, as a lot of the games I bought 20 years ago I still have (but don't really get to play them). I've taken this as an opportunity to waffle on about WILD, the RPG I've been working on for three years, and probably will still be working on in 20 years time...

#RPGaDAY - Day 19: Favourite Published Adventure

This doesn't mean scenario you've had published, just a scenario that was published that you've run or played in and enjoyed. It can be a purchased scenario, or one that was printed in a magazine, or a freebie download or something.

In my case, I had difficulty choosing between two. The first being the rather awesome James Bond RPG - I ran the "For Your Eyes Only" scenario three or four times for different people and had very different outcomes each time. Fantastic game.

The other was The Judas Grail scenario for the legendary RPG "Kult". Never finished running the game, the players kept getting distracted and going off in different directions, but it was great fun and Kult is still an amazing game that has stayed in mind all this time.

#RPGaDAY - Day 18: Favourite Game System

I know what you're going to say, "oh, you're just going to say your own game system because you're so full of yourself." Well, you'd be right on one account (choosing my own system), but it's not because I think it's the best game system out there... that's not the topic. I went with Vortex because I've had a real blast working with the game system. Ask me again next year, and I may pick the system used in WILD...

#RPGaDAY - Day 17: Funniest Game You've Played

Conventions are all about having fun, so when better to talk about the funniest game you've ever played?

#RPGaDAY - Day 16: Game You Wish You Owned

Gen Con is in full swing, and conventions like that are a great place to find those hard to find and rare RPGs that you've been looking for for years. So what RPG are you still looking for? 

#RPGaDAY - Day 15: Favourite Convention Game

It's the 15th of August, and Gen Con is well underway. As part of the convention theme, let's talk about our favourite convention games...

#RPGaDAY - Day 14: Best Convention Purchase

It's the 14th of August, which is officially the first day of Gen Con!! To celebrate the start of the convention, it's a convention themed topic for today's #RPGaDAY... "Best Convention Purchase".

#RPGaDAY - Day 13: Most Memorable Character Death

As it's the 13th, and unlucky for some (well, I guess that's more effective if it's a Friday, but, hey...) I thought we'd go with Most Memorable Character Death for #RPGaDAY...

#RPGaDAY - Day 12: Old RPG you still play / read

Day 12 of #RPGaDAY is "Old RPG You Still Play / Read". Given half the chance, that would be half of my collection... but I don't actually get to play very much. However, I've just started a game which uses an old system, just interpreted in a different way...

#RPGaDAY - Day 11: Weirdest RPG Owned

Day 11 of #RPGaDAY is "Weirdest RPG Owned". There are a lot of very strange RPGs out there. One of which I wouldn't mind getting hold of is the official Dallas RPG, based on the TV series (apparently, despite the weird idea of running a game set in the world of JR and Sue Ellen, it's supposed to be a very good game!)

However, I'm going to have to go with one I've never actually read, even though I've had it for years...

#RPGaDAY - Day 10: Favourite Tie-In Novel / Game Fiction

I know a lot of people find the fiction in game books to be irritating, but without actually feeling the setting I can't get to grips with what I'm supposed to be playing. I find the fiction essential, as it gives me more of a feel for the environment than a load of rules text can.

When I was trying to keep my head in the right frame of mind for writing Conspiracy X 2.0, I found the best series of novels (short of reading the X-Files novels again) was the Dark*Matter novels.

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Bonus points for Slytherin if you can spot the TWO movie references in the opening few seconds of the video...

#RPGaDAY - Day 9: Favourite Die / Dice Set

Day 9 of #RPGaDAY is "Favourite Die / Dice Set". I love dice. I don't know why, they're just something I can't stop loving. There have been times designing WILD that I've thought about ditching dice altogether and just using the Tarot cards, but I find there's something super fast about the way dice work and their mechanic. I may change my mind...

Anyway, onto my favourite die...

I have a lot of dice. The wife and I have accumulated a lot over the years, so we've taken to storing them in a dispenser that once resided in our old Ottakar's bookstore.

If you want to take a look at the die in the video, I do keep it on a little stand in an old dice box, like a treasured relic from the past...

#RPGaDAY - Day 8: Favourite Character

I don't really play an awful lot, so instead I used Day 8 of #RPGaDAY to talk about some of the cool characters I've GMd for over the years. My favourite being this group of sulky goth Mages...

#RPGaDAY - Day 7: Most "Intellectual" RPG Owned

Love the "air quotes", that seems to have stirred things up a bit. This, again, has caused some confusion over the term "intellectual". Honestly, it's not as highbrow as it seems. It's just me showing how stupid I can be at understanding things sometimes, and how many times I have to read something to simply "get it".

My degree was in art and film making you know, not philosophy... I drew pictures.

#RPGaDAY - Day 6: Favourite RPG You Never Get To Play

Day 6 of #RPGaDAY is Favourite RPG You Never Get To Play, which kinda says it all really...

#RPGaDAY - Day 5: Most Old School RPG Owned

This one has caused a little confusion with the term, "old school". I was just thinking the oldest RPG you have, maybe I should have worded it that way... oh, well. You live and learn!! I didn't want to just go for AD&D again, as I've already waved my Player's Handbook around. I sold my Star Frontiers sets, so the oldest game I have must be Top Secret.

#RPGaDAY - Day 4: Most Recent RPG Purchase

For Day 4 of #RPGaDAY I headed to The Games Room, in Norwich, a really cool shop in old part of the city. Elm Hill is ancient, the shops are all in listed buildings and they even converted part of the street into being a market for the film "Stardust" - If you look at this site by local photographer David Woodcock you can see the Games Room converted with small birdcages on the front of the shop for the filming.

The shop has been the "go to" place for all kinds of gaming for as long as I've been living in Norfolk, so it was the place to head for some recent purchases!!

There I picked up the new D&D Starter Set, and the FATE powered Atomic Robo RPG.

#RPGaDAY Day 3: First RPG Purchased

Day Three of #RPGaDAY is "First RPG Purchased". While Star Frontiers was the first game I GM'd, in order to feel like the rest of the group I was playing with, I felt the need to purchase dice, and my own copy of the AD&D Player's Handbook. A gem I still have even now...

#RPGaDAY - DAY 2: First RPG Gamemastered

The dayjob has been dominating every waking moment, so I've only really had time to post the videos and keep up with the social media on this, rather than write anything significant as a blog post. So here's the start of my catch ups for #RPGaDAY.

For DAY TWO, is First RPG Gamemastered.

Wow, great freezeframe there. Yes, the first game I "GM'd" was Star Frontiers. I rambled about my first GMing experiences and playing Star Frontiers way back on an earlier page of this blog you can see here.

#RPGaDAY - Day 1: First RPG Played...

Day 1 is first RPG played, which has to be Traveller. In the video I recount it all, and you can read about the first gaming experience waaaaay back on this blog here.

Thanks to everyone who's already taken part, started to recall their early gaming experiences and sharing the RPG love.