5 Games I Want to Play
I’ve never played any of these, but I wish I could:
Even catchier than snakes on a plane...
Primetime Adventures. I’ve got the rules and it looks like an elegant and rules-light universal system. Universal because of its conceit: the players play the star characters in a (nonexistent) television series. Gritty crime drama, soap opera, shoujo high-school romantic comedy, post-apocalyptic cooking show, new Star Trek series… pretty much anything works as a topic. If the group gets bored with one genre, nothing’s stopping you from skipping to another… possibly even using the same characters. (We’ve all seen those “nothing will ever be the same” episodes, right?)
Spirit of the Century. Pulp is another of my favorite genres, but one I get to indulge much less frequently than superhero (despite their similarities). And look at that cover! A gorilla flying a biplane, a masked avenger, a zeppelin aflame in the background… how can you not love that? That’s pure Rule of Cool right there. It’s not quite Giant Talking Space Monkey Pirates, but it’s damn close. Also, Spirit of the Century uses the FATE system, which I’ve been wanting to see in play for a while.
Dogs in the Vineyard. I haven’t got the rules for this one yet, but reading play reports intrigues me. It’s a Western of sorts where you play a posse of divinely-sanctioned avengers. You go from town to town, root out the sources of their troubles, and decide whose sins to forgive and whose to judge. You’re the law of the faith — but not necessarily the law of the land, which might lead to some interesting conflicts.
Mutants & Masterminds. I keep hearing good things about this, and it’s at the top of my to-read list… I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. I’m a Champions player from way back, but I like superhero systems, for whatever reason; I’m always picking up another one. If half of what I hear about M&M is true, it might just take the #2 spot away from the 1980s Marvel Super Heroes RPG. Maybe even dethrone HERO, although I doubt that; HERO has the ability to do damn near everything, with pretty minimal effort required beyond the initial investment of learning the system (which is significant, but which I paid long ago).
Capes. Speaking of superhero games… I’m not so sure about this one, actually, but the flash demo on the website intrigued me. It seems as if it would be a lot of fun for a one-shot or a short campaign. I don’t know whether it would sustain a longer run… but then, that wouldn’t be what I’d be looking to it for. I’ve got HERO for that. The no-GM, competitive-round-robin style of Capes seems like it might offer a different set of opportunities for story development, and I think that’d be a good experience for me and my players. Never hurts to shake things up a bit.
Maybe at Gencon this year, I’ll be able to track down a session of one of these…
In other news, 6d6 Fireball is running an adventure writing contest. Adventures need to either be written for 3.5e (and follow the OGL) or be system-neutral. The deadline is May 12, which means time is pretty tight, but the winners get published in July.
And speaking of contests, don’t forget to enter to win a copy of the Open Game Table Anthology right here at A Butterfly Dreaming.
Related posts:
- Superhero Lessons for Fantasy Games
- A Harvest of Men: In Play
- Cryptic Offering Lifetime Subscription to Champions MMO
- The Making of a Villain
- RPG Top 25
Categories: My Campaigns, Philosophy and Rants | Comments (7)
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We’ve got Primetime Adventures and never played it, either! Definitely one we want to play at some point, but there’s just too much D&D we’re doing right now.
SotC is fantastic, I’ve been using FATE for awhile now. You should also check out Battlestations some time. It’s not purely role playing – it’s a lot of strategy thrown in, but definitely work trying out.
I’m good for SotC, PTA and Dogs. Where are ya and do you get to any cons during the year?
@Judd: Northeast PA. Generally I only go to Gencon, thanks to the demands of work. But I’ve been looking into Origins for the next year, too.
Great choices. You should definitely check out the indie gaming going on at Gencon and Origins then since all of those are very popular at the cons.
PTA is easily one of the most enjoyable games I’ve ever played but requires group buy-in since its non-traditional structure sometimes rubs “trad” gamers the wrong way.
SotC taught me that character generation should never be done alone but rather turned in to a group activity. Plus aspects are just full of awesome.
DitV was monumental in my evolution as a RPer, both as a GM and a player, because it got me into thinking that conflicts need to be about more than just killing what’s on the other side of the door. Plus DitV is a head trip when it’s run well because each town is sort of like an onion in which you peel away layers and things get worse and worse….
M&M? I’m kind of indifferent about it. It’s a good game but it doesn’t do comic book super-heroes well, but instead is more like a points-buy super-powered combat simulator. Game play doesn’t feel anything like the comic books. Capes probably comes a lot closer but it’s the one game on your list that I haven’t played.
As long as you’re looking for superhero systems, you might as well give With Great Power and Truth & Justice a peek as well.
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