I've racked up quite a few systems and sourcebooks over the last year, and of course I want to run them all... someday. Finding the time and willpower to do it, though, is another issue entirely. I figured I'd throw up my laundry list of games to run in the near (and not-so-near) future. Feel free to do the same - maybe feedback and overlap will prod some of us to run some games we've been putting on the back burner for too long now!
New World of Darkness: I'm primarily interested in the "mortals" aspect of this system. I'll be running it for the first time around Halloween for a local mini-con focusing on B-movie horror and sci-fi riffs, using nWoD as the basis for my homage to 80s slasher films. If it goes well, I'm thinking of starting up a campaign for mortal PCs using Urban Legends and Ghost Stories.
Dresden Files: The 800-pound gorilla on my gaming shelf. Two HUGE books of material with very oblique rules for character creation and running games, which I know from experience to be fun to play even if I don't understand it that well yet. Plus, almost all of my gamer friends have read the novels and we're dying to play around in Harry's world.
4th Edition D&D: Encounters has lost a lot of its charm for me, and Lair Assault is just too focused on optimization for my tastes; actually, the most fun I've had so far with 4E is running Scott Betts' conversion of the Thistletop dungeons from Burnt Offerings. I really want to dive more into this system and see what I can do with it in terms of epic storytelling. Ultimately, I'm hoping to adapt it to my own homebrew campaign setting, but I'm going to have to houserule a lot of stuff to make it work properly for my needs (such as banning eladrin and dragonborn as PC races, because the flavor is completely off). I've got the Tomb of Horrors mega adventure and a fan conversion of the original, and I intend to use those as centerpieces for the campaign and fill in the gaps around it with scenarios of my own design.
Castles & Crusades: My home Pathfinder game has devolved into a cold war between players and GM, it seems - no matter who's running it. I'm tired of having to crunch numbers like a friggin' accountant to build meaningful high level encounters. I want rules-light, old school fantasy action as my primary system of choice, and C&C is (hopefully) the solution to this problem. Once the current Pathfinder-driven story arc of my home campaign is completed, I'm switching the entire shebang to C&C for my own sanity's sake. The only exception to this will probably be my 4E experiment, as noted above.
Star Wars: I ran the d20 game (RCR, not Saga Edition) for two years straight in college, and had a blast doing it... but my last foray into it after that campaign was a disaster. No one's character concepts really jived - everybody had different personal goals, so getting PCs to cooperate meaningfully was fruitless. I'm hoping to revive interest by having my players make characters that are Imperial operatives... and then sending them on a mission to assassinate a loyalist senator in the wake of the Empire's rise. The name of the scenario: "Kill Jar Jar". (And I may use d6 rules this time, just to shake things up.)
And then there's the games I intend to run once I overcome my d20 fatigue:
Monte Cook's World of Darkness: I really like this system for its treatment of magic and the way it balances different types of supernatural character types for mixed play. The world Cook devised to set this system in is compelling but still lends itself well to modular alteration to fit the individual campaign's tone and aesthetics.
Eberron: I've gotten a LOT of Eberron stuff on the cheap over the last few months via Paizo, Amazon, and secondhand bookstores (Five Nations for $4.00? Eyes of the Lich Queen for $12.50? Official character sheets for $2.00? Campaign on!) I admit that the setting is very kitchen sink-y and can be an absolute mess if run haphazardly, but I'm enjoying a lot of what I'm reading in these books - and it doesn't hurt that a lot of the RPG writers I admire cut their teeth on this product line, too. Probably going to set this game in Stormreach, with occasional dips into other locations around Eberron, since my home group played DDO pretty extensively and knows the "feel" of Stormreach very well as a result.
Kingmaker: I loved the theme of this AP when it debuted, and bought the entire thing at my FLGS... but there's no way I'm going to attempt to run this until I've finished up Carrion Crown, which I probably won't wrap up until at least next summer.
I picked up a copy of Dragon Age RPG and an adventure book at Borders on the cheap when they were going out of business. We just started a campaign a couple of weeks ago and are having fun with it so far.
I have tons of games I would love to run and plenty of time to spare (at least until I start working again). My problem is getting players who have the time and will to play them. My players are only interested in playing typical classic hack n' slash Pathfinder games.
On the list of games I currently desperately would like to run are:
Trail of Cthulhu
Dark heresy
Cthulhutech
Deathwatch
Operation fallen Reich
Rogue trader
Modern20
Final fantasy d6
On the list of games I currently desperately would like to run are:
Final fantasy d6
Interesting. Was this a published game in its own right or are you just thinking of using WEG's d6 Fantasy system?
I've toyed with the idea of doing a 4E game based in FFIV's world after the defeat of Zemus, but I don't know how many people would actually get on board with that among my gaming friends.
Dragon Age and Dresden Files are on the top of my list to try. (Technically, I have tried Dresden Files, but it honestly didn't grab my usual gaming group, as they're more into swords and sorcery stuff.
I love the Dragon Age setting though I've never looked at the RPG book. I meant to pick it up at GenCon but with all the other stuff happening I sort of forgot. :P
Mouseguard RPG - There's a system I'll run as soon as I've found someone else who has heard of it (assuming they want to play)
Burning Wheel Gold Edition - Preordered back in June, got my notice that it was shipping today. Very excited. If it is as good as revised, I'll be looking for a group in no time.
Arcanis - Loved the 3.X campaign setting, and their new game system was just released. As soon as I can afford the book...
Ironclaw RPG - New edition this year. Combine the problems of above though; hard time finding people who have heard about it (and care), and I'll have to justify the cost of new system books.
Mouseguard RPG - There's a system I'll run as soon as I've found someone else who has heard of it (assuming they want to play)
I don't much care for the source material, but the Mouse Guard game itself is very well-constructed. It's certainly a system which rewards, and provides a supple but well-defined system to govern, good role-playing.
On the list of games I currently desperately would like to run are:
Final fantasy d6
Interesting. Was this a published game in its own right or are you just thinking of using WEG's d6 Fantasy system?
I've toyed with the idea of doing a 4E game based in FFIV's world after the defeat of Zemus, but I don't know how many people would actually get on board with that among my gaming friends.
It's a fan made game you can download for free HERE.
It's a fan made game you can download for free HERE.
WOW. This is incredible. I've been hoping for something like this for years now. Thanks so much for posting this link - looks like I'm adding another game to my want-to-play wishlist!
A couple of my friends have mentioned time and again that they still have all their old Rolemaster books. That was a fun game but I rarely ever had a character live past first level. Along the lines of Castle and Crusades, I've been meaning to pick up Frog God Games's "Swords and Wizardy" which is the same vein (though I guess more 0edition than C&C 1st edition). Finally, Hackmaster has piqued my interest. I used to religiously read KODT for years.
Uh, I also have many games that I would like to play/run if I just could find some time for it. Many games in my shelf just collect some dust.
Star Wars Saga Edition: I like the system and it's Star Wars. Some friends have been interested about playing Old Republic campaign so hopefully later on this year we get to play this.
Savage Worlds: I love how this game works. Quick action paced gaming, very cinematic. Especially I like Necessary Evil supplement, everyone wants to play supervillains.
Spirit of the Century: I fell love with FATE-system when I read this book. Also somehow extraordinary humans in pulpy world, gotta like this game.
Tribes: This is finnish game called "Heimot" [~Tribes]. I bought this couple of years back and really love the setting. If you are familiar with Firefly or Dune you know what kind game this is. I have periods when I want to play this game so much that it almost hurts knowing that I don't have time for it. Some players have been asking me to run this so maybe later on this year..
These are the top four games in my shelf that I really want to play. So many good games, so little like the title says.. Of course I could add almost all Pathfinder adventure path's to list but that is another story.
Limiting it to things I've not already tried, then I'm going to also agree with the Dresden Files. Love the universe, the system looks amazing, but I really think I'd be hard-pressed to get my group to even try something as... flowing... as that.
Limiting it to things I've not already tried, then I'm going to also agree with the Dresden Files. Love the universe, the system looks amazing, but I really think I'd be hard-pressed to get my group to even try something as... flowing... as that.
I think the free form aspect of the game is one of its biggest appeals, even for people who like "crunchier" systems. In one of the few sessions I played, taking self-compels (basically playing up a negative aspect of your character in exchange for fate points) was a lot of fun, and a good way to reward roleplaying. I was playing an ancient wizard - nearly 800 years old - who was a magician of Gandalfian might but tended to be very forgetful of where he was, what he was doing, or any sort of relevant lore that could help the other PCs. =]
It was also great putting aspects on other things - we had a showdown in what was supposed to be an abandoned Catholic church, until I put the aspect "Some Obscure Catholic Holiday" on the scene and the bad guys couldn't rumble in the open with all the worshipers around. Later in that scene, I severely intimidated one of the villains and the GM told me I could inflict a major social impairment of my choice on him. I chose "Weak Bladder". He got up and walked off, tail between his legs.
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Years ago, I put together a narrative that tied the universes of the following game systems together:
Shadowrun
Marvel Superheroes (the TSR system)
D&D (Spelljammer, Forgotten Realms and Al-Qadim)
Call of Cthulhu (1890's, 1920's and 1990's)
World of Darkness (Mummy)
It was fun but nonsensical and insane and the campaign was scheduled to end with a home-made, post-apocalyptic setting based on Fallout using the Call of Cthulhu rules but I never finished writing the fluff for it.
Eventually, I either gave away or sold most of my gaming material and started over with D&D 3.0. Now, I pretty much only play Pathfinder, but I've got my Call of Cthulhu and Mordheim stuff set aside for one-shot games.
For years, I've toyed with the idea of using Mordheim as a D&D setting with the players being part of a warband scouring the city for wyrdstone. I don't want to use the Warhammer RPG rules because that would involve spending more money on a game I'll hardly play.
Limiting it to things I've not already tried, then I'm going to also agree with the Dresden Files. Love the universe, the system looks amazing, but I really think I'd be hard-pressed to get my group to even try something as... flowing... as that.I think the free form aspect of the game is one of its biggest appeals, even for people who like "crunchier" systems. In one of the few sessions I played, taking self-compels (basically playing up a negative aspect of your character in exchange for fate points) was a lot of fun, and a good way to reward roleplaying. I was playing an ancient wizard - nearly 800 years old - who was a magician of Gandalfian might but tended to be very forgetful of where he was, what he was doing, or any sort of relevant lore that could help the other PCs. =]
It was also great putting aspects on other things - we had a showdown in what was supposed to be an abandoned Catholic church, until I put the aspect "Some Obscure Catholic Holiday" on the scene and the bad guys couldn't rumble in the open with all the worshipers around. Later in that scene, I severely intimidated one of the villains and the GM told me I could inflict a major social impairment of my choice on him. I chose "Weak Bladder". He got up and walked off, tail between his legs.
I love it -- and don't get me wrong, *I* would love to play that kind of game -- it appeals to the Mad Gamer in me -- I just don't know that I could find a group of other (local) players... and I think the free-form would be the opposite of what some of my curreny players would like... Plus, the whole only being able to game once a week anyway certainly doesn't help. I saw that the PbP online was looking for new players so I re-read the whole rulebook, but by the time I was able to spin up an idea, they'd filled the holes, sadly.