Games I Love

...But Never Play
As I look toward the end of another year, I am reminded of what I did not manage to bring to the game table this year. Some of those titles have been on my short list for years, but once again the earth has circled the sun and I have yet to find the right group, or the time, or the perfect adventure...there is no shortage of excuses. As a tabletop gamer who prefers face-to-face play I am relatively blessed being a part of two groups that regularly get together and roll dice. I also live near I-70 between Indianapolis and Columbus, home to Gencon and Origins respectively. I am also fortunate to have remained in contact with long-time friends with whom I get together a couple weeks a year just to catch-up, hang-out and game. In other words, I think I have played a lot of games over the past year.
Number of games played is one thing, variety is something different. No matter how often I get to actually play games, there never seems enough time to play nearly all the games I am interested in. Part of my personal issue in this regard is that I also enjoy many types of games, not just role-playing. So there remains a number of games each year that I would like to have played, but did not find there way into actual play, even solo. Conan: Adventures In An Age Undreamed Of immediately comes to mind as one I intended to play some this year, but didn't.

Conan: Adventures... by Modiphius is a game that adheres closely to its source, the fantastic fiction of pulp author Robert E. Howard. While games like White Box draw from a number of sources for their inspiration and are designed to give players a good experience playing in a variety of settings, other games such as Conan; Adventures... is very setting specific. I am actually quite fond of a number of single source games such as Dragon Age published by Green Ronin which is based on the video game property, King Arthur Pendragon by Greg Stafford which conforms closely to Le Morte d'Arthur, Adventures in Middle Earth by Cubicle 7 which draws heavily from their game The One Ring to give us a 5e version of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth.

Zweihander Grim & Perilous RPG won a Gold ENie award for best product of 2018. It is an awesome 600+ page monster homage to 1e Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play that out does the original in many ways including the "grim & perilous" imagery of the text and illustrations. I would really like to play/run Zweihander and/or the new Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play 4e recently released by Cubicle 7. Grim & Perilous is exactly how I prefer my fantasy gaming, but I have found it is a taste not shared by many of my friends.

Harnmaster is another system which is dear to me, but for which I struggle to find players who share my enthusiasm. I refer to those hardy role-players who willing suffer the constraints of playing with the often gritty realism of a medieval milieu. Those for whom a bountiful crop is reason to rejoice and who find reward in spending character time in prayer and meditation. Immersion is key to finding the rewards in such role-play and if feeling like you are experiencing a few moments in a life lived in a realistic medieval setting isn't your idea of fun, Harnmaster has little to offer. But if the idea of being able to present your lord with the most abundant barely harvest in memory and receiving the accolades associated with such service can tickle your fancy, Harnmaster and the associated world of Harn itself can deliver.

 Early this year I imagined playing a new version of my beloved GURPS by Steve Jackson Games called Dungeon Fantasy. Dungeon Fantasy comes in a nice big box full of brightly colored tomes and maps and stand-ups. It is "powered by GURPS" meaning it has that system's mechanics at its heart, but it is a stand-alone fantasy dungeon crawl version aimed at those of us who really enjoy that sort of adventure. The boxed set comes with everything needed to play including starting adventures and maps and cardboard figures specifically designed for the opening adventures. It is a role-playing game and a board game, but I have yet to get it to the table.

Generally the person who runs the game (referee) chooses the system they want to play. I am more often a player than a referee these days and therefore I play a lot of systems that are chosen by my friends. I enjoy most of them. The big conventions offer me an opportunity to play in a wide variety of games and that is where I generally get to play Shadowrun, Call of Cthulhu, Hackmaster, and Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. On the occasions that I do get to referee at our home table, I generally run White Box. I have refereed a few additional systems this past year, the Pathfinder 2e Beta Playtest, RuneQuest, and Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG immediately come to mind.
Planning is a necessary prelude to running a game, although I find it no guarantee of actual play. (Getting to play also involves interest among your players as well as finding the open time slot.) So I ask myself, "What RPGs would I like to get onto the table in 2019?"