I Blame Dragonlance...Okay I Contradicted Myself

Day #7 asks what is the most 'intellectual' RPG owned...not sure what that means.  So I guess I lose.

I'm guess it is either an intellectual property thing, like Babylon 5 or Star Wars.  OR it means it takes a lot of brain cells to understand it. Not sure if I have very much of either.

I'm going to go with the intellectual property side because I think all RPGs require a lot of brain cells depending on your group and the amount of drinks consumed during the game.

I don't think I have any intellectual property games.  No Star Trek.  No Star Wars.  No Babylon 5.  No Dresden Files.  I've never been a fan of it I guess.  And I blame Dragonlance.

Please give me a moment to warm up the way back machine to explain.

A billion years ago when the sun was still forming and there were only three and a half planets in the solar system there was Dragonlance the trilogy.  I ate those books up.  Nom nom nom.  Then TSR released a series of Dragonlance adventure modules.....this was bad.  Nay.  It sucked.

Here's why.  The adventures had you follow the story of the book.  The pre gens were all characters from the book.  If you hadn't read the books and others had then the conversation went something like this.

"Tasslehoff wouldn't do that."

"I don't care, he's a thief.  I steal Tanis's sword."

"We wouldn't do that."

"I fireball Riverwind.  I want a shot at Goldmoon."

"What the hell?  Rastlin wouldn't...okay, he might do that, but not until years later."

It's didn't work.  The adventures are the worst TSR put out as far as I'm concerned.  Especially since there was so much hype surrounding it at the time. 

I know this is an extreme case, but it was enough to cause gamer trauma.  I also know that all the other games are well received, but I guess the other main reason why is I'm not all that interested.  If someone wants to run a Star Wars game I'm there, but I won't run one.  Conan, sure, but again, not too interested in buying a bunch of gaming supplements that mirrors this. 

BUT!  I will contradict myself and nearly nullify I said above this so if you want to skip to this part and start reading that's okay to.  I do have Dragon Age and Thieves World books.  Actually Dragon Age should have been on my post of games I never got to play.  I would defiantly love to run a game in either of those.  I would even be tempted to do a Black Company campaign.

But I think I've screwed this post around enough.  So...there it is.

A Long Answer to a Short Question: Favorite RPG You Never Get to Play

Post not interesting?  Just add Red Sonja.

I don't do many of the day-to-day blog things.  This month there is #RPGaDay.  I've entered a few of those.  But once in a while one get me to thinking.  Or gets me to look at my gaming shelves and wonder what the hell was I thinking.  Today's question is what is your favorite RPG you never get to play?  I've a group of them.  And here they are in no particular order.

As I scan my shelves I see Hackmaster.  Love the idea of the game, but never had a chance to play it.  We attempted to make characters one night and when we were into the second hour of creation we bailed.  Still, I'd like to see how it runs.  I also have the fancy books of Hackmaster Basic.  Beautiful books, but they sit on my shelf only to be taken down once in a while to be browsed through.

Beside my Hackmaster books are my Pendragon books.   I've had these for years.  I'm still attempting to collect them all.  I've written adventures using Pendragon background.  But I have never played the Pendragon system.  I like low fantasy settings.  Magic is scarce or just a background element while the humans struggle with their own drama.

Pathfinder would fall into this category also.  I've got a big batch of their books, even have an adventure path, but never played it.  I wasn't into 3.5 all that much.  During it's heyday I was deeply immersed in GURPS.  Pathfinder being the 2.0 of 3.5 is something I way always interested in playing, but haven't yet.  With it's strong following I may yet.

Some of the Drama Systems, like Hillfolk and Dungeon World interest me.  I've got the rule books, but haven't read them thoroughly.  Browsed the pages and found some cool stuff that I would like to see how it plays.

There are a handful of old school systems that I haven't played, but would like to give them a go sometime.  To name a few: Adventures Dark & Deep, Scarlet Heroes, Fantasy Heroes & Witchery, Ambition & Avarice.  There are a couple systems that I have played one or two sessions with, but would love to use them in a campaign such as The Neoclassical Geek Revival and DCC.

But the winner right now, the system that has my attention that I want to develop adventures for and to run is Exoterrorists.  I guess GUMSHOE would be the system and Exoterrorists it the setting.  I can see running multi-session, episodal adventures.