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#RPGaDAY2023

Two old games I still play regularly are Command & Conquer Red Alert and Dungeons & Dragons. Still as fun as the first day I played either.

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It must be Digimon: Digimon World for PlayStation 1. Man, I couldn't figure out how to evolve my Digimon properly, and I'd almost always get a green slime evolution or yellow-shit evolution (I kid you not), that sucked. That was punishment for not taking care of your digimon properly (e.g. allowing them to poop in the jungle instead of taking them to the toilet). Come on, I'm trying to save the world, does it matter if they take a crap in the enemy territory! Now I see I wasn't the only one with that issue. Otherwise it was a very interesting, very open ended game, which wasn't that common with the dominance of JRPGs.

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At the moment I consider Goodman Games' take on Dying Earth and Lankhmar to be the best pieces of tie-in fiction. From insane production qualities to great care and love put into the publications, there is little reason not to pick them up—especially when on sale!

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Simple dice is the best dice:

With a nice dice tray, of course:

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Rarder Brete, a level 5 fighter I've been playing for several years now, remains my favourite character. I've written about him during #RPGaDAY2022:

A lot has happened since then! Rarder died whilst fighting a horde of hobgoblins and cultists. The party charged into the throne room, expecting to face little resistance (since we've killed a hundred or so goblinoids in the dungeon by then). That assumption was of course, wrong.

Rarder pressed on, toppled the throne, and belowed out the challenge to the Speck, a nickname he has assigned to the King Under the Mountain. He was greeted by a dozen or so large hobgoblins, cultists, and what not. The fighter stood there for rounds, keeping attention on him while the others fought numerous other adversaries in the room.

Rarder, meanwhile, continues to face off against his multiple assailants. Striking here, there and everywhere, he drives them off time and again, but eventually the numbers take their toll, and he's struck by the cultist leader bellowing her warcry to Erkrou, the hairless one clasping a hand around his wrist, and finally the King Under The Mountain, roaring his outrage at being labelled alongside pitiful 'men', strikes out with his spear into the doughty warrior's side...

Speck drives his spear through Rarder's torso. The warrior, unaware of his fate, drops the shield, grabs the shaft with his left hand and pulls himself forward. His sight dims and figures start dancing around. But it is not sweat nor blood that cloud his sight. One last swing. One last act of defiance against the world. He leaves the world just like he came into it. Yelling and thrashing about.

The party recovered Rarder's corpse, fell into a pit trap leading through labyrinthine caverns, found their way out, killed a dragon (with Alf dying in the process), galloped to the nearest metropolis, and got bot raised for a hefty feet and debt to Gods.

Lawful characters have to vanquish an undead foe of equal or greater HD than their level. For Rarder that meant hunting down a 5HD undead; for Alf a 4HD undead. Luckily, Barrowmaze just happened to be real close. And that's where we've been delving for months (of real time) now.

IdleDoodler has been keeping up with the session reports, and the above begins with Session 56 report.

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What would constitute a smart RPG? I remember Vagrant Story, Vandal Hearts II, and Front Mission III being quite brainy, with interesting stories and game mechanics that required thought. Of TTRPGs, Adventurer Conqueror King System and Swords & Wizardry Complete feature a lot of well thought out and thoroughly tested game procedures.

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As a kid I loved playing video games, primarily on game consoles (Sega MegaDrive, PlayStation, and PlayStation 2). My favourite genre was (is?) a mix of an RPG and strategy (real-time or turn-based). Thinks Heroes of Might & Magic. Alas, such games were very, very rare on consoles. But there was one series that really stood out: Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

It was really amazing—mind-blowing to me at the time, especially given I haven't really played computer games. You could create your character, randomly rolling for ability scores, pick an avatar image. Then you'd start in one of map regions and could go on and do whatever! Get involved in developing the local area, join the local force and climb through their ranks, engage in diplomacy, violence, parlay (you could slander someone so bad they commit suicide), start a dynasty and continue playing with your offspring...

Man, I played that game series so much. Now, I can't remember which one I played the most (VII, VIII, IX, X, or XI), but I do remember it was probably the last one that had top-down view of the map. I didn't like newer ones that used isometric map with marching forces. That version did away with most of the governance and non-violent options.

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I guess candidates for oldest games I've played would be chess and mahjong.

Five minutes on Wikipedia later...

Apprently chess is mentioned as early as seventh century, while mahjong is a fairly recent game, being developed in the 19th century.

Hence, chess is most likely the oldest game I've played!

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Swords & Wizardry Complete Revised!

It is superbly written, and inspires play. The whole game is contained in 144 pages. That includes several interpretations of various rules so one can pick whichever fits their table best. Further, it has both Descending and Ascending Armour Class. Although it uses unified saving throw, it also provides an “original” array of five throws as an optional rule.

Since it is based on all the original D&D books (Men and Magic, Monsters & Treasure, The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures, Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Eldritch Wizardry, and Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes) plus select contributions from The Strategic Review, Swords & Wizardry Complete is the closest one can get to AD&D while still having the simplicity and freedom of the Basic line that succeeded OD&D.

Revised Edition has the best layout so far and includes several readability improvements. It also includes known errata to date, morale checks, magical research rules, and others bits and bobs. Otherwise the text is very similar to previous editions.

I'm looking forward to playing it more in the future.

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Oh, I spend way too much on role-playing games...

Let's see what the damage was in January...

Well, this was a good reminder to go back and read some of the above!

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