Thanks to the local game cafe having a decicated ānot D&Dā night, where each week a GM runs whatever game they want, Iāve had a chance to run and play a lot of different stuff.
Ran:
D&D 5e - A whole bunch. Fortnightly one-shots at the games cafe, plus the last sessions of the campaign I started in 2019. Still happy to run it, but wish other stuff were more popular.
Daggerheart - Ran multiple one-shots. If I had my choice, this would take over from D&D. Has the same feel, but itās better at narrative and much easier to prepare/run. Only downside is variety of options (for characters and adversaries), but thereās more stuff coming and the design means adjusting things is really easy.
Perils & Princesses - A few one-shots. Probably my favourite RPG. Basically an OSR-inspired game where everyoneās a fairytale princess. Really strong theming thatās inspired inventive play every time Iāve run it.
Thirsty Sword Lesbians - Pretty much my standard pick if I donāt have anything else I really want to run (or I have a plot idea, but not a specific system in mind). My favourite PbtA game.
Monster of the Week - Ran this for the first time (after playing it a lot in the past). Unfortunately the game had to be condensed as the cafe needed to close early due to being short staffed.
Apocalypse Keys - Basically Hellboy: The RPG. I enjoyed this variant of PbtA where the outcomes have been switched to Fail (or succeed with a cost) / Succeed / Go too far and succeed with a cost. Particularly as instead of stats, you modify your roll by tapping into your dark powers, then adjust the outcome based on your bonds with other characters. I also liked the mysteries not having a fixed outcome, instead you just roll to see if your theory is correct or not (and if it is, how well the enemy is doing).
Marvel Multiverse RPG - Still a lot of fun and easy to pick up due to similarities to D&D. Wish running villains could be easier, rather than just having them be built the same as player characters.
Orc Borg - Very silly twist on Mork Borg. Ran some players through the āRotter Zwergā spaceship map from the kickstarter, which was fun.
Punk is Dead - Another game based on Mork Borg. Wish Iād had more than two players and Iād planned something a bit less linear.
Fabula Ultima - A āTTJRPGā. Nice system with really nice character building options. Unfortunately, it expects you to build your own villains and the one I made was a bit overpowered.
Sentai & Sensibility - Possibily the simplest system Iāve run other than Honey Heist. Each player has one dice (different depending on their role) and they just compare the roll to a list of values next to the skill theyāre using. Very silly premise. Luckily my scant knowledge of Jane Austen wasnāt a hindrance.
Played:
Got an occasional night off and played some D&D. Also tried out an RPG club that a friend of a friend had started and played in a āone-shotā of Thirsty Sword Lesbians that ended up lasting three sessions. It ended with my character unconscious in a burning building after failing really badly at flirting with an alien.
Power Rangers - A bit of a disaster of a session. Overcomplicated system + underprepared GM trying to run a one-shot using an adventure designed for multiple sessions. The adventure was weirdly designed as a mystery investigation, which didnāt fit the theme at all.
Slugblaster - Interesting game that I think would be more fun as a campaign. Just doing a one-shot meant it felt like we were missing out on some important parts of the system while having not much available to play with.
eXtreme - A game a friend designed that took inspiration from '90s superhero comics. Simple system. Ridiculous theming.
Wanderhome - Played a couple of games of this. Took a bit of time to work out how to move the story forward where thereās no dice for decision making. I enjoyed being a little bat postal worker and taking the opportunity to hand random characters a letter and making the GM come up with what was inside.
Never Stop Blowing Up - Barebones variant of the system from Kids on Bikes (taken from the Dimension 20 series of the same name). The dice escalation mechanics created some ridiculous scenarios, such as my hacker character managing to āhackā a paper guestlist by rolling a 33 (starting with just a d4).
Beam Saber - Mech RPG based on Blades in the Dark. Enjoyable game, but I much preferred ā¦
Armour Astir: Advent - Again, a mech game (and run by the same GM) but this leans more towards fantastical elements. Itās also a PbtA game, which I prefer to FitD (the mission structure makes things a bit too rigid for my liking).
Ironsworn: Starforged - Same GM also ran this and it was a lot of fun. Really impressed with how well things played out, despite so much being randomly generated. Loved the character creation options and getting input on interpreting the world/story building rolls from all the players created something really interesting.
Draw Steel - Another contender for a 5e replacement. Doing some interesting stuff, but much more focused on tactical combat, which doesnāt interest me so much.
Unleashed - Silly game about dogs doing heists. I played a cleverly disguised cat in a moustache.
Alien - Iād played this once before, but theyād revised the starter scenario to fit better as a one-shot and it worked a lot better narratively. A lot more people died this time.
Cain - Weird supernatural mystery stuff. Wasnāt bad, but there are other games that do something similar that I like better (like Apocalypse Keys).
Yazebaās Bed & Breakfast - Kind of halfway between a legacy game and an RPG. I liked my second playthrough better as there are preset characters, with only certain ones available for each scenario. So my second playthrough, I was playing someone much closer to a kind of character I might create and found it easier to play.
Kind of both?
Lovecraftesque is a rotating GM game. I found it kind of frustrating as a friend I was playing with seemed to have a very different idea of what kind of horror we were running (I was going for subtle and building tension, he was not). Plus the switching for each scene meant Iād try and set up a lead to be followed, only for him to then prevent the character from doing anything once he got to a location.
