Tabletop RPG anyone?

[Kakost]

Does anyone here play any tabletop RPGs?

My favorite is Gurps, but I also play Mage the Ascension (my ACTUAL favorite, but I play it using the Gurps system, so it's 2 times favorite), Vampire the Masquerade and a bit of D&D (Pathfinder actually)

 

[stonedwolf]

If you like Mage then check out Ars Magica.

 

[Kakost]

If you like Mage then check out Ars Magica.

Yeah it seems pretty good from what I saw already. But I just cant live without a good Technocracy.

By the way, EK mixing Magic and Ultra-Tech? Ah, that's why this game is pure art.

I wish I could play Shadowrun too, for the very same reason. Technomagic is life...

 

[stonedwolf]

By the way, EK mixing Magic and Ultra-Tech? Ah, that's why this game is pure art.

Though David the developer didn't play it and didn't base this game on it, one of the classic Dungeons & Dragons modules, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, was set in standard D&D fantasy land but involves investigating a crashed spaceship (the crew were all wiped-out long ago). The players would fight local creatures who have moved-in and nested, robots (which get called Iron Golems, not Steel Wizards) as well as fight some alien-engineered monsters, and collected Coloured Keycards to get through sections. The DM is supposed to describe the module in fantasy terms until the penny drops with the players. Humour abounds: you have to fight a Boxing-Trainer Robot and a Karate-Trainer Robot, but you can get the Karate Bot to attack the Boxing Bot to prove Karate is better than Boxing. (And hey, this was written in 1975, first played 1976 in a convention, Karate was seen as legit and exotic back then).

I think the idea is timeless though yet Sci-fi and Fantasy so rarely really seen together in film, I can only think of Krull that really runs with it. We get it in cartoons though, such as Thundercats and He-Man.

 

[DavidBVal]

One of my early memories of the mix of medieval fantasy and high tech is the Might&Magic RPG series, in particular M&M III - Isles of Terra. Sci-Fi comes only at the very end of a huge fantasy open-world experience, so I didn't see it coming (I had not played I and II). That has certainly been a big influence for EK and not just because of that ending, but because of how exploration is implemented.

 

[VDX_360]

For clarity of the record, when Developer David (above) was a kid, "Sci-fi" was a much more novel concept. "Swimming a witch" was considered a scientific process, and paved roads were a fantastic futuristic idea.

On an actual historic note, early video games all mixed fantasy and sci-fi.
Might and Magic had aliens
Ultima had spaceships (and a space shootout).
The original concept for Link was for the TriForce to be a computer chip.

 

[Kakost]

I remember the Chrono Thrigger RPG, such a fantastic game and story, futuristic tech with mystical atlantean magic, truly amazing.

 

[DaleTilgo2022]

VDX_360 -- Thanks for the insight. I had no idea the Tri Force was originally supposed to be a computer chip.​

Kakost -- Chrono Trigger is one of the best SNES RPG's of all time. In that vein which do you think is better Final Fantasy III(US) or Final Fantasy VII?​

My original question. Which table top RPG's would you recommend for a group of newbies?

 

[Kakost]

Kakost -- Chrono Trigger is one of the best SNES RPG's of all time. In that vein which do you think is better Final Fantasy III(US) or Final Fantasy VII?​

My original question. Which table top RPG's would you recommend for a group of newbies?

From Snes I played a lot FFVII with emulators on a PC, my favorite, but 3 is also pretty good.

A table top for total newbies, I would recommend Vampire the Masquerade. The system is super easy to understand. Gurps is very, very simple - once you understand it, and once you understand it as a SANDBOX, to which you take only whatever you desire to use and ignore the rest (so, cut off all the minutia rules about hole digging and whatnot), so it requires a competent game master willing to digest it first for the table, so probably not for starters. D&D is great hack and slash, but it's endless tables upon tables upon tables which is overwhelming for starters.

So, I would recommend Vampire the Masquerade. Mage the Ascension (or derivatives like Ars Arcana) are a bit more complex in it's philosophy (more than just the rules), so despite being my favorite, should come as a second or third game.

Shadowrun is also a good choice, but you got to get used to the setting which is super weird and fantastic, so it takes some time to dig in into the meta plot, while Vampire is so much simpler, being just our own world but with a shadow conspiracy of vampires hiding on plain sight

 

[DaleTilgo2022]

Kakost -- Thank you for the recommendation.​

I think that III edges out VII because it's more challenging, the story is better and the combat system is better. I think VII is great as a first RPG if someone has never played a console RPG before. Other than V and VIII are there any other FF games you think belong in the greatest of all time discussion?