Rupert G. over at Dice of Doom posted an article on his blog wherein he exhorts us to forge into new territory and play a new role-playing game. He’s gone so far as to christen October 2011 Play A New RPG Month. To show his commitment, he even has a website dedicated to this worthwhile event.
Personally, I think this is a wonderful idea. I have wanted to try something other than Dungeons & Dragons for a long, long time, and I think this is a perfect excuse opportunity to convince my players. In that spirit, I present to you, in no particular order, the candidates for my own Play A New RPG Month event (events, perhaps?).
- Dragon Age RPG This is a very likely option for me and my group. Like D&D, it is a sword-and-sorcery fantasy RPG. I am impressed with the simple rules of the game, and fascinated by its dice mechanic. Ever since I first heard about it, and especially since I purchased and read the rulebooks, I’ve been itching to give it a go.
- Spirit Of The Century Billing itself as a pickup game, SotC is a pulp RPG. This is a new genre for me, but I love the high-action feel. On top of that, the FATE system is built on Fudge, with which I have been enamored for over a decade. This may be the perfect opportunity to finally try it out.
- Gamma World While I am running a Gamma World PbP game, I’d gladly jump at the opportunity for a face-to-face session. Since it uses a slightly modified version of the 4E D&D rules, this would be an easy sell to my players, as well as easy for me to run.
- Shadowrun 20th Anniversary Edition I love the fusion of cyberpunk and fantasy. The only obstacle is to this is that I only recently bought the book, and it is incredibly detailed. I may not have enough time to read and learn the rules. This may have to go on the back burner.
- d20 Modern I love how the classes work in this game: each one keyed off of an ability score. I also like the talent trees, and the multi-classing rules. Even if I decide to go with the Urban Arcana or Dark*Matter, it’ll be a welcome diversion.
- Star Wars d20 If you’re reading this, you are most likely familiar with, or at least aware of, Star Wars. So are my players, which makes this an easy game for my group.
- Star Trek The Next Generation RPG Again, you’re probably familiar with Star Trek. Actually, I almost got to play this when it was first released. We even went so far as to create our characters. Unfortunately, during the character creation session, we reminisced about our old D&D games, firing up the GM’s creative juices. The next week, he announced that he had a great idea for a new D&D campaign, and that we should roll up new characters for that. So, the Star Trek game crashed before it was launched. I, however, never really lost the desire to boldly go where no one has gome before.
I will stop here, before this becomes a “Games I Want To Run Or Play” post.
How about you? Will you participate in Play A New RPG Month, now that you know of it? Do you have any RPGs in mind?
Elf Steaks & Halfling Bacon 
knightowl123
Wednesday, 7 September 2011 at 5:04 PM
I highly recommend dragon age.
BeefGriller
Thursday, 8 September 2011 at 9:00 AM
knightowl123, thank you for your recommendation. I actually proposed Dragon Age to my group before, but only in a “How about we try this sometime” manner. With this “event,” I think I’ll throw this out as the primary choice, then mention some of the others as well.
Ensign Expendable, it’s funny how things just seem to happen – sort of a “Right Place, Right Time” occurrence. From what I’ve heard about Mouseguard and Leverage, you won’t be disappointed. Let me know how it turns out for you.
knightowl123
Friday, 9 September 2011 at 4:22 PM
Your welcome for the recommendation. Be warned DA is addictive. I hope your group chooses this.
FYI, my son has been a gamer all of his life, like many from his generation. He is 30ish. He never played an RPG before. When DA came out I bought him a CE copy for Xmas and he has been hooked ever since. He really got into this game which surprised even him.
Have fun with it.
Ensign Expendable
Thursday, 8 September 2011 at 4:53 AM
After finishing our D&D campaign a couple of weeks ago we have been planning to spend from now until Christmas trying out new RPGs so this has just come along at the right time for us.
We were planning on playing at least one FATE based game, also Mouseguard, some kind of nWoD and a try of any of the Free RPG day samples we can get our hands on (a lot of places allowed you to download a PDF of their offering after FRPGD). Also I’ve been hearing so many good things about Leverage that I’m going to be pushing for trying the quick start job of that.
I agree with knightown123’s recommendation about Dragon Age, you’re unlikely to regret putting some time in to this. It just isn’t as much as a change as, say, moving to Spirit of the Century theme wise.
IronWolf
Monday, 12 September 2011 at 8:36 PM
I keep hearing lots of good things about Dragon Age. I will be anxious to read your blog post on it if you manage to get a game of it going.
Likely the next new system I try is The One Ring. It caught my fancy from some of the artwork and the rules really seem to do well getting that Middle-earth feel. Not 100% sure it will happen in September, but most likely October for sure.
We’re in a brief hiatus at the moment from my Kingmaker game, the other GM is running Star Wars at the moment. As his school load picks up he is more than happy to turn over the game a bit to a one-shot before the Kingmaker campaign picks up. I figure I can run The One Ring for that one-shot.