The Best Game I've Played In

[pyat]

So, what was the best RPG game you were ever in, as a player?

This is a tough call. As I’ve noted elsewhere, enjoyment of a game is often reliant on the enthusiasm of the participants. So, a terrible GM running a broken game can still be remembered as The Best Thing Ever, if everyone had fun.

In addition, it has been a long time since I played in any game regularly. I think I was 18 or 19 when I started GMing almost exclusively. I can remember playing in fantastic games when I was 14 and 15 years old, but the details are fuzzy, and I really think I we were mostly just hanging out and drinking soda and being geeks.

Also, I want to stress that, aside from the epic badness of the Trinity game I mentioned in a previous entry, I’ve never been in a noticeably bad game. There have been games that didn’t gain any traction and got cancelled, or games that had dull sessions, but none were really bad.

Indeed, I have been in some very excellent games. thebitterguy ran a really engaging Buffy: The Vampire Slayer game, for example. ("Xena! We always knew it would come down to this...") mar2nee’s intermittent D&D game is very crunchy and fun, and it's awesome that her teenage kids play too. viktorhaag’s abortive Spirit of the Century showed a great deal of promise, what with the historical giant submarine and most awesome cooperative character generation setup.

That all said, I think I was most impressed with nottheterritory’s Mage: The Ascension game. He is an excellent gamemaster, with a good handle on plotting and character development. I really like the dramatic interactions he’d planned for the players. Similarly, his Star Trek game (using a system developed by eyebeams had some wonderful moments. The Klingon Opera mystery was fantastic, and the cultural details he came up with were quite memorable. The other players had a ton of fun, as well. nottheterritory is very good at spontaneous dramatics, and acting, which adds to the fun immensely.

He considers himself weak when it comes to adjudicating rules and combats, but the White Wolf system (and eyebeams system) are intuitive and smooth enough that this did not really present an issue, at least not to my recollection.

So, kudos to you, nottheterritory!

Comments

[leonard-arlotte.livejournal.com]

Best game I've been in was a silent auction game at GenCon, where I got to play a Star Wars RPG (the WEG version) with Timothy Zahn. It's kind of a long story how the game went, but the long and the short of it, is that my character ended up going head to head in strategy and tactics with Admiral Thrawn, and challenged him! (he won of course, but it's Admiral F'n Thrawn!)

It was a one-shot game, but in that one game, I was thrilled several times, and even caught myself literally sitting on the edge of my seat during some of the more intense action sequences.

Found out during that game that the reason so many of the vehicles and equipment in Zahn's EU novels were familiar was that Zahn consulted with West End Games when he wanted a weapon or vehicle or piece of equipment in his novels.

[leonard-arlotte.livejournal.com]

Should have used this Icon instead.

[hossblacksilver.livejournal.com]

Nice icon. (n)_(n)

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I have to say that the Mage game ranks near the top of my gaming experiences, as well - right up there with the first Ironclaw game we played, the one I eventually novelized. In both cases, the depth of the characterizations made a big difference for me. In the Mage game, that was a result of nottheterritory's details of setting; in the Ironclaw game, it had more to do with the depth brought by the other PCs to their characters, which drew me in.

[melskunk.livejournal.com]

I've never played long enough in a game. Something always broke us up. The best game I did I GMed myself.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

What was that game?

[sassy-fae.livejournal.com]

I second that assertion! It was a fantastic game, in a richly detailed setting, and inspired me to write thousands of words of backstory for my character. I would love to return to that setting and those characters again!

[hossblacksilver.livejournal.com]

Best/funniest game I ever played in was a Stargate SG-1 session at DragonCon that went completely toes up from the beginning.

First off our computer expert botched his computer roll.
Then our commander botch the diplomacy roll to smooth things out for the previous botch.
Then we go to recon this Goauld planet (with a nuke in case things went bad. And EVERYONE ended up getting possessed at one time.
One of our team was secretly a Reol, that tried to trick us with a hallucination of General Hammond, another that just kept trying to stab the rest of us in the back, a few Jaffa for each of us and us just getting deeper and deeper.

And we laughed harder and harder.

That nuke for blowing up the planet I mention earlier? We used it to blow up Stargate Command.

The GM ended up hand waving it all away by having us wake up in simulation couches. Still we had fun.

There was one other time with a WoW RPG, where I played a pyromaniac goblin, gave him a high pitched voice and everything.

We've got these dead bodies of the attacking force, what will we do with them?
Goblin me: Strip them of anything of value, I know of a place that sells dog food.

At the end of the of that session the GM has three tied for best player of the table (wins a little token you can redeem at the con store).
For the Horde?
Orc: Yes.
For the Horde?
Human: No.
For the Horde?
Me: (still in Goblin voice) Whatever has the most profit.

I got the token.

I got some, not really bad, two railroads that sucked (anything where you will fail if you don't do something at a precise time and way) and one where didn't so much suck as stupid and gave our Shadowrun group a running joke.

Trying to sneak into a Denver Hospital. Let's go through the sewers into the hospital. Can't, apparently the hospital has 10,000 sewer pipes this big (holds up both hands indicating a pipe four inches in diameter).

Wan't the GM's fault, it was how the session was written (by idiots). Then on we talk about, are the building's sewer pipes this big? (gives same gesture).

[hossblacksilver.livejournal.com]

Best/funniest game I ever played in was a Stargate SG-1 session at DragonCon that went completely toes up from the beginning.

First off our computer expert botched his computer roll.
Then our commander botch the diplomacy roll to smooth things out for the previous botch.
Then we go to recon this Goauld planet (with a nuke in case things went bad. And EVERYONE ended up getting possessed at one time.
One of our team was secretly a Reol, that tried to trick us with a hallucination of General Hammond, another that just kept trying to stab the rest of us in the back, a few Jaffa for each of us and us just getting deeper and deeper.

And we laughed harder and harder.

That nuke for blowing up the planet I mention earlier? We used it to blow up Stargate Command.

The GM ended up hand waving it all away by having us wake up in simulation couches. Still we had fun.

There was one other time with a WoW RPG, where I played a pyromaniac goblin, gave him a high pitched voice and everything.

We've got these dead bodies of the attacking force, what will we do with them?
Goblin me: Strip them of anything of value, I know of a place that sells dog food.

At the end of the of that session the GM has three tied for best player of the table (wins a little token you can redeem at the con store).
For the Horde?
Orc: Yes.
For the Horde?
Human: No.
For the Horde?
Me: (still in Goblin voice) Whatever has the most profit.

I got the token.

I got some, not really bad, two railroads that sucked (anything where you will fail if you don't do something at a precise time and way) and one where didn't so much suck as stupid and gave our Shadowrun group a running joke.

Trying to sneak into a Denver Hospital. Let's go through the sewers into the hospital. Can't, apparently the hospital has 10,000 sewer pipes this big (holds up both hands indicating a pipe four inches in diameter).

Wan't the GM's fault, it was how the session was written (by idiots). Then on we talk about, are the building's sewer pipes this big? (gives same gesture).

[nottheterritory.livejournal.com]

Well thank you very kindly - that is a high compliment indeed - and higher from an experienced gamer such as yourself!

I have been thinking about that game lately since my last post about gaming histories. I'm not really 'mentally equipped' for it at the moment, but definitely my next projects as a GM will involve trying to get system and game into greater harmony.

We should game again soon, man.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

I'm gonna run 2nd edition AD&D.

[leonard-arlotte.livejournal.com]

Everyone seems to interpret this as what the best campaign they've been in was. The Star Wars game was my best single event, but I think my best long term campaign might have been the GURPS game I was in.

It started as a GURPS Fantasy setting. We had an interesting mix. I started off by playing a mute were-raccoon. And an intelligent black bear. (we each played two characters) I later played a Dueregar (called a Daypdwarp in this setting) who was a bit detached from reality. Eventually, I got around to playing my best character. She was an elf who had gotten trapped in Arcadia for 432 years, and having spent that time being tormented by faeries and pixies, had gone quite mad. Mind you, 'mad' by elven definitions translated as 'somewhat loopy' by human definitions. Hilarity ensued.

The game went on for some time, but started to peter out, and the GM decided he was going to change to GURPS Supers, set in the same world, several hundred years in the future. Magic had left the world, and Elves had ceased to be immortal. All elves, that is, except for my character that I carried forward from the Fantasy game. She continued to be unaging because she had soaked up magic from Arcadia for 432 years. At this point she was one of the wealthiest individuals on in the world, CEO of the multinational corporation that sponsored the super team, and was the Great-great-great-.... grandmother of the Queen. (my character had married into nobility many years ago, and our offspring was wed to the royal family to add my longevity to their genetic pool)

At one point, I got into a bit of a pissing match with one of the other players about our powers. He said he could do this. I said I could do that. He said he could do this... Finally, I said "Oh yeah, You're fired!" This caused my GM to giggle insanely and say "She wins! She wins!" about my character.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

That's flattering, thanks Pyat.

[thebitterguy]

I'm glad you had a good time in the Buffy game, even with my rather weak pacing.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

I don't remember any pacing issues!