I have just gotten home after a hectic couple of days with my day job marking exams. I was musing while I was away (especially after taking time out to watch Thor: The Dark World) that there has been a huge explosion of creativity in the past few years with RPG’s. Looking at the larger Indie RPG scene there are games that support all types of settings and other games that encourage you to build the exact game setting that you want to explore..
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| Games that encourage imagination and inspire me! |
After making the above statement it is hard to start anywhere apart from the phenomenon that FATE Core has become in a short period of time. I fell into this game around March of this year and honestly, since that time it is hard to think that it is still so young. I feel like I have been playing this game forever. It is slick, streamlined and designed to bring to life any game world that you can dream up. I marvel at the pure creation that is dropped every day in the Fate Core community on Google +. Stories of games in progress and games in development. They are truly inspirational and they range from FATE games that emulate a Pathfinder Adventure Path through to fire breathing beetles in a honeycomb moon world that are being abducted by space ducks (OK, the last was an invention but it could happen!)
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| A game that I suggest everyone plays at least once in their lives… |
It has become hard to imagine that a year ago an inventive game to me meant that it was a Pathfinder game that used one of the optional rules in one of the alternate core books. I had heard of Fantasy, Horror, Modern and Sci-Fi games. I had no idea what an OSR game was nor all the mash-ups of the other genres. A modern game playing the A-Team was a little out of left field. A supernatural history of the Roman invasion of Britain was even more of a mind bender for me. The brilliance of The Demolished Ones unique take on amnesia. An RPG that is also a card games (yes +Jesse Butler I am still hanging out for my Short Order Heroes!).
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| Pathfinder has it’s place! |
Of course regular readers would also know that I am investigating the new Rite Publishing game Lords of Gossamer and Shadow whose main premise is all about pure creativity. Characters can be from any reality and they can also find any type of reality. They could walk out of one world that is rife with the nosferatu into another reality filled with a city filled with brains in a jar that operate robots. Then they could move through another door to find themselves in a starship going further than the bounds of the known Universe. All the while the players are practically Gods that greatly affect these realities and leave a trail of power in their wake.
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| Fun for me and my family! |
Pure creativity is rife in the RPG industry at the moment. It is becoming an industry that is exploding ass more and more ideas are freely being shared across the internet with fans and designers alike. Self publishing is becoming more and more common as is the idea of crowd sourcing. Come up with a great idea and build it then there are ways that this information can get out and get played by the community. Some succeed, some fail but all of this contributes to the creative zone that is occurring all around the world. This past year I have played games about intelligent furry creatures (thanks +Georg Mir ), been a Lady fleeing her prince to be with her pirate King, a halfling who summons a powerful companion, a grizzled Roman veteran and an insane pilot that just wants to spend some quality time in a french maid outfit.
My point? It is a great time to be a gamer! Get out there, get involved and expand your horizons. Most of all, keep rolling!