Games I Will Never Run

Here's a short list of games that I will never DM/GM, for any number of reasons.

AD&D 1st Edition - Confusingly organized, even more so than 2e. I do like the tone of 1e much more, though, so there's a slight possibility that I might run it with a heavy dose of house rules to remove some of the dumber things (like alignment languages, material components, and the massive mess that is the unarmed combat system). I recently met someone who loves DMing it, though, so I wouldn't mind being on board as a player.
 
GURPS (any edition) - I tried to figure out the 4th edition "GURPS Lite" document. I still haven't. I'm not a big fan of point-buy systems in general, and this one is just way too fiddly for my tastes. I would probably not play this one either.
 
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai - I love this book (not surprising, since I loved the movie), and the Tri-Stat system is a bit less complex than GURPS in terms of point-buy. I'd imagine that in play it's pretty fast and simple, but the problem is that I have zero ideas for a modern-day crime game. I certainly wouldn't mind playing it, if someone else had ideas.

The World of Darkness - The system isn't too bad, and my brief experience playing Mage: The Awakening would help me get a handle on things, but I only have one story idea. I'd hate to make everyone make human characters for a mini-campaign, but if players would be up for it, I might be convinced. I wouldn't mind playing, either.

Star Wars (any post-WEG version) - I don't know nearly enough about the universe to make for a satisfying game for the players. My entire experience with the franchise is the movies, some of the video games, and a couple of kiddie novels I read as a youngling. I obviously wouldn't mind playing, considering I already have and had a blast.

Pathfinder (the full edition) - Nope. Way, way too much crunch. Wouldn't mind playing, but I will never upgrade to the non-Beginner Box edition as a GM.

You might notice that D&D 4th Edition isn't there. To be honest, if I had the time or the desire, I wouldn't mind DMing 4e, but I doubt that most of my players would want to put themselves through that. HackMaster 4e is also not there, because as much as I would want to run it (and endure all of the rules arguing and struggles thereof), it's based on the AD&D engine that two of my players hate so much, and few others would want to struggle with the rules.

P is for Players

For a role-playing game, they're pretty damn important, aren't they? Some games are designed to be run with no GM - I assume the players form the tabletop equivalent of an anarcho-syndicalist commune - but players are always a must.

With D&D, the more the merrier. Particularly in "old-school" (i.e., before Wizards of the Coast) iterations of the game, having more party members means having more muscle, more bodies to soak up damage, and most importantly (from a gamer's standpoint, at least) a good buffer in case one or two players isn't able to make it. I often end up with only two or three players; in the latter case, it's usually okay, but in the former case I have to concede to reality and break out a board game or something. (Of course, there was that one time where only one player showed up...)

Even a single player might be okay, depending on the system being run. Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai is a perfect example; the authors acknowledge in their introduction that adults are usually busy, so the game is set up for one GM and one player. My issue is that I have zero ideas for modern-day crime plotlines. (I also take exception to the idea that character death should never happen unless it's important to the story.) Hell, even for The World of Darkness, the most I can come up with is a one-shot.

My apologies if the last few posts (and possibly the next few as well) are a little disjointed and/or short. Writing two term papers in two days, and a third coming up, have left my brain a little bit tired. I will still be doing my best to stick to my commitment for the month.

Haldo!

Hi, I'm Fuzzy Skinner (aka Skinr, or just Fuzzy). I've been playing and running various tabletop role-playing games since high school - mostly in the latter capacity - starting with the D&D Fast Play Game The Sewers of Sumdall (included on the DVD release of the Dungeons & Dragons movie), and moving on to my first 'real' campaign using the Pathfinder RPG Beginner Box. Since then, I've also participated in the following:

• Basic Fantasy RPG (GM and player)
• D&D Basic Rules, Moldvay (DM)
• D&D v. 3.5 (player)

I also own, and hope to one day run and/or play, the following:

• AD&D 2nd Edition (all hail the Apparatus of Kwalish!)
• Demon: The Fallen (only as a PDF, which isn't ideal)
• Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (yes, really)
• HackMaster Basic (also currently PDF-only in my library)
• The World of Darkness

Finally, there's one game I desperately want to own so that I can play it, and that game is Prince Valiant: The Storytelling Game. I've searched in vain for it digitally, but the closest I've come is a beautiful OCR'd PDF file... of the Spanish translation. Yes, really.

On this blog, I hope to share some of my roleplaying game stories, old and new alike.