Do Something!   It is a better choice than doing nothing.

Life has been REALLY busy for me lately.

Some things are going the way I want, some aren’t. Something’s I’m getting my way on, some-things I’m having to compromise. That’s life it is how it works. I’m coming to grips with all of it. But that references this by the fact that it is occasionally (ok quite often lately) making my ‘Monday 5’ much more of a ‘Weekly 5’ (which may not always come out on the same day of the week – but I’m still not going to change the name).

Anyway, in honor of the passing of the Dungeon Master , this weeks ‘Monday 5’ – Role Playing Games. – As always not necessarily the ‘best’ ever, but certainly my favorites.

5 – Marvel Super Hero’s – one of the first real ‘Super Hero’ RPG’s it was a very simplistic (no really VERY simple) game, but that actually made it an easy beer and chips game (ok really soda and chips) fun fast to play quick combat not too serious. And best of all – you were a SUPER HERO! (sweet…superhero chicks in spandex are HOT – can you say ‘White Queen’?) – completely percentile based and ran off of charts.

4 – Star Frontiers – the Star Trek RPG was clunky, the Star Wars RPG blew…but Star Frontiers – again, quick simple everything was percentile based. The rules were kind of open which really made it where not even the stars were the limit for what you could do. Unfortunately it wasn’t supported very well by TSR (imagine that) so it eventually faded away.

3. Battle-Tech/MechWarrior – Two great games that go great together! All the fun of war gaming with miniatures, and role playing on table top. D-6 Based fun, role playing (Mechwarrior) combat was a bit clumsy, but the Miniature (Battle Tech ) combat was pretty smooth. And it had a wealth of ‘history’ to work with, and a galaxy of backwards technology to sift through! – not to mention the fun of ‘piloting’ 20 – 100 ton monster machines against each other in one on one combat! (my mech for those of you wondering – Smoke Jaguar – Mad Dog standard configuration)

2. Vampire – The Masquerade – Table top fun with a new twist – noone in the vampire world is really a hero…your getting to play the lesser (sometimes) of two evils…you don’t have to be a ‘goody two shoes’ all the time, your supposed to ‘occasionally’ let your darkside out without becoming ‘too’ evil that ‘the beast’ takes over. D-10 based feat combat. With Centuries of macabre history to pull from not to mention whatever “Ann Rice” was able to come up with…to add to the fun. – Then they brought out a live action version…which brought forth a whole new level. – it turned the ‘vampire’ world on its ear…and added other ‘creatures of the night’ to both games as well. Werewolf, Mage, and more. – The ‘live action’ game became a Sci/fi-fantasy convention staple for a few years (and yes I made running it at cons a ‘living’ for a while…and to the best of my knowledge there aren’t any pictures of me doing that). – Still holds up today. – (a couple of useless and likely unbelieved bits of trivia – I actually used to live with the girl the artist based the chick on the cover of this book, on. And there is a character and a picture in one of their gaming supplements…based on me (or rather on my live action vampire characters).

1. 1^st Edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons – of course it is #1 with a bullet – this is the one that got almost all of us hooked and spawned many a ‘Timmy is a Satanist” interventions by overly religious parents etc. it started the craze and it is still around and running (though in my opinion in a much more watered down version) today. – I could say more, but that seems to me to be a bit silly/redundant, since if you know about RPG’s at all…you know about D&D. – It is simply the best.

Honorable mention: Deadlands – Champions – Top Secret – Call of Cthulhu – Star Fleet Battles – Gurps (all versions) – MERP – Twilight 2000 – Traveler – Gamma World – Shadowrun