#RPGaday2017, Day 18: Which RPG have you played the most in your life?

Second time in a row blogging on the day in questing; gonna try to keep this brief-ish.
Let's blog, homies.

#RPGaday2017, Day 17: Which RPG have you played the most in your life?

Well, this is probably going to come down to which metric we use for "most¹." So eff it; let's do it by category.

By calendar time

Spookfriends!

Gotta be V:tM, right? I LARP'd for multiple years, many of which were in the same game. I wound up running some tabletop games, and then playing in a lengthy one years later. So if we're going by that metric, then it's gotta be my angsty spookfriends, and it's not terribly close.

I can earnestly say that this damn setting has given me more frustration than pretty much any other - so very, very much of it doesn't work for me, from the mechanics, to the politics, to the overbearing "but we have to make it daaaaaark" of much of the tone. That's even before we start getting into some of the questionable representation of real-world cultures - historical and otherwise - in earlier sourcebooks.

So yeah, it stumbles a lot. But a large part of that is due to trying. Honestly, it'd never have been frustrating if I didn't love the damn thing so much. I have as many - if not more - of the same complaints with say, Rifts, but I don't have any kind of real attachment to that property, so it doesn't really affect me much².

So yeah. V:tM is a prime example to me of loving something deeply, while being keenly aware of its flaws, and unwilling to simply accept them³.

By Hours

If we include GMing, it's probably the Gehenna Engine by now, or getting close. Playtesting is a thing! Beyond that, I've never really been in a group that has "their system" that got stuck with. Shadowrun (if you combine 3rd, 4th, and 5th editions), D20 (if you combine D&D 3X and Pathfinder) probably make a strong showing, for ubiquity's sake if nothing else. 

By Number of sessions

Can we count "scrabbled-together, close-enough-for-jazz" systems? Because across my time as a player and GM, that's probably what I've seen the most of. 

This, let's be clear, has been a Good Thing^TM.

All things being equal, a bespoke solution will outperform an off-the-rack one, and in a gaming style that heavily de-emphasizes use of the system, things get close to being equal pretty quickly. This has assuredly influenced my design style, as I'm very cognizant about giving people tools, and ways to ignore them. To my use case, a system needs to be really enjoyable at its core mechanic, with little else to support it - because many groups will throw everything else out the window, using as little as possible so that they can get on with the part of the game they're enjoying. 

Deep engagement with mechanical complexity is fun too! I can enjoy that quite a bit. But for my 2d6 worth, if a system can't be effectively streamlined, that greatly limits its utility, and likelihood of being used.

Cheers!

~Killstring

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1 - Also, which metric we use for "play," but that's another can of worms.

2 - Not to knock Rifts! A lot of people dig it, and that's cool - people should like things! I bounced off it once, and never felt compelled to give it a second look; but I'm certain it has a lot of merit as well, and I'm not opposed to attempting to find it for myself someday. But there's no emotional attachment there.

3 - I should probably note that the Onyx Path 20th Anniversary stuff is lovely, and goes an immensely long way towards addressing any and all of these issues; I've just never had the opportunity to play the thing.