"What's your "Go-to" RPG game?" Topic

It's a Saturday and you're supposed to meet with your gaming group and one of your friends cancels last-minute, throwing a wrench in your finely-crafted planned campaign. (This happens a lot to us older gamers, now that real life sometimes rears its ugly head in the form of kids that need to be watched, wives that need to be placated, work that needs to be done, etc…)

Or, you unexpectedly get some free time and all your friends are free too, but you don't have anything planned. What do you play for a quick night of gaming?

My gaming group will play anything, but we generally rely on Boot Hill, or some derivative thereof. I'm fond of GURPS Old West nowadays, as TSR's games were pretty simple. Even back in the 80's when we played Boot Hill right out of the box, we tinkered with the rules and added our own house rules and skills to the game. We all used to joke that the day we couldn't whip up a Boot Hill scenario on the fly was the day we hung up our dice bags forever.

So what's your "go-to" game in an emergency?

Probably D&D 3rd edition at this point but it has been such a long time since I've done any RPGing.

D&D 4e, because the DM's workload is so light once you understand encounter design. I'd put Feng Shui at a close second – much less traditional and easy to run off the cuff. Savage Worlds is 3rd, largely because there are so many ready-to-run plot point settings to choose from.

If I wanted to be minimalist about rules (like if I were running for people who don't game regularly or LARPers) I'd pick Over the Edge from Atlas.

Mythic. Whenever we're stuck for ideas or if my son wants to play a quick game of anything.

Call of Cthulhu. It's pretty much all I RPG anyway

(Un)fortunately, I got 4!

Pirates of the Spanish Main (Savage Worlds)
Deadlands Classic
Gamma World latest edition
d20 Adventure! (pulp)

Since we have a list, it will all depend on who flakes and who shows up.

Depending on who I'm playing with more wargames than RPG's, Battletech is probably our go to game "Classic 3025" some nights we have up to 6 players all with four light to medium Mechs totaling 200 tons, last man standing wins. Alcohol is often involved.. ;-P If it's my more history based mates an air game, Blue Skies or Air Force/Dauntless for WW II or AWC21 for post war.

RPG's would be Vietnam using a heavly modified version of Reccon or a Shadowrun.

Of course we might just Dig out Zombies and stab each oyher in the bank while chanting "Braaaaaaaaaaains!" Remember the mention of alcohol.

Fatman

Old school Traveller, although, like Pictors, it's been years since I've done any RPG'ing.

Don't have an RPG group now, but usually the bolt for the wrench in the plans was to play something we don't normally play. A board game or an RPG we hadn't really played before.

Savage Worlds.

Pathfinder for people who can do simple math.

Fiasco for those theatrical types.

D&D original box + Greyhawk & Blackmoor.

But may well go over to Savage Worlds.

Have not played RPG in many years but it would be traveller ( little black books)

Pathfinder

Dead of Night. No prep needed. Just go for it.

GURPS for everything.

Hmm, probably something like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or possibly Champions.

Pathfinder

Haven't "gone to" an RPG in a long time. *sigh*

But back in the day, D&D was our favorite, but it's hard to beat Traveller for "pick up game status." A buddy of mine GM'ed me through a whole campaign that was nothing but randomly rolled events occurring as I tried to run a "tramp free trader" hither and yon across the galaxy, trading in odd cargoes and taking on other (mostly) legal odd jobs. My bud managed to tie it all together, with my character and crew caught up by accident in the Solmani/Imperial conflict, simply because we had dinner aboard a Solmani cruiser (well, one doesn't turn down an invitation from a man who has several batteries of lasers aimed at your little cargo freighter… could be very bad for business). It was basically Firefly before Whedon ever imagined it, and Elite before that level of computer gaming even got off the ground. I still remember that on-the-fly campaign with fondness.

D&D required a bit more prepwork, but we usually had dungeons or side adventures ready, or a Dragon magazine module on hand.

DnD 1st ed is the goto. However, I would prefer something more like White Box or Spellcraft and Swordplay as they rleave more opertunities to fight battles rather than skirmishes…ala Chainmail.

Well, my players take careful notes of each session, so after a recap, I'm ready to pick up where we left off (I DM). The system is not so important as the ability to run/DM off the cuff. One of the very best/most helpful books on this topic, applicable to any set of rules/genre, is found here: link, XDM X-Treme Dungeon Mastery.

Buy it, borrow it, check it out from a lending library in your State… It is worth your time, money, and effort -- and it is hilariously entertaining to read, besides being incredibly useful for your prefered gaming venue. Cheers!

The first AD&D hardcovers from AD1978 for fantasy, Mekton Zeta for giant, stompy robots, and my homebrew system for anything else.

Al | ravenfeastsmeadhall.blogspot.com

The Fantasy Trip can be rather quick to pick up so it is a favorite and Hill Sector Blues for Paranoia gives a good one session game.

When running an RPG though I try to have a "flashback" adventure planned for each character so if people don't show we can do something campaign related without messing things up.

Traveller

It would be Pathfinder or AD&D 1st Edition. Those are the rules I remember. Maybe traveller if the people were up for it.

I'm a big fan of Evil Hat's FATE system. It's a FUDGE variant that has been polished to a high sheen.

Shawn.

Probably Traveller TNE, Twilight 2000 or 2300AD. Though not RPG'd for some time.

In the old days it would have been RoleMaster, now it would be Advanced Fighting Fantasy 2.

Classic Runequest or Call of Cthulhu and classic Deadlands for me

CoC
AD&D
Star Frontiers BUT I haven't GMed it for a very long time…

Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing. Not a hack and slash style rule set. If you get into a fight you better be 99% sure you will win BEFORE starting the fight. Player characters can die. Magic items are RARE and that makes the game more fun. It's a thinking game more than fighting.

Don

Classic Traveller. I haven't run it in years but I am always creating new material for it.

Zombie Clue

Traveller (the original LBBs)

D&D4e

I ALWAYS have something ready

Call of Cthulhu and the rest of Chaosium's 'Basic Rollplaying' system (BRP). Percentile-based, versatile, intuitive… can shift up and down the crunch spectrum.

Outside of that I'm happy to run WFRP 1e, Classic Traveller, Dungeon Crawl Classics, and most any of the OSR stuff like Lamentations of the Flame Princess or Swords & Wizardry.

I'll happily play just about anything though if the group is right. I'm in two groups right now that are running D&D 3.5… the rules aren't my taste but the guys are fun.

If I were still running RPGs, I'd probably go with Spirit of the Century and run a quick pulp game. I love how it handles mooks and the aspects rules.

AD&D 2ed

Those are my 'go to' games, NOT my favorites.

Those are the ones that I can pick up and run anything w/o prep.

Traveller. Sometimes Champions.

Anything WEG D6, though pulp/pulp superhero is more common

Savage worlds

Trail of Cthulhu

WEG's 2ed Ed. Star Wars. We run it more as "firefly".

I hate to say it, but for this situation it is D&D 4e, as we have a automated dm program for that edition. About the only time my group does 4e is when we can't prep a game beforehand and have to go with 'robo-dm'

I like GURPS for most purposes, but I also have a soft spot for AD&D 2e.
I'm not adverse to other systems either, and have played Cyberpunk 2020, most of WW's World of Darkness games, West End Games Star Wars, D20 and others. Still, GURPS remains the go to.

If I had such a thing it would be the original version of AD&D. Or Basic D&D (which has a handy Level 1 dungeon in it)

Old School Traveller, and Twilight 2000

The "Happy Face Dice" RPG.

Get a handful of happy face dice together, and have each player call out two things they're good at, and one they're bad at. For every other skill check, you roll a happy face die, and the GM announces the result that equates to the emotion roll. For things you're good at, you roll two dice and pick the best; for things you're bad at, you roll two dice, and the GM picks.

So kinda like FUDGE, but faster.

Pathfinder; as my group know it best; or anyting BRP like CoC as I know it well enough.

Robo DM seems just about right for 4th edition D&D.

Depends on what I feel like running. AD&D 1st or 2nd Edition if I want to run something everyone has played, but I wouldn't mind running other games like HERO or the original Traveller.