In this episode, we pick the five RPGs every role player should have on his or her shelf, including which edition to have. These aren’t our five favourite games or the five most popular games of all time. Nope. These are five games whose mere possession will contribute to your overall gaming experience.

These are the criteria we used. Play along at home.

Innovative
Impact
Representative of a specific type of a game
Widespread
Paid us to mention them (Kidding. No company took us up on our offer.)

During this episode, listeners may encounter the following (roll d100):

  • 01-10 Boredom
  • 11-20 Lame jokes
  • 21-30 Extremely late movie reviews
  • 30-80 Chris & Wayne fighting
  • 81-90 Tangents
  • 91-98 The ghost of Lyal, sighing
  • 99-00 Interesting, lively conversation

In another Lyal-less episode, Chris and Wayne discuss encounters (both random and planned). Should encounters in RPGs be balanced, or should they follow the fiction of the setting? How to plan encounters, and how to make them interesting, balanced or not. This episode was inspired, in part, by an awesome (and angry)  article by the Angry DM.

“Crafting a mystery can be tricky. Too easy and your players get bored. Too hard and your players get frustrated and, yes, bored. When in doubt, err on the side of hard and turn a blind eye when the paladin starts torturing NPCs for clues.”
– Michael West(en), burned Rogue/Illusionist

In part 2, we discuss Chris’s story, “Best Served Cold”.