Belated #RPGdDay2022

I did RPG a Day (belatedly) in 2014 and 2015. I haven't done it since, but since it's at the top of my tags, I recently reread them and wondered why I haven't done it since. I found the 2022 one, which is still the most recent since this always happens in August.

Anyway, I'll do all of my answers in one go.

1) I don't know. I wish my kids were more interested in RPGs, but they really aren't. The closest I've got there is my son-in-law, who is a pretty big D&D fan.

2) My game, Dark Fantasy X, of course. Actually, I think it really is. One of the conceits of the game is that you don't actually need to know how to play it as a player, as long as the GM understands it (which isn't difficult.) Players, on the other hand, should focus on treating their character is if it were a real person in the situations described, and deciding what they would do based on that, rather than on mechanics, and the GM interprets the situation for them mechanically. Not only do I think this is the best way to play for newer players especially, because its the most intuitive, but it's just a good habit to be in in general, and caters perfectly to my playstyle and taste.

3) I think it was 1981, although I had a more thorough grounding in the game in 1982. My first exposure was from a friends who had the OD&D box, but I did better when I was exposed to the Moldvay/Cook sets.

4) In my living room, or dining room, most likely. I dunno; I don't really give too much thought to where to play. I've almost always played at someone's house, though, especially for ongoing games with friends.

5) Uh... see answer number 2, I guess? Also because although I'm not amazing, I am a pretty good GM, I think. My games are somewhat exclusive, and I make sure everyone has as good a time as I can.

6) I don't care what other people do. It's—luckily—not my job to figure out how to market the hobby to people who don't already have it. That said, I think the most successful thing in getting people playing has been Stranger Things, followed by Critical Role. There's a lot of Actual Play stuff available now, and much of it isn't very good or helpful to bringing more people into the hobby, I would guess. I would either sponsor some really good ones, like Critical Role, full of normal people and not unlikeable freaks that turn would-be customers off, and I'd see about product placement in the vein of Stranger Things. It's worked, and it ain't broke, so don't fix it.

7) This is not a system that I love, but I have really come to like 5es concept of advantage and disadvantage. I've never even read it, I just use it as it's been described to me by people who use it. (As an aside, I've run a couple of successful games of Dread without ever having owned or even read the rules for that either. Just went with how the game was described to me, and it worked great.)

8) Clark whathisname, back in grade school. That said, it was guys like Chris Ross and Stephen... uh... he had a French last name that started with D, but he moved away after that year, so I've forgotten what it was. They were the most instrumental in introducing me in a way that stuck. Stephen also introduced me to Duran Duran that same year, by the way. It was the year Rio was released, so I'd heard them on the radio here and there, but I hadn't really paid attention before to who sang what, most of the time, until then.

9) I don't remember. Either Top Secret S.I. or Traveller, I think. But I'd played others before then. I should note that I still hadn't ever bought D&D at this point, only MERP. The next one would have been Werewolf the Apocalypse. I didn't buy any D&D until 3e came out in 2000.

10) I'm sure I did it here and there in school, but I don't remember for sure doing it until I was in college in the early to mid 90s, and Top Secret S.I. was the game I GMed. I thought it was quite successful, and now I prefer to run rather than play. Although I enjoy playing too.

11) Uh... I dunno. None of my settings, certainly, which tend to be kind of dark and grounded. Maybe Classic Traveller, to the extent that it has a setting. I'd find a nice, peaceful, quiet and scenically beautiful planet with only a few people (relatively speaking) living on it, build a homestead with some fancy tech, load up on analgesics so I can live a long time in good health, and just retire peacefully and quietly to the countryside.

12) Because I was a huge fan of fantasy fiction, especially (at that point) of Lloyd Alexander and Tolkien, and I was mesmerized by the possibility of creating similar works collaboratively at the game table. 

13) I wouldn't. It all worked out well for me.

14) No, that's not a question.

15) Hmm... I dunno. One of the reasons I prefer to GM is that I feel like I do what I wish someone would do for me. I guess maybe Professor Dungeonmaster runs a game that I believe would be right up my alley, for the most part, so I'd pick him, I suppose. Although I've never seen him run.

16) Me running Dark Fantasy X for my kids and in-laws, and them really getting into it, doing voices, and all that jazz. It's a pie in the sky fantasy, but that would be perfect for me.

17) That doesn't make any sense, it's a fantasy setting, so it's not in the past, present or future. It's not in any timestream at all that you can compare to the real world.

18) The living room, with dimmed lamps, and music playing quietly out of the stereo.

19) Because I wrote it.

20) A few months. I'm not sure that I'm up for campaigns that last for years. I prefer mini-series or streaming series with fewer episodes to open-ended regular series, to use a TV analogy.

21) I love the situation in Five Fingers from the Iron Kingdoms setting, as described in the d20 Five Fingers book. The crime, the horror, the intrigue; it's wonderful. Now; I could never play it as is, because it's too closely tied to the Iron Kingdoms setting, but it'd be tons of fun to loot and pillage that for another game.

22) I'm not playing right now, so I'd say my "top" iconic Dark Fantasy X character, Stefan Clevenger.

23) Uh... see the CHAOS IN WAYCHESTER tag for the long version. Hijinks, intrigue, skullduggery, being hunted by a former rival, and Big Time™ monsters.

24) Uh... this next few series of questions isn't going to be very relevant to me. I'll skip by them.

25) n/a

26) n/a

27) n/a

28) I'm not tagging anyone with anything, but I've always had a fondness for the Larry Elmore Companion set cover. It's not necessarily the best cover art, but it's my favorite. 

29) Everyone who wants to. I don't care, I dunno. That's an odd question. I don't carry torches for "celebrity gamers" or get star struck hearing about someone else's game, so I don't get why this question is relevant. To me, at least, it isn't.

30) Get back to basics. There's a lot of weird questions here. Maybe there has to be, because it's been going on for so long, but still.

31) 2014.