My Top-5 Roleplaying Games of All Time

Over at the “RPG Pub” there is a thread asking people to post their top-five favourite role-playing games of all time.

Here’s my list. Reflecting on the role-playing games that I’ve played over the past forty-five years or so, I’d say that my top five have to be the following:

Middle-earth Roleplaying (MERP)/Against the Darkmaster (VsD)

My first “real” campaign involved MERP and ICE’s beautiful maps and detailed campaign modules. MERP – and its descendant VsD – captures what I like the most about Rolemaster – the flexible class-based character development system; the detailed, vivid critical hit charts; the overall coherent rules framework – but without the large volume of charts and details that (IME) bogged down RM in actual play.

Some of my fondest memories of playing RPGs involve MERP and my two favourite campaigns of all time as GM (one still ongoing) use VsD.

Mythras 

I started playing this in 2011 – back when it was still being published by Mongoose and was called RuneQuest II (i.e., MRQII) – and haven’t stopped since. I’ve played in campaigns set in the Young Kingdoms (“Elric”), Mythic Britain, Mythic Babylon, Beyond the Mountains of Madness (the CoC campaign adapted to Mythras), and now Lyonesse, as well as in several “one-shots” or short campaigns (Mythic Greece, Luther Arkwright, Meeros, etc.). A really excellent system overall.

Call of Cthulhu

I haven’t played CoC since 2017 and I’m in no rush to do so again soon. But I’ve run a lot of CoC over the years – almost always as GM (er, “Keeper”) – and I’ve always really enjoyed it. I’m pretty sure it’s the game I’ve run the third most often (after MERP/VsD and AD&D). The scenarios are generally excellent (although some needed work). My only regret is that I have yet to run one of the “classic” campaigns for it (although I did play through BMoM using Mythras).

Dungeons & Dragons/Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (TSR era)

Like most RPGers, I started with D&D and spent a lot of my early gaming days (the early 1980s) playing and running AD&D (and I’ve returned to it from time to time since then). Reading Gygax’s hardbound volumes not only improved my vocabulary as a wee lad, but also sparked my imagination. They were the works of a disorganized creative genius. I still treasure the classic modules from that era as well. Although aspects of the system never failed to frustrate me, the game will always have a special place in my heart.

Stormbringer/Elric!/Hawkmoon/Corum 

(i.e., BRP “Eternal Champions” games)

I don’t really have any interest in running these BRP RPGs now – Mythras has largely filled that space for me – but I still have these books and really enjoyed these (closely related) games back in the day. 

There are other games that I like and other games I hope to try – but these are the games that I consider my all-time favourites.

Feel free to post your "top-5" lists in the comments, if you like. I'd be curious to learn what games have stood "the test of time" for you.

There and Back Again: My Circular Role-playing Journey

I’ve talked about my personal history with the ‘Old School Renaissance’ or ‘Old School Revival’ (OSR) in the past at this blog (e.g., see this post from 2022). But some reflection on the games that I’ve been playing in recent years has prompted me to scribble some further thoughts. (My apologies for being a bit self-indulgent here …)

[Saruman by Angus McBride]

It’s been an interesting journey. I was ‘floating around’ at various role-playing games fora during the early days of the OSR over two decades ago. Disappointment with 3rd edition Dungeons & Dragons – and nostalgia for my early days of gaming – led me to dig out (and in some cases repurchase) my old Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Basic/Expert Dungeons & Dragons, Rules Cyclopaedia D&D, and other out-of-print RPG books. I was excited – and later disappointed – by Castles & Crusades in its early days. (I wrote positive reviews at RPG.net of both the C&C box set and Players’ Handbook, but eventually came to find the atrocious editing by Troll Lord Games intolerable.)  

I started this blog in 2009 in order to post some rules ideas for Swords & Wizardry (S&W). Some of my ‘swords and sorcery’ house rules for S&W appeared in early issues of Fight On! and Knockspell. Eventually, many of those rules were incorporated into Crypts and Things. So I guess that I contributed – albeit in a small way – to the creation of OSR “stuff,” at least early on. 

But I haven’t really been that engaged with the OSR for about a decade now. I still follow it to some extent. I mean, I have Dolmenwood and Shadowdark, as well as the more recent versions of S&W, and a few other things. I’ve backed the forthcoming ‘3rd edition’ of OSRIC (the original “retro-clone,” in this case of 1980 AD&D). While I regret some of my purchases, overall I find that there are still interesting things being produced. But I don’t really use any OSR (by which I mean here ‘TSR D&D-derived’) systems anymore, and haven’t for years. They just don’t appeal to me that much these days. I think that, given my tastes, there are superior alternatives available. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by this. I sort of thought the same thing about AD&D/D&D around 1985.

Almost all my gaming these days involve either Mythras or Against the Darkmaster (but sometimes my groups will play ‘one shots’ of other things, e.g., Mothership or Delta Green, and I’d like to run some Dragonbane someday). I find these systems more satisfying overall than any version of D&D (TSR, OSR, 3e, 5e, whatever). I guess I’m not a ‘rules lite’ person after all. In retrospect, I think that I thought that about myself only because I found running 3e D&D to be such a tedious chore. 

Of course, both Mythras and Against the Darkmaster are descendants of other ‘old school’ systems: Chaosium’s Basic Roleplaying (Runequest, Stormbringer, and the like) in the case of Mythras, and Iron Crown Enterprise’s Middle-earth Roleplaying (itself a simplified version of 2nd edition Rolemaster), in the case of Against the Darkmaster. So, I guess they're kind of ‘OSR’ systems as well (but not if we adhere to the “OSR = derived from TSR AD&D/D&D” definition). 

I can’t help but be struck by the extent to which my personal gaming history has repeated itself: dissatisfaction with AD&D/D&D led me to move to Middle-earth Roleplaying (MERP) and Basic Roleplaying (BRP), including Call of Cthulhu, Hawkmoon, and Stormbringer, in the mid-late 1980s. And about three decades later the same thing happened with OSR D&D and 5e D&D. Hopefully I've learned my lesson and won’t go through this cycle again.

As an aside, one thing that makes me think of the old MERP campaign modules as "old school" in nature is that – whatever their other faults – they were effectively “sandboxes” (as I explain here). They described a number of locations, some in detail, and provided advice for GMs on how to provide "hooks" for players. There were a few “adventure modules” for MERP – books with 3 adventures (usually aimed at levels, 1, 3, and 5) – but even those were pretty loose for the most part (generally they provided a setting and a situation), not “railroad” adventures. So, after my first several years with AD&D, a lot of my GMing involved using and running Middle-earth “sandbox” campaigns, although of course that term was not used in those days (at least to my knowledge). Indeed, I vividly recall comparing my MERP modules to TSR's Dragonlance series around 1986 or 1987, and noting how little room for improvisation or player freedom the latter allowed.

Anyhow, to the extent I was still involved in the hobby during the 1990s, the games I followed were those that came out earlier, especially MERP and Stormbringer (the latter revised and renamed Elric! during that decade). I remember visiting gaming stores in the 1990s and being a bit baffled and even put off by all the “goth” stuff. I never got into Vampire and the like (just as I never got into the Magic craze.) When D&D 3e came out, I was excited by it because it seemed to “improve” D&D by including certain things from other systems that I liked (e.g., skills). In play, though, I came to loathe the system after two year-long campaigns, and so was primed for the OSR when it happened.

Of course, had I been sensible, I would’ve just kept playing MERP, Call of Cthulhu, Stormbringer, and similar older games – and just ignored the hype around 3e D&D and the “d20” universe in the early 2000s. These days, for the most part, I’m happy to stick with my “d100” games, Mythras and Against the Darkmaster. Wisdom, I hope, comes with age.

Elric coming to the small screen?

According to Deadline we might see an Elric TV series someday:

“New Republic Pictures’ Brian Oliver and producer Bradley J. Fischer acquired the exclusive rights to all works in Michael Moorcock’s seminal fantasy-horror series The Elric Saga. They are beginning to shop the property for series, with Glen Mazzara (The Walking Dead and The Shield) and Prison Break and Star Trek: Discovery‘s Vaun Wilmott attached to adapt the sci-fi fantasy tale.” 

“Fischer and New Republic see the Elric saga — which begins with the 1972 novel Elric of Melniboné, as having cross-platform franchise potential. They are first leaning into the TV series with Mazzara & Wilmott. The novels are sensual and atmospheric sword-and-sorcery tales that center on the title character, a brooding albino warrior who presides over an unruly, decadent island nation. The novels follow Elric on a series of adventures, in which he is betrayed by his cousin, sent into exile and attempts to come to terms with his own humanity. The series comprises 11 novels and a number of short stories and has been adapted into several comics and graphic novels.”

While this wheel looks to be turning, the TV series (if it materializes) will not be happening in the near future.

In contrast, BBC Studios’ adaptation of the Runestaff tetralogy appears to be further along...

(Hat tip to C. Robichaud for the Elric news.)

Hawkmoon is coming to the small screen

Well this interesting: BBC Studios is adapting Michael Moorcock’s Runestaff tetralogy into a television series.

Hawkmoon is not my favourite character amongst Moocock’s ‘Eternal Champions’—I find Corum, Elric, and von Bek to be more nuanced and engaging protagonists. But some of Hawkmoon’s companions, such as Huillam d'Averc and Oladahn, are quite colourful. And the main villains of the series—like the withered and ancient Emperor Huon, who dwells in a fluid-filled sphere in Londra, and the sybaritic and cunning Baron Meliadus, who is Hawkmoon’s chief antagonist throughout the series—are brilliant. The Granbretans in general should be interesting to watch, as they wear animal masks at all times in public (the subjects of the Emperor belong to various ‘orders’, each with their own totemic animal).

But the star of the series, if it’s done properly, may be the setting itself: the post-‘Tragic Millennium’ future earth, wherein the vile Empire of Granbretan threatens all of Europe and, indeed, the world. The series encompasses much of this world—from Syria and the Ukraine in the east, to North America in the west—so it has the potential to showcase some amazing scenery and sets. And then there are the battles: I look forward to scenes wherein the warriors of Count Brass’s Kamarg, mounted on giant flying flamingos, are met by the Granbretans’ baroque ornithopters and terrible ‘flame lances’. 

Hopefully BBC Studios will do justice to Moocock’s world and story. I’m cautiously enthusiastic…

The Hawkmoon Tetralogy

Over the past few years I’ve reread (or, in some cases, read for the first time) some of Michael Moorcock’s classic fantasy series.  I started with the two Corum trilogies, which I remembered as my favourites from decades ago.  I then reread the Elric stories.  Some of these (namely, those published after the late 1980s) I read for the for first time.  I found the Elric tales to be wide ranging in terms of quality, but at their best, they are wonderful and evocative, definitely ‘must reads’ for any fan of fantasy literature.  I also read The War Hound and the World’s Pain, which I thought was excellent.  Unfortunately, the subsequent novel, The City in the Autumn Stars, was a tedious slog, though the third one, The Dragon in the Sword, was somewhat better.  (The Dragon in the Sword actually is written from the perspective of Erekosë, and thus is also a sequel to The Silver Warriors.)   

Last year I reread the original Hawkmoon tetralogy, The History of the Runestaff.  (I still have my paperbacks from the late 1980s, when I read them whilst vacationing at my parents’ cottage on Lake Huron.)

I quite enjoyed them, although not as much as either Moorcock’s Corum or Elric sagas.  The main reason is that I found the main character, Dorian Hawkmoon, to be somewhat insipid.  While quite interesting things happen to Hawkmoon, he himself is a rather flavourless, stereotypical ‘noble hero.’  Both Corum and Elric are far more interesting characters.  (And I found Hawkmoon’s love interest, Yisselda, the daughter of Count Brass, to be a bland, traditional ‘damsel-in-distress.’)  

Fortunately, some of Hawkmoon’s companions are interesting.  There is the world-weary Count Brass, a grizzled veteran of many wars, now Lord Guardian of the Kamarg.  Also of note is Oladhan, an honourable dwarf and skilled archer, the hirsute son of a human and mountain giant.  Finally, there is the Frenchman Huillam d'Averc, who first encounters Hawkmoon whilst serving as a mercenary in the army of evil Granbretan, but later allies himself with the Kamarg.  D’Averc is far more witty, clever, and all-around interesting than Hawkmoon (he sort plays the ‘Han Solo’ to Hawkmoon’s ‘Luke Skywalker’).  The story improves markedly whenever he is featured.

But the characters who truly shine in the tetralogy are the villains, especially the various leaders of the malevolent Empire of Granbretan.  There is the hideous immortal King-Emperor Huon, preserved for countless centuries in an orb of life-preserving fluid, whose withered body resembles a wrinkled fetus, and who speaks with vocal chords torn from a melodic youth.  There is Baron Meliadus , a charismatic psychopath, who lusts after Yisselda (for reasons I can’t fathom), and seeks to crush the Kamarg at any cost.  He’s the kind of villain that one loves to hate.   There is Taragorm of the Palace of Time, whose mask is a working clock...

Ah yes, the masks.  One thing that makes the Granbretans so interesting as a people is the fact that they are compelled to wear masks whenever out in public.  Indeed, their whole society manifests a kind of mental illness.  All Granbretans belong to different ‘orders,’ each of which has its own official mask (the leaders wear ones shaped from fine metals, with gems, etc.), most of which are modeled on animals (wolves, rats, mantises, and so forth), though there are some exceptions (such as Taragorm’s clock).  The society overall is rigidly ordered and hierarchical, with baroque architecture and items that are mixes of technology and magic.  And it is, well, evil: Granbretans see their destiny to be that of dominating the world, and perhaps the multiverse, under the despotic rule of the undying Huon.  I would be hard pressed to think of a more colourful and frankly ‘fun’ evil empire in fantasy literature.

So I recommend reading the Hawkmoon tetralogy, but for the secondary characters, villains, and the distinctive setting -- not the protagonist!