DUNGEONS & DRAGONS
Wizards of the Coast
The OG of them all, is there really any human being that found there way to this particular website who doesn’t know a thing or two (or two thousand) about D&D? Sure, it can be a little clunky and hung up on mechanics but respect must be paid to the game that got all of us into the hobby in the first place.
We finally made the long-delayed move to 5th edition and our first arc, “One Shot… at a Monster,” uses this system. We take some liberties here and there but it’s a great improvement on the advanced calculus course that was D&D 3.5. We returned to it again for our “Choose Your Own Adventure” arc where we take turns running one-shots in our home-brewed world of Regnum.
DUNGEON WORLD
Sage Kobold Productions
This is one of a number of games along with Apocalypse World, Monsterhearts, Monster of the Week, and many others that is “Powered by the Apocalypse.” Essentially, it’s a shared basic mechanic where essential every roll the players make are 2d6 with appropriate modifiers and give the options of a failure, mixed success, and full success. Sounds simple and basically, it is.
Dungeon World takes this baseline mechanic (along with an interesting characteristic in that the DM never rolls a single die) and skins it onto the fantasy genre.
It’s a blast to play and really enables players and DMs alike to have a big part in telling the story. Our second arc, “Into the Storm,” was the first time for all of us playing this system and we definitely came away from it as big fans.
STAR WARS: THE ROLEPLAYING GAME
West End Games
There’s several iterations of Star Wars roleplaying games. Wizards of the Coast got the rights to it and rubbed their D&D D20 juice all over it. More recently Fantasy Flight took the baton and pulled an Apple and made a system that uses unique proprietary dice. We still use the ancient system by West End games because we thinks it’s the best… and we have all the goddamn books.
All rolls are a number of d6s based on the appropriate skill and let’s you do everything from build a droid to cut some limbs off with a lightsaber.
We deviate from the mainstream of Star Wars stories by slipping on Imperial uniforms in “Empire’s End.” And we plan to return to this galaxy far, far away soon…
VAMPIRE THE MASQUERADE
Renegade Game Studios
We have a long and loving history with Vampire and the World of Darkness. More than any other system, this is the one that matured our role-playing beyond the hack-and-slash world into really building stories collaboratively around the table and tackling complex issues. The Fifth Edition brings some really cool new things into play as well as simplifying some of the other mechanics. It still puts story and character first as good as any system out there.
Jake has taken the helm of two arcs using Vampire 5E. First in “Dark Legacy,” which has the supernatural mostly in the background (at least to start) and then diving fang-first back into it as Kindred in “The Boston Masquerade.”
DELTA GREEN
Pagan Publishing & Arc Dream Publishing
An excellent game system that Devin turned the Nastygram crew onto, Delta Green has excellent mechanics and as well as its own world setting in a very dark version of our own. The characters created are deep and well-rounded and it really excels in going beyond straight skill checks and combat. A rich sanity, bond, and home scene rules set enables the characters to truly feel the impacts of the encounters.
We used Delta Green (although with our own take on the world) in “The Ithaca Project” but we have also taken the concept of home scenes into many of our other games.
MONSTER OF THE WEEK
Evil Hat Productions
Probably the most popular of the series of games that are “Powered by the Apocalypse” like Dungeon World, this sucker has gotten some good exposure from other podcasts and a lot of good press and word of mouth. Simple and story driven mechanics are at the heart and allow you to take on the roll of monster hunters, paranormal investigators, or any other group you can imagine in the vein of shows like The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural, and more.
Our eighth arc, “The Monster of the Week,” is our time to finally dive deep into this game and explore everything it has to offer.
Plenty more games to come! Stay tuned and keep listening. Played a cool system that we might not have heard of or given a run? Let us know about it – nastygrampod@gmail.com