by NormandyWept

An item RPG: The Between has been added to the geeklist Solo RPGs on Your Table - April 2026

by AB2014solo

Related Item: Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space – The Roleplaying Game (10th Doctor)

Ugavine wrote:

AB2014solo wrote:

Or Bathams?

Yes, should have popped in the Bull & Bladder (Batham's brewery), didn't think of that, even though it's just a few doors up from my house.

You lucky people! We had to walk there from the bottom of Delph Locks. Worth it, though.

by nycavri

leroy43 wrote:

I love Kevin (bacchus) like the brother I never had, but he's not been active for the better part of a year and is currently an alumni.

To quote Jon Bon Jovi in Moonlight and Valentino, "Wouldn't want that to happen to my hair."

Digging my way back to the light, and hope to be more engaged (here, there, and everywhere) going forward.

by HiveGod

by plezercruz

I don't really think you can do this any more in a public setting - but it was great fun when you could. These days you're sure to run into someone who's far to touchy about the fantasy and is likely to draw parallels to real world prejudices.

Pete (once played one of the most insufferable, pompous, elitist D&D high elves imaginable and it was totally awesome)

by TomTomThePipersSon

Druids- they scratch my itches for both the natural world as well as a historic magical career, while including the added bonus that we know essentially nothing about them historically so you can't really roleplay it wrong.

by Pentaclebreaker

I haven't yet answered the first half of the question . . .

What type of magic-user I like to read about in books/watch films with. I like the the character Sean O'Laichlann in Randall Garrets stories (I have to admitt that in the Quincy M.E. serial I liked the role of Sam Fujiyama more than Quincy himelf 🙂), Sean is earnest. methodically and sometimes innovative with the given rules of magic.

In most fantasy books. arcane mages are the antagonists that hinder the hero . . .

Ciao

Martin

by NormandyWept

Related Item: The Between

ThroughTheDeckGlass wrote:

Feels like a jump scare could come from any one of these situations.

I'm glad to hear the tension building is working for you.

There should be at least one event in the second half of the Night Phase that would be presented with a jump scare in a TV show or movie, yes, although I'm not sure if they'll 100% work that way in text. Hopefully you still enjoy!

by JLongden

Grizzled, hardboiled, sarcastic mages with a reluctant heart of gold. If Rick Sanchez was a mage, it'd be something like that.

by ThroughTheDeckGlass

Related Item: The Between

Feels like a jump scare could come from any one of these situations.

by mic_al

Well... numbers 1, 2, and 5 are correct.

D&D, MtG, and Catan are certainly amongst the most influential games.

Some of the others? Nope.

You might like them, but that doesn't mean that they had a huge impact on the tabletop industry.

D&D naturally gets the spot for inspiring the entire genre of pen and paper TTRPGs as well as being the most played TTRPG in the world. (And can also be argued to be an inspiration for computer RPGs, dungeoncrawl style boardgames, etc...) Some other games that followed are very popular (e.g. CoC, White Wolf's WoD, Shadowrun, Champions, Deadlands, etc...) but D&D is the granddaddy. (Even if I personally think much of the other stuff is better.)

MtG gets the spot for being the first ultra successful TCG, spawning an entire genre of expandable card games; including other ultra successful stuff like Pokemon, YuGiOh, and then stuff like Android: Netrunner, LOTR and Arkham Horror LCG, and even stuff like Marvel: Champions. Also, MtG was part of keeping boardgame stores afloat in the 90s and 2000s. (And comic book stores.)

Catan gets the spot for being the other half of the equation making boardgame stores a bit more viable; and really popularizing the "German game" or Euro style genre. It was much more successful than games like Ra, Puerto Rico, El Grande, etc... (which are all better games, imo) and, as an early gateway, it opened up a lot of people to the hobby; inspiring many designers.

But as for stuff like Azul, Root, Summoner Wars, Spirit Island? Gimme a break. They're popular... but did they inspire other games or mechanisms? Did they start any kind of cultural trend? Nope. (That would be a workable definition for "influential.")

Some of the big ones you might consider:

Pandemic - while not the first coop (e.g. The Lord of the Rings came first), Pandemic is certainly the first BIG coop that took the hobby by storm; demonstrating the viability of the genre and inspiring many others. Shadows Over Camelot was also a pretty big deal (along with Battlestar Galactica) in inspiring traitor or semi-coop mechanics... but Pandemic was huge. Pandemic has sold over 5 million copies world wide. That's a big deal. And everything from Horrified to Zombicide to... Spirit Island owes it success to people cutting their teeth on Pandemic as their first coop.

Dominion- Dominion inspired an entire genre of deckbuilders. 'Nuff said.

Agricola- Again not the first worker placement game.... but it was the first very successful early one. And it inspired many more.

Werewolf/Mafia - Inspired the whole genre of social deduction games. We're seeing stuff like Blood on the Clocktower taking Youtube by storm, videogames like Among Us... they all owe their success to Werewolf/Mafia which even inspired games like The Resistance.

Risk- Yup. It needs to be said. Risk is the original ultra popular Dudes on a Map multiplayer wargame. Diplomacy, Axis & Allies, etc... all owe their success to Risk getting people wanting to play a territory combat game where they try to conquer the world. You wouldn't have Blood Rage and Kemet or your precious Root without Risk.

Monopoly - Yeah, it sucks. But it's influential in terms of inspiring boardgames; particularly the notion of an economic boardgame (e.g. Acquire, Catan, whatever...)

Chess - This isn't just that Chess popularized abstracts and mathematical games (and the early forms of modern abstracts can trace their roots to the 1940s - 1960s when math magazines were inventing new games like Hex); Chess made the whole notion of boardgames viable as a medium for recreation. There was other stuff (and maybe I'm showing a Western Influence by not including stuff like Go, Backgammon, Pachisi, Mancala, etc...) but Chess is easily the most successful and most developed. (With tournaments, rules standardization, deep study and analysis and literature, etc...)

Poker - You might include other traditional card games like Whist, Bridge, Gin, etc... You might want to mention specifically popular trick takers, and so on... Anyways, traditional card games went back hundreds of years and were a past time in Victorian salons, Old West saloons, etc... They deserve their respect.

Tactics II - Or maybe Advanced Squad Leader? Ogre? Panzerblitz? I'm not a grognard so I can't say what the original hex and counter wargame that inspired the whole genre might've been; but this is a huge subculture and niche within the hobby.

There's many more. Civilization for Civ games. One of the early 18xx games (I dunno which one), Cosmic Encounter or Dune for variable player powers and early asymmetry (although obviously games like Vast: The Crystal Caverns and Hnefatafl are more asymmetric (with different goals and/or mechanisms not just powers) and yes - Vast came before Root and is more asymmetric) maybe games like Scotland Yard or Fury of Dracula for inspiring one vs many and/or hidden movement games. You might consider something like Zombicide for the trend of Crowdfunded mega deluxe games, etc...

All of these games are more influential imo than ... Azul.

by pdzoch

It's hard to play a competent wizard ala Gandolf when one starts at 1st level. Even at mid tier range, the skill, power, and wisdom is not liken to Gandolf.

So, I usually play a wizard who has studied hard enough, or is talented enough, to be competent at magic and growing into the roll as a magic weilder. I really like trying to find creative ways to use spells, sort of exploring thier capabilities - "Hey, I had to try it." That seems a natural fit for me within the rules of many of an games I play with magic users.