On the many different pen and paper roleplaying systems

I love pen and paper role playing games. In fact I probably love buying new RPG books more than I actually enjoy role playing. I've got a bookshelf full of everything RPG related, from the most obscure out-of-print system to the most recent D&D stuff. If it's been published in the U.S., I've probably got at least one book from the series.

It's really amazing how wide the appeal of role playing can be. Take "Aria: The Canticle of the Monomyth." This is an RPG system that reads more like a college text book than a fantasy role playing game, and could probably be used as a tool to study both interpersonal relationships and how myth affects reality. On the opposite end of the spectrum we have "Toon: The Cartoon Role Playing Game," where players take on the role of over the top cartoon characters and smack each other with over sized hammers, 'cause, you know, it's funny.

There's Vampire: The Requiem for when you are feeling all emo and angst ridden. There's Call of Cthulhu when you want to go stark raving mad from reading a book that shouldn't be read and then have your character messily devoured by something not of this world. There's the Star Trek and Star Wars RPG systems for when you really need to get your nerd on. Then there's the tried and true Paranoia, for when you want the entire party to constantly be tripping over themselves to kill each other in the most humorous ways possible.

Fantasy has of course always composed the back bone of role playing, but there's a surprising amount of versatility within that category. Dungeons and Dragons is the grandaddy and crowned king, but there are so many more games beyond that. Earthdawn has a flavor all its own that D&D can't really match. The world is built directly into the system (as opposed to a world neutral game like D&D), which makes the rules more interactive and less restrictive. The Warhammer RPG is another one that's vastly different from D&D. Combat is more realistic, and therefore exceedingly deadly, unlike in D&D where the party can expect to get into a fight with some dragon or orc horde every few minutes and come out unscathed.

The Rolemaster RPG system is another fantasy gem that gets overlooked often. The system is exceedingly rules heavy, but it can be fun in the right setting. The "critical hits" tables alone are worth it. Forget that double damage stuff, you want a critical hit that cause a rib to puncture a lung so that the enemy dies horribly three rounds later, but doesn't realize he's dying now. "Critical fumbles" are even more brutal. Miscast that spell? Well you may internalize the spell and take a silly amount of damage, and then if you survive you can't cast another spell for 3 weeks.

That's just the tip of the iceberg too. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of role playing systems, each with its own take on how the game should be played. Take into account all the different campaign settings within each system, and you have a world that takes a lifetime to fully explore. Film noir, horror, sci-fi, western, cop drama, religious, comedy, if there's a concept out there then there is probably an RPG that covers it.

My personal favorite is the Pathfinder system by Paizo. It uses the D20 rules, so its easy to pick up. Paizo is the absolute best at designing adventures that are heavy on the role playing and have enough combat to keep things exciting. Some of our best gaming sessions have been playing through the "Rise of the Runelords" and "Second Darkness" adventure paths. Keep it up Paizo, the role playing world needs you.

So how about your thoughts? Any personal favorites or new RPGs I might not have heard of that you'd like to recommend?

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I ran out of room for the comment on Facebook, so I just posted it here :)

I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on that point. No personal offense is intended here (as I think you’re an awesome guy and certainly wouldn’t want to alienate you or come off as being rude), but I pretty much disagree with your entire post. In a perfect world no one would share their religious beliefs with anyone else at all, so a live and let live philosophy would work just fine. Unfortunately we don’t live in a perfect world. We live in a world where religion is unquestionably the biggest driving force in nearly every aspect of our lives, from war to politics to medical advancement. People have a moral obligation to not idly sit by and let others continue believing uncontested in any utterly absurd thing they want that obviously isn’t true. When the leader of the free world, and the guy who has access to the nuclear codes, believes that we are in the “end times” and that God wants Russia to invade Israel to trigger the rapture, well then we have a serious problem. On the topic of Evolution, the fact that we have a fossil record in and of itself is a huge argument that can’t be overcome by the religious without resorting to “God put those there to test our faith” statements. The fossil record also isn’t the only thing pointing towards evolution, as there is veritable mountain of evidence suggesting that evolution is responsible for why we are the way we are today. But let’s say for the sake of argument that all those scientists have gotten this just dead wrong (which could be a possibility, based on past scientific findings that were later disproven, but not likely). Even if evolution was an absolute farce that will be disproven in the future, it doesn’t suddenly make the Christian creation myth anymore of a viable option. Whether evolution is a real force or not, the supernatural is still not real. There are no talking snakes or donkeys, no resurrections, no parting seas, no floating disembodied hands that scribble instructions on walls, no bushes that burn-but-are-not-consumed and have big booming voices coming out of them, no crazy prophets who can call down bears to devour upstart children. Even if there was no big bang and there is no natural selection, that doesn’t change the fact that there is still no Santa-Claus-for-adults that has a divine plan for the world. The key word here is “belief.” If someone has to say “I BELIEVE in this thing…” then that ought to tell you that there is no evidence whatsoever to back that belief up, but they are going to go ahead and pretend it’s true anyway.