Dan's Top 19 RPGs - Criteria



I'm going to be launching a "Dan's Top 19 RPGs" series of posts. I was going to make it ten but with the name of this blog I couldn't help but go for nineteen. I'm hoping to get it done in about a month - it's been pretty hard keeping to a rigorous schedule the past several months, with family health matters and me getting close to completing my Master's degree while working.

This post will lay out some ground rules. The most important is I have to have played the game in question at least once, either as a player or as a GM. This will disqualify a lot of popular games - many of which I've used in some form - some of which I've used a lot of. I'll list them at the end of this post.

The other question is how I'll handle editions. If a game changes a lot between editions I will treat them as separate games. On the other hand, games that are refined from one edition to another will be treated as one game. For example, I'll be treating Call of Cthulhu as one game while there will be more than one D&D game on the list - moving from a 3.x D&D game to a 4e one would be doable but rather challenging.

I'm not going to be giving the games reviews, but rather I'll be giving my impressions of them - what I like about them, what frustrates me, etc. The ordering doesn't mean I dislike any of the games - I'd probably play any on the list and depending on mood I'd likely play a poorer ranked one over a better ranked one. And there's games not on the list I'd gladly play.

I do already have the list composed - I hope I'm not forgetting any that I should have included. When I wrap up I'll probably to a follow-up post of "oops, I should have included xyz..."

Closing, here is a list of games that would likely be on a "Dan's top games list", largely due to me not having played the game in question. For some I'm quite familiar with the game and have borrowed elements of it for other games but never actually played it.

  • Colonial Gothic
  • Firefly
  • GURPS
  • Hero System (technically I have played it once but I don't fully grok it enough to feel comfortable listing it)
  • Marvel Heroic Roleplaying
  • Pathfinder
  • Savage Worlds
  • Star Trek (Modiphius)
  • Traveller

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