I love to hear about cool small press RPGs being played at the table, regardless if its a new game or an ancient one.

Played anything you bought from Kickstarter?

I recently played Kevin Crawford / Sine Nomine's EXEMPLARS & EIDOLONS which I greatly enjoyed. It's a FREE PDF and played like OSR Exalted, but while the PCs were badass compared to mortals, things got nasty when faced with true monsters so the entire session felt very cinematic, but the PCs weren't either gods nor mooks. Each encounter possessed danger and the Influence concept worked well. I definitely can see this small game doing great for a short or medium campaign arc.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/144651/Exemplars--Eidolons

My own for like...four, maybe fives years now. Still doing two campaigns, which makes playtesting adventures and new stuff a lot easier.

I didn't want to run two games every week so we alternate, and on one of the off weeks we did Godbound for a bit.

Just restarted up a Swords & Wizardry online game set around Modron in the Wilderlands, running Lost Man's Trail which Bledsaw wrote right before he died in 2008.

Recently finished up a character funnel for a new Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign. The GM is using some weird west setting. Been a hoot so far!

AS&SH on Roll20, based in the decaying desert port of Xambaala and incorporating a few different small-press modules.

- The Anthropophagi of Xambaala (AS&SH)
- The Brazen Bull (AS&SH)
- The Purple Worm Graveyard (LL)
- Tower of the Stargazer (LoftFP)
- Palace of the Vampire Queen (OD&D)

Anime. Picked it up on sale at a FLGS out of curiosity. Reads a bit like a more complex BESM.

Last year playtested a interesting solo where you play a videogame company owner developing new games. Has not seen print yet far as I know.

Sorcerers of Ur-turuk by Arion Games. Ive played an entire campaign with it so far. Its got its roots from Ars Magica, but as I havent played that, I couldnt say much about it.

Most recent is probably AS&SH.

Adventures in Middle Earth from Cubicle Seven. I really need to do a review.

Short campaigns of Microlite74 3d6 edition (my translation) to introduce poor kids into the hobby. They only have to bring their own dice, at the end they take the printed pages so they can keep playing on their own.

I've gotten to run:

Motobushido – I only ran 1 session to test it out.  Think Sons of Anarchy mixed with Shogun. It was fun enough but I think it needs to be played for an extended time to really shine.  You need the PCs to develop those bonds so that there is that weight behind what happens.

Degenesis – The current, beautiful, edition.  The players had a great time despite it being pretty deadly.  They started off captured by cannibals, escaped into the desert, had to figure out where they were, then found an old pre-cataclysm vault which they decided to explore.  One PC went off on his own, got caught by surprise and was shot dead in 1 round.  The system was simple enough that everyone got it real quick and the whole extra 6s allow special bonuses worked well.

The Sprawl – Works for very specific cyberpunk stories - making runs with a team of specialists.  The players enjoyed the Intel and Gear rules which helped keep things moving instead of the session devolving into an hours long discussion of what to bring.  If you want to do things outside the mission you can, but don't expect any real mechanical support for it without some house rules.

And played in games of:

Dungeon World – It was a small group and we had some rough goes of it.  I played the group's priest and I felt sufficiently priest-y and had a good time.  The GM was new to the system and it's taken him several sessions to really get it down.  It's fun though and has become our go-to when too many can't make it for the normal game.

Blades in the Dark – I loved it but I don't think the other players did.  One in particular just didn't get how the system was supposed to work and was constantly fighting against it.  The other player just… I don't know which dice gods he pissed off but damn!  I've never seen so many failed rolls across so many sessions.  We got about 12 sessions in and then called a quits.

Colonial Gothic – It was a brief "demo" game that was about a 60% success. Mostly it was the guy who picked the alchemist PC and was expecting to be throwing fire bombs and making healing potions who was disappointed when he learned it was closer to real world alchemy/chemistry.  Everyone else kinda got it but the "mystery" was a little incoherent and we managed to stumble into the end without really knowing what was going on.  Rules worked perfectly fine for us though so I'd give it a 2nd go if the opportunity came around.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1088670Short campaigns of Microlite74 3d6 edition (my translation) to introduce poor kids into the hobby. They only have to bring their own dice, at the end they take the printed pages so they can keep playing on their own.

This is a really cool thing to do! Would you be willing to expand on this a little?

Stuff I'm curious about:
How are the campaigns structured, do you write bespoke ones, stick to a world, have a few ones you reuse, some combination?

How many sessions do you typically run per campaign?

How long is your typical session?

How much time do you need to prep for each session?

How much time do the kids need to get their characters rolled and the rules grokked well enough-ish?

What age range works for the kids being interested?

Quote from: insubordinate polyhedral;1088768This is a really cool thing to do! Would you be willing to expand on this a little?

Sure, no problem

Quote from: insubordinate polyhedral;1088768Stuff I'm curious about:

Quote from: insubordinate polyhedral;1088768How are the campaigns structured, do you write bespoke ones, stick to a world, have a few ones you reuse, some combination?

I have a few structured campaigns by age and interest, reworked versions of oneshots strung together, I reuse them constantly.

Quote from: insubordinate polyhedral;1088768How many sessions do you typically run per campaign?

I try to keep it short and sweet, 2-3 sessions and of they go to play by themselves. But this varies by group, sometimes even 8 sessions.

Quote from: insubordinate polyhedral;1088768How long is your typical session?

The first one 2-4 hours, after that I try to stay closer to the 2 hour mark. This again varies from group to group.

Quote from: insubordinate polyhedral;1088768How much time do you need to prep for each session?

None really since I have it all prepped, but when I started about 2 hours was enough to draw a small dungeon, roll some monsters, etc.

Quote from: insubordinate polyhedral;1088768How much time do the kids need to get their characters rolled and the rules grokked well enough-ish?

It varies from group to group usually the older ones get it faster but not always, I would say about 30 minutes for a 3-4 party for rolling their characters and by the end of the session they mostly have the rules groked enough-ish. This is a pretty simple version of the 0e, almost seems made for this use.

Quote from: insubordinate polyhedral;1088768What age range works for the kids being interested?

You can get kids as young as 4 interested, but I don't do groups with kids that young, if the parents want they can learn and teach them themselves. I usually have kids from 8-12 yrs old, trying to keep the group in a close enough age range. Pretty easy since I ask them to bring their friends, but of course not everybody can soo.

I love to see them play, most of them can't afford a computer or a console, so this opens a world of possibilities for them. And the d6 can be bought anywhere really cheap.

White Box FMAG; developed from Swords & Wizardry White Box, developed from the OD&D little brown booklets.

I'm not really a RAW DM with any system, but this system is awesome.

Quote from: Razor 007;1088789White Box FMAG; developed from Swords & Wizardry White Box, developed from the OD&D little brown booklets.

I'm not really a RAW DM with any system, but this system is awesome.

White Box is truly great, my game is based on White Star which in turn is based on White Box.