Day 7 Main Prompt: RPG with “good form”

I will define “good form” as well written, clear, in a usable format and pleasing to the eye. One of the first games I ever owned fits this to a “T”, TSR’s Marvel Super Heroes Basic Boxed Set from 1984 designed by Jeff Grubb. The Battle Book is an intro to the game that provides the very basic information a player needs to get started in just 16 pages. The boxed set also has pregens in the form of cards with the hero’s picture on the front and game information on the back. There is a more in-depth Campaign Book that the Judge (game master) will need to read but it is only 48 pages in length so you could buy this and conceivably play it the same day as there is even a 16 page adventure included. The set also includes a great map, tokens and dice.

Marvel Super Heroes, like Boot HIll, draws on tropes most people are already familiar with and the setting is very accessible to anyone that has picked up an issue of Spiderman. Speaking of Spiderman one neat thing these books do is use Marvel characters throughout not only as examples but to explain how the rules work. The art is well done and the overall the presentation is top notch.

I haven’t played this game for years but would love to get it back to the table, I have fond memories of playing during the 1980s. I hear great things about DC Heroes but this, and later Palladium Books’ Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness / Heroes Unlimited, were our super hero games of choice.

Picture is from Wayne’s Books, let me take a minute to give a well deserved shout out to Wayne’s Books. Not only do they buy and sell older RPGs like the better known Noble Knight but they also provide a RPG Reference where you can find very useful notes on a number of older games. I have done business with them in the past and heartily recommend them. Check out the RPG Reference here: http://www.waynesbooks.com/index.html

Day 7 Alternate Prompt: Forgotten City and my d10 roll is a 10, Draw!

I love the idea of lost and forgotten cities. I especially like the idea of a city you can only access at certain times for a limited amount of time. Here Indy and Short Round come across a forgotten city deep in the Jungle that you can only access for 24 hours once every 10 years.

That’s all for today, until tomorrow be excellent to each other!

August is #RPGaDay2024 and I am going to posting daily responses to the prompts. You can find more information about #RPGaDAY2024 here: https://www.autocratik.com/2024/07/announcing-rpgaday2024-for-august.html

There are two sets of prompts this year and since I have room to do so on the blog I will answer both. In episode S2E6 of my podcast titled RPGaDAY2024 Panel Discussion I assemble an esteemed panel and we go through the main prompts for the entire month’s so I will try to give different answers here on the blog but may end up repeating myself occasionally.  

On their podcast Mirke the Meek suggested using the alternate prompts to create a setting and that is a great idea so I’m going to steal that. The setting I am going to craft for this month will be a modern, conspiracy style setting. Nominally I think we’ll set it in the 1970’s to avoid the problems cell phones and the internet can cause if player characters have access to them.

Here are the main prompts:

And here are a set of alternative prompts suggested by Skala Wyzwania, look at the day on the left, pick the theme, then roll d10.