Thursday, August 21, 2014

#RPGaDay 21st - Favorite Licensed RPG

Hmm.

Star Wars Saga Edition is pretty amazing.

Atomic Robo really captures the feel of the setting.

The most recent versions of DC (the M&M 3rd edition) and Marvel (Heroic Roleplaying) were awesome in their own special ways.

And I LOVE the Dresden Files RPG not just as an adaptation of the books, but as an awesome game, and as an awesome, sorta-but-not-in-continuity artifact.

But the game that has to win is the Leverage RPG, because it did the impossible. It lets you run heist games without being master con artists. I've always been a big fan of the heist genre and Leverage is an awesome show. But while fantasy games let you play wizards without having to know magic, or badass kung fu fighters without knowing the first thing about martial arts, heist games, prior to this, really required the players to know how to plan a heist and figure out all of the twists and turns and cool reversals that make a good heist.

Until Leverage cracked it. The quickstart is free and should be read by all. I think the things Leverage does could be done in any game that allowed certain levels of player narrative control. Heck, you could probably even hack a D&D system to do a heist, but allowing the "you thought I did X but really I did Y which set up Z" mechanics is counter to the "you have to prepare for the monster as best you can" methodology of most games. Essentially, Leverage lets players retcon events - not in a way that says "yeah, you didn't stab me last round even though you totally did" way. More like a "yeah, you stabbed me, but I had set up some cameras ahead of time and there's a live feed to the police station, so thanks for giving them all the evidence they needed to put you away."

Leverage rocks.

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