Tuesday, 8 August 2017

#RPGaDay 2017 - Day 8 - Good RPG for 2 hour sessions?

Day 8 of #RPGaDay 2017. 

What is a good RPG to play for sessions of 2hrs or less?

Last year I wouldn't have had a very good answer for this one. I've always been a long session kind of guy. Back in my formative years at the Windsor Gaming Society it was always 5 hour sessions. One from noon until 5pm and then another from 6pm until 11pm when the club closed. My home sessions generally have mirrored this. When I run public events at the FLGS I aim for 4 hour sessions and schedule them as 5 hour sessions. The one exception was D&D Encounters which was set up to be one hour sessions. I hated that. I really hated that. It was such a small bite of D&D that it just wasn't satisfying.

So what has changed now? I've read and actually run the Mouse Guard RPG by Luke Crane and David Petersen. I've owned the game for years and finally read it earlier this year as part of #RPGaMonth. It's one of the most unique RPGs I've ever read. Very scripted with 'rules' for things you don't usually find rules for. One of the things this unique set of mechanics does is allow for very short play sessions. Our first session was done in under an hour and a half. The important part about this session was that it was still fun. Somehow that hour and a half of Mouse Guard was better than any one hour session of D&D Encounters I took part in.

While there are some editing issues with the 2nd edition of Mouse Guard, I strongly suggest people check it out. It's very different from traditional RPGs and not in a bad way. There's a learning curve but once you start actually using the mechanics they actually flow rather brilliantly. 


For those wishing to play along at home, here are the topics for this years #RPGaDay. Feel free to use these cues in your tweets, facebook posts, g+ threads, blog posts and more.


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