Game Wish 51

Perverse Access Memory: WISH 51: New Genres

What are three genres that you've had limited exposure to as a gamer that you'd like to try or play more of?

First, an Alternate Earths/Parallel Universes game. I love the parallel worlds defined in GURPS Alternate Earths, and a campaign using those worlds as the setting is one of the games I want to run 'someday'. I'm not totally sold of the Homeline/Centrum conflict as the theme of the game, and I've thought about using something along the lines of Luther Arkwright's Disruptors as the bad guys. A convention-style one-shot at a future Gypsycon or Hatcon cannot be ruled out.

Second, a realistic hard-SF Game, either Traveller or GURPS:Transhuman Space. I did play in a Traveller PBMB on the CompuServe RPGAMES forum called HST which ran rather slowly for a couple of years before fizzling out, and played in a Transhuman Space demo game at last year's GenCon UK, but it's still a genre I haven't played nearly enough of. Transhuman space comes over to me as a setting very rich in adventuring possibilities, especially in the lawless deep beyond; the outer fringes of the 22nd-century Solar System.

I also haven't played nearly enough Call of Cthulhu. CoC is still the Gold Standard for horror games, even if some people can't grasp the concept of a game when the point of the game isn't to gain XPs and go up levels, but merely to defeat the monster, and that character survival is a bonus.

Finally (I know we were only supposed to list three), In Nomine, SJG's Angels and Demons game, the ultimate Good vs. Evil struggle. The original French game (which I haven't played) was essentially a satire on French Catholicism, while SJGs translation is a rather different beast. It's able to be played in many different styles, not all of which are in any way irreverent or sacrilegious. While the whole concept is going to upset those fundamentalist twits who were burning D&D a decade or so ago, it can be played as a deeply religious game with a strong sense of morality. Sadly it's probably going to be eclipsed by White Wolf's Demon:The Fallen, which I suspect is full of typical White Wolf angst and pretentiousness.