Mage the awakening 2e. I had a game of it for about 20 sessions, but it fell apart. One player never really learned the rules and was easily frustrated, which is a bad combination. She also straight up said she wasn’t going to read a 5 sentence paragraph clue. I definitely had some fumbles, but chief among them I think was overestimating how much they were willing to think about clues and text. They wouldn’t even taken notes between sessions, and then would forget.

I also want to do Fate, but it’s been hard to find a group. I got my old DND group to try it, but I didn’t really like playing with them. I have a new group, but someone just dropped so now we’re down to 2 players again. It’s a nice game though.

So many. And the answer to all “why nots?”. Time. It’s time. So off the top of my head

Eat the Reich - “The year is 1943. You are a team of crack vampire commandos with one mission: drink all of Hitler’s blood”

Conan 2d20

Legend of the Five rings (5e)

Stoneburner - Deep Rock Galactic the TTRPG

Vaesen - Call of Cthulhu but rooted in nordic mythology

Heart the City Beneath - an award-winning complete tabletop roleplaying game about delving into a nightmare undercity that will give you everything you’ve ever dreamed of – or kill you in the process.

Three-way tie. Unfortunately there hasn’t been movement on any due to personal stuff, but hopefully soon:

• Pathfinder 2e for a modern D&D-type experience. (Not to yuck anyone’s yum, but I have plenty of gripes with 5e.)

• Dolmenwood. Currently awaiting delivery of the Kickstarter. For those old-school D&D vibes.

• Burning Wheel. My favorite game I’ve never played, even after owning the books for nearly two decades. :P But for real this time!

I’ve always loved Shadowrun’s lore. I’d love to play it, but I don’t think I’d enjoy the crunch.

I borrowed Blades in the Dark flashback mechanic for a 5e heist. It worked out well, so I’d like to try the full game.

Ten Candles also sounds pretty cool. But I play exclusively online, so that won’t work for now.

Lancer, I need to finish my Curse of Strahd campaign first…

Mouse Guard, definitely. Lack of time and energy, mostly.

I’d love to play in a Vampire: The Masquerade campaign, or to GM an Avatar Legends campaign. But I’ve only got one gaming group, we’ve got one ongoing campaign, and even getting them to play Pathfinder rather than D&D was an unusual and new experience for them.

Any gumshoe game, probably something shorter than Nights Black Agents: The Dracula Dossier. If I set it in my own setting, I’d like to use Bubblegumshoe to do my own telling of “Tomorrow When the War Began” basically what happens if on the summer camping trip after your last school year, your country is invaded. I can’t quite tell how good Gumshoe is for homebrew settings however.

My other want is to run a worldbuilding game such as the quiet year, for the queen or microscope, hacked to set up a concise and thematic noir mystery inspired by fiction like Disco Elysium, The City and the City or The Nice Guys, with a rich and vibrant world that the players are invested in as they built it. I’m tempted to hack the bladerunner RPG by Freeleague for the actual police procedural afterwards.