Day: June 13, 2016

Yesterday I talked about Top Games Played at NTRPGCon. Now I’ll move on to some interesting survey results.

I ran a poll on the NTRPGCon Facebook group which asked “What old-school game that is seldom / never run at NTRPGCon would you most like to play in next year?” I listed a few games, but allowed folks to add their own choices. Below were the results.

Star Frontiers was the clear winner — I suspect based on that and feedback folks were giving in the comments that we’ll see at least a few Star Frontiers at the 2017 con! I’m considering running a Bunnies & Burrows game and maybe another Middle-earth game.

Top 12 Games Seldom/Never Run at NTPGCon

1. Star Frontiers (38 votes)
2. Top Secret SI (22 votes (tie))
3. Star Wars WEG d6 (22 votes (tie))
4. Bunnies & Burrows RPG (13 votes (tie))
5. Stormbringer RPG (13 votes (tie))
6. Chainmail (13 votes (tie))
7. Marvel TSR (13 votes (tie))
8. Gangbusters (12 votes (tie))
9. Dark Sun (12 votes (tie))
10. Star Trek (FASA, LUG, etc.) (11 votes)
11. Runequest (10 votes)
12. MERP (8 votes)

18 other entries got between 1 and 7 votes. See the full poll results here.

For those who don’t know, North Texas RPG Con is an old-school RPG gaming convention which has grown in popularity each year (this year they had well over 300 attendees which maxed out their gaming space; next year they will have bigger facilities and more attendees I believe).

What games are folks running at NTRPGCon? Here’s a rundown of the 2016 games based on games listed on their 2016 calendar.

Early D&D (OD&D, B/X, BECM, AD&D, 2e, retroclones): 55 Games

This breaks down into:

• 8 OD&D games
• 11 B/X games
• 2 BECM games
• 9 Swords & Wizardry Games
• 23 AD&D games (1e & 2e combined)
• 2 Labyrinth Lord games

DCC games: 19 Games

DCC is a new-ish game but with a very old-school vibe.

D&D 5th Edition: 18 games

The rise in popularity of 5e is notable given the old-school focus of the con. By contrast, I’ve never seen a Pathfinder or 4e game run at NTRPGCon (somebody correct me if I’m wrong on that).

Traveller: 8 games

This is the Classic Traveller edition (the little black books). We didn’t have any of these games for years, then last year Mike Kelly and I ran a total of 3 Classic Traveller games. Now this year, we had 8. Great to see this games surge in popularity at this con!

Misc. Games

There was also a smattering of other games (each run 1 to 3 sessions):

• Gamma World 1e
• Villians & Vigilantes
• Ghostbusters RPG
• Paranoia
• Metamorphosis Alpha
• Call of Cthulhu
• Boot Hill
• Barbarians of Lemuria
• Astonishing Sorcerers and Swordsmen of Hyperboria (AS&SH)

In my next post I’ll talk about ‘Top Games Wanted at NTRPGCon.’