Each year we celebrate Autocratik’s #RPGaDay, where we spend a month celebrating RPGs, discussing what we love and what we love about them. Here are the responses of the TRF crew. Be sure to tweet, blog, or post your own with the #RPGaDay!

For August 30, describe the ideal game room if the budget were unlimited?
Aser – I would like a large table lined with comfortable chairs. I would want access to a digital projector and adjustable lighting to help with mood.
John D. – A room with hi-fi surround sound with speakers and rumble sensors built into the chairs and table, motion-controlled lights and dimmers, smell-o-vision and monitors displaying all the charts from a GM screen. The room would be fully accessible for players with Braille pads, TDD and so on. An opaque electronic privacy shield would disable cell calls and texts inside while preventing outside noise. A robot butler for snacks and drinks would be nifty.
Jonn P.  – A room with plenty of standing room and shelf space around the game table.  The table would be slightly larger than two folding tables. In the center of the table would be a lazy susan large enough for a Chessex 34½” x 48” Battlemap that I could use for battlemap, game art or food.
Landan – It would take me a long time to describe it I think, but it would likely end up being as big as a house alone. I would also want billiard tables, bowling lanes, some pinball machines, shelves devoted for board games, shelves devoted to RPG books, etc.
Megan – A big room with plenty of tablespace and comfy chairs, with food and drink and good lighting. I always thought those projector setups for making a grid were awesome too.
Mike G. – Shelves of books, dedicated wifi, embedded laptop/tablets around a large gaming table with a wet/dry erase board in the center. Does anyone have $25k I can drop on this? Please?
Patrick – Dragonsreach from Skyrim, but with better heating. And you know, game tables.
Phil – Comfy chairs and table. Good acoustics. Donuts.

Each year we celebrate Autocratik’s #RPGaDay, where we spend a month celebrating RPGs, discussing what we love and what we love about them. Here are the responses of the TRF crew. Be sure to tweet, blog, or post your own with the #RPGaDay!

For August 29, you can game anywhere on Earth, where would you choose?
Aser – I would game wherever Megan was: no really, we had to play apart so long that I couldn’t wait to literally share these moments together.
John D. – I have no idea; ideally a setting similar to the game at hand (a cloud, underwater, the desert, etc)
Jonn P. – I would like to say someplace like Mesa Verde, Chichen Itza, or some other ancient place, but, in reality, traveling cause me anxiety. I am perfectly happy gaming at one of the local game shops.
Landan – Guinness Brewery in Ireland.
Megan – I think somewhere appropriate to the game we were playing. So an old library for a 1920’s Call of Cthulhu game, etc. But I think anymore I would just pick anywhere with a group in person!
Mike G. – A national park with lots of space (indoor and outdoor) where you can get the mood of the game without being disturbed by others. Did it twice, it was great.
Patrick – I would give my big toe to play a game of Better Angels inside the Westboro Baptist Church whilst broadcasting it live over the loud speakers. And just watch with glee all the vitriol they could spew out. Well, either Better Angels or any of the White Wolf games when it was still World of Darkness.
Phil – Wherever my groups are.

Each year we celebrate Autocratik’s #RPGaDay, where we spend a month celebrating RPGs, discussing what we love and what we love about them. Here are the responses of the TRF crew. Be sure to tweet, blog, or post your own with the #RPGaDay!

For August 26, what hobbies go well with RPGs?
Aser – I think reading and to other degrees consumption of other narrative media goes well with reading, as does history. The key is a love of storytelling and a desire to create or discover new stories.
John D. – Board games, reading comics, reading in general, to a lesser extent video games, writing, listening to podcasts.
Jonn P.  – Creative writing is something I think goes well with RPGs. I’ve been in several games that made use of character stories written between session as cannon and would dread them for ideas. Seeing the internal dialog and hearing the story told from the character’s perspectives made them feel real.
Landan – I think for some people the painting mini’s works really well. If you draw or do illustration you can always draw your characters or group you play with characters maybe NPC’s your party has helped.
Megan – I think a love or stories and books. You can incorporate almost any creative hobby into RPGs though, that’s what great about them.
Mike G. – Reading, math, and music.
Patrick – Miniature war-gaming, reading, movies, writing, math. Anything that allows you to flex creative muscles really.
Phil – Dice collecting, doing math for fun, earning money.

Each year we celebrate Autocratik’s #RPGaDay, where we spend a month celebrating RPGs, discussing what we love and what we love about them. Here are the responses of the TRF crew. Be sure to tweet, blog, or post your own with the #RPGaDay!

For August 20, what is the most challenging but rewarding system have you learned?
Aser – I think the most challenging but rewarding system I’ve ever learned has to be Eclipse Phase. That game has so many moving parts and combat is so involved, but at the same time, it’s so dynamic and can be so incredibly devastating. There’s a lot of math but sometimes you just have these moments where everything clicks and you take out the bad guy with a perfect kill shot.
John D. – I haven’t really learned any new systems this year; first time playing Warhammer 40K and Only War is a good intro to more complex systems like Dark Heresy.
Jonn P. – I have never played a challenging system that I found rewarding. That said, I’m about to play GURPS for the first time so my opinion could change shortly.
Landan – I will say Cypher System for now.
Megan – Better Angels. There are so many things to track it can get a bit overwhelming.
Mike G. – Burning Wheel. It is very crunch, but I like a lot of the different system components, like character advancement, and how it helps move the story along.
Patrick – It is a toss up between Better Angels and Silver Age Sentinels.
Phil – Firefly RPG.

Each year we celebrate Autocratik’s #RPGaDay, where we spend a month celebrating RPGs, discussing what we love and what we love about them. Here are the responses of the TRF crew. Be sure to tweet, blog, or post your own with the #RPGaDay!

For August 17, what fictional character would best fit in your group?
Aser – I think Homer Simpson would work well. We’re a well meaning bunch, but our track record has at times been somewhat shaky.
John D. – Randolph Carter, Peter Parker and Evie Carnahan (from ‘The Mummy’) – smart but with a sense of humor.
Jonn P. – I couldn’t narrow it down to one. Indiana Jones, Scheherazade, One Thousand and One Nights, Sophie Devereaux from the TV show Leverage, and any character Morgan Freeman has played—ever.
Landan – Doctor Strange no reason other than I am hyped about that movie and he is my favorite Marvel Hero.
Megan – Everyone has better answers then me! I bet we can get Ben from Parks and Rec to play with us. He has the funny nerd thing we go for here down. He has to be dressed as Batman though.
Mike G. – I worry about this sometimes. Because I think most of them would have titles like “Destroyer of Worlds”, “Dark Lord”, or “Devourer of Souls”.
Patrick – Waldo Butters (The Dresden Files). I think that with the exception of myself that all the folks in my group are highly educated with only the slightest amount of mental quirks. Yeah, He’d fit right in.
Phil – Shaun (of the Dead).

Each year we celebrate Autocratik’s #RPGaDay, where we spend a month celebrating RPGs, discussing what we love and what we love about them. Here are the responses of the TRF crew. Be sure to tweet, blog, or post your own with the #RPGaDay!

For August 15, what is your best source of inspiration for RPGs?
Aser – I think my favorite source of inspiration is history, not so much duplicating a specific event but giving expression to that unpredictable fluidity of real life events that could elevate a single, otherwise insignificant act into the pivot around which all bends or breaks.
John D. – The rulebooks and scenarios themselves, horror and science fiction and movies, shows like ‘Mysteries of the Museum’ and ‘Forbidden History’ and music especially the worlds and images of Black Metal.
Jonn P. – I’m weird about my sources of inspiration, like using mind maps of two or more completely different concepts to look for ways to fit them together into something interesting.
Landan – Movies, Music, Taxonomical Nomenclature, Old Myths, etc.
Megan – A lot of my games have a particular piece of media as inspiration. Some are blatant, like when I ran a game based on The Wickerman. Some less so, like the Delta Green scenario Aser and I wrote based on “Hotel California”. Usually I lock on a single idea, like fear of plants or a monster, to come up with a scenario for a one shot.
Mike G. – Random thoughts that got jotted down at weird moments.
Patrick – My dreams, they are pretty graphic but the plots are solid and it helps to channel my chronic nightmares into creative things. Oh and the up-teen hundred movies and books I’ve read/watched.
Phil – The real world? Fiction? The Internet?

Each year we celebrate Autocratik’s #RPGaDay, where we spend a month celebrating RPGs, discussing what we love and what we love about them. Here are the responses of the TRF crew. Be sure to tweet, blog, or post your own with the #RPGaDay!

For August 14, what is your dream team of people you used to game with?
Aser – I think that would be Michael Lane from those first PX Poker Night a adventures, Ashleigh Shadowbrook And Shaunna from Mysteries of the Ninth World, and Brian Wille from Beyond the Threshold, good people all.
John D. – I can’t imagine a better crew than the @Trfpodcast cast; in person around a table with physical dice would be the only way to better the experience.
I can’t imagine a better crew than the @Trfpodcast cast; in person around a table with physical dice would be the only way to better the experience.
Jonn P. – I don’t really have a dream team. I have had a lot of fun gaming with a lot of different people.
Landan – I still game with them and any other I just haven’t had the schedule flexibility to do so.
Megan – I think I still play with everyone I’ve gamed with, except my original group, half of which don’t play anymore, and the other half turned out to be assholes I don’t speak to. So I just have to keep everyone on TRF playing with us!
Mike G. – I had a group in college, all either part of our associated with my fraternity. They were a great group, all with preferred character types that fit well together, and interesting ways of compelling story. We played a lot (at least every week if not more frequently), but real life has made most of us move apart.
Patrick – Chase, John, Chevon, Ben and Nick. All up in the Skagit Valley from the early 2000’s.
Phil – I’d just add David Moore my best friend from around high school era – he’s a fiction editor or agent in the UK now but has a great creative mind and excellent acting skills.