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 27, what is the most unusual circumstance or location in which you’ve gamed?
Aser – I’ve almost always gamed over an online interface. On one occasion though, I really played 5E on an actual kitchen table.
John D. – I got up at 3 am on my off day while deployed to the desert to run Black Crusade for the group; it was supper time for them back home! Aser thought it was funny I had good wifi in my room but had to go three buildings over to use the bathroom.
Jonn P. – I was running a pickup campaign of Keep on the Shadowfell at the local game store when one of the Assistant Directors at my job dropped by with his son to try out D&D. He was playing a paladin and his son a wizard. I had previously planned for the party to fight kobolds and a young brown dragon, a decent challenge for the party’s level.  Long story short, during the fight, I was faced with a moral dilemma, the squishy wizard had waded into the frontline, and I had to decide if I would spare the Assistant Director’s kid. I took the only morally correct option for a DM…blind the paladin with the dragon’s breath weapon before crushing the elf wizard in the brown’s claws. The integrity of the Dungeon Master must remain beyond reproach!
Megan – My first game sessions were in a conference room in the middle of a lab at grad school.
Mike G. – In the middle of the sidewalk in downtown Chicago. It was very odd.
Patrick – I’m pretty much a stone sober kind of guy but my most unusal game session invloved people who were coming down from five day speed benders and a lot of reefer.
Phil – On the internet I guess. Or at square dancing.

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 25, what makes for a good character?
Aser – I think the best characters are specialized enough to be distinctive, but flexible enough in their attributes and skills not to be powerless when not in their optimal operating environment.
John D. – A strong basic concept, a good backstory, reason for doing what they do and a good skill build. It helps to have a visual appeal, signature gear or a personality quirk, like a bad attitude, disliking arguments, or slang particularly if at odds with the way NPCs perceive them.
I prefer ‘jack of all trades’ to ‘min / max’.
Jonn P.  – A good character has motivations and a quirk or two. A good PC makes interesting decisions and driving the story forward through their success and failure. That they actively take part in the story. There is nothing worse than characters that avoid action in a game.
Megan – A certain amount of flexibility. You can have important story elements in your background, but a rigid one makes it impossible for the GM to easily incorporate that background in the story and provide opportunities for a character arc. They also have to be willing to let other people shine.
Mike G. – A flaw and a good background that doesn’t interfere with group cohesion.
Patrick – Depth. Or at least a modicum of being fleshed out. I can’t take any more “Mysterious man/woman with an equally mysterious past.” I don’t care how crappy your character is if they have any spark of life. I find a stoned pizza delivery driver mage who ensorcells the pizza boxes for bigger tips to be more interesting than the stranger in the corner that makes monsters crap their pants with a knife edged glare. GIVE YOUR CREATIONS LIFE PEOPLE!
Phil – A good player.

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 23, Share one of your best Worst Luck stories
Aser – Two weeks ago, we were playing Warhammer 40k: Only War. My character’s Storm bolter jammed, then he dropped his grenade with predictable results.
John D. – The second game of Only War my character (SPOILER!) crawled into a ceiling vent to drop grenades on the enemy; he wreaked havoc on the heretics yet unfortunately some survived and returned fire where I could not dodge or evade and scored a critical hit before I escaped, resulting in medically retirement due to the horrific burns be received (at least the plasma rifle was ok!)
Jonn P. – I fell off a gargantuan library shelf after failing a climb check. The GM let me roll luck check, 66% chance, every 10’ to catch myself. I fell 100’ to my death…
Megan – In Pathfinder I finally got bad guys with a high enough level to cast Prismatic Spray, which they used to great effect. Unfortunately one of the players also gained a CL high enough to use it and the result of their roll was that the monster I was so excited about was banished to another plane before I even had a chance to attack.
Mike G. – In a Strange RPG game (hosted by TRF of course) we had to fight a coven of witches. To say the least, all my rolls were good (either missing party members I was compelled to attack or to break their enchantment) exceptfor those rolls to keep from being enchanted in the first place!
Patrick – I was playing in a political based game of Legend of the Five Rings as a samurai of the Scorpion Clan (SCORPS FOR LIFE! NOTICE ME KACHIKO!), I had just finished cleaning out a yakuza gambling den of all their hard earned cash and was the victim of an attempted mugging by two of the Yakuza that I had best in a game of Winds and Fortunes.(I had rolled an effective Royal Flush after going all in.) After slaughtering one with no effort I hobbled the other and sent him to his masters with a warning not to try it again. The problem was that their boss was another player at the table, one made to take any kind of beating and crush most people in one hit. We dueled, and I got crushed. In one hit.
Phil – Clockwork knight, bad die rolls, head bouncing down stairs…

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 22, what is a supposedly random game events that keep recurring?
Aser – Their is a player in our Pathfinder group, can’t spoil it by telling you which one, whose characters are all killed by indirect magic effects and consequences of spells that in and of themselves cause no damage. It’s almost like Megan looks for these and saves them for use against this one person.
John D. – Strings of very high or very low player rolls. There was one game where several of us rolled the same scores multiple times.
Jonn P. – Oddly-socialist bad guys who offer free on-site child care—evil lairs randomly built directly beneath schools and national monuments—unnecessarily flammable glyphs for holding Great Old Ones at bay.
Megan – I tend to put Deep Ones or their equivalent in any game I put together. I guess that’s not very random though.
Mike G. – We try to help, but it usually ends in anarchy.
Patrick – My character dying. A lot. Often involving rocks and water at the same time.
Phil – Go team grenade!