Thursday, August 7, 2014

RPGaDay 07 "Why Do You Duct Tape A Hamster?" or "Most Intellectual Game"

That's quite the question, I have several games I could call "Intellectual". I only get to choose one though and that's kind of difficult.

My first instinct was to say Eclipse Phase which is a really smart game chock full of complexity regarding both technology and the usual SF tropes we're all used to, but it digs further down into a wide range of social issues that are topical not just in this day, but in future generations as well. You really have to think when playing this game and that's why I dig it.

Laundry, which is based on the novels of the same name from Charles Stross, is razor sharp and possessed of a wit that rivals the novels themselves.

Kult is easily the smartest game I have ever read, it's well written, disturbingly complex and deep. It's easy to get lost in it.

It's easy to confuse Seriousness with Intellectual, and all of the above games are fairly serious so I am going in a different direction and choosing...


H.O.L. is anything but serious, in fact, it's easily the most ridiculous and mostly unplayable RPG I have ever seen. It's also brilliant and I envy the awesomeness of its conceptualization. I can't really list all the reasons why I find it to be the most intellectual RPG I own, if you were to read it you'd likely think I was mad. Maybe I am but it stimulated my brainpan in ways no game has ever done before.

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