Thursday, August 27, 2015

RPG-A-DAY 2015 Day 28: Favorite Game I No Longer Play...Tales From The Floating Vagabond


28. FAVORITE GAME I NO LONGER PLAY...

The game I no longer play is also one I only played once -- and that I would dearly love to play again. The game is Avalon Hill's Tales From The Floating Vagabond.


I bought the game from my FLGS back in the 90s when I first saw it on the shelf. I was already a big fan of Spider Robinson's Callahan's Crosstime Saloon series, so a comedy RPG that takes place in a wild, weird sci-fi bar setting was one I immediately latched onto. The trouble was that my home game group had zero interest in the game or the setting. Plus it was an Avalon Hill RPG, and a previous bad experience with Lords of Creation soured them on anything from AH that wasn't a wargame. So the game sat on my gameshelf, unplayed.

A year later, I attended Origins Game Fair down in Columbus and I stumbled into a game of Tales From the Floating Vagabond being run. I recall playing a singing cowboy ("Tex Warbler") with The Roy Rogers Shtick -- I could make amazing trick shots, but I could never actually shoot another person. We also had a smooth-talking cyborg janitor, a fast-talking mop salesman, and "Buck Naked" -- a time-travelling nudist. The Bartender (i.e., "GM") ran us through a fast and furious madcap romp that had us breaking into Area 51 to steal a technological artifact to stop the horrific "Genghis Prawn" -- a world-conquering shrimp (yes, the despot of the game was the actual size of an actual shrimp). It was "Monty Python: The RPG". It was funny and weird and crazy and madcap. I had a great time. And...that was it. Although my home group enjoyed my recap of the game I played, they never became interested in the game.

Yes, I'm aware of the upcoming second edition of "Tales..." and -- one day -- I hope I get to play it again!

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