There’s a few I wouldn’t mind playing, and some that had incredible longevity in our various iterations of the game group. From 1983 until about 2010, I regularly would run James Bond:007, and from 1989 until a few days ago, I ran a Space:1889 game — although I stopped using the GDW mechanics pretty early. We tried FUDGE (the original FATE), settled on Castle Falkenstein (with heavy modifications) to power it through the 1990s and 2000s until it rolled off the game rotation in favor of Hollow Earth Expedition.

So what do we still play? Dungeons & Dragons has recently rejoined the rotation with the latest game group. I hadn’t played it since our big campaign in high school that ended wonderfully. That was Advanced D&D and I didn’t play it again, save for one disastrous game night with a horrorshow of a person running, until 2016 when I coaxed a few old friends back into gaming by doing a Rome-based D&D campaign. Old West End Games’ Star Wars got trotted out for a bit a few years ago, as did the old Decipher Star Trek system.

Setting-wise, however, the big boy is Space:1889 — it was the game that got me into Victorian history (mostly because I wanted verisimilitude in the game world) and eventually led me into history as a field of study. I’ve been running it for my daughter recently, and she loves the setting. However, to drive the game, I’m using the Broken Compass rules. They’re clean, quick, and for a pre-teen that’s the ticket to getting through a “mission” or “adventure” in a night or two.