Shadowrun is awesome. Id start with dragonfall though rather then the first game, since the first game is a lot less fleshed out. There are also some very well done user made campaigns that add full game length stories

Maybe look into a Wabbajack list for an easier experience getting the modding part over with so you can get to the gaming. I'd look for something very close to vanilla on your first playthrough, but I wouldn't play with no mods though cause many of them fix issues and improve the game's graphical fidelity and stability.

I loved the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. Read it as a kid and every time I go back to reread my beat up copies it is a joy.

I'd just pick a game you like the look of and jump in. Any game you are really enthusiastic about is as good an entrypoint to the genre as any. Chrono Trigger is of course a classic, and I really liked Triangle Strategy as well.

Well this is somewhat disheartening to see since I have a gigabyte 3080 in my computer. Hopefully its not cracking since apparently can't RMA it. Doesn't seem like its sagging so maybe I am set? Not really sure what brand to buy from these days for gpus and motherboards especially since it seems like all of them have glaring issues.

Might be a slightly separate category, but I still think of it as a board game. I really like Call of Cthulhu. Tabletop RPG systems in general are typically good fun as long as you have a good group of people to share the time with, but mechanically I think CoC is particularly good. It is simple to learn and the mechanics really assist in the tense storytelling.

Mirrors edge is a series I always go back to. Really easy to fire up catalyst or the original and just focus on running really fast while I have an audiobook or some music on in the background. There is so many speedrunning techniques for each game that there is an endless depth to explore.

That looks very nice, I particularly like how colorful it is. Also very cool the Kera OS is fedora based, cause thats totally my preference in terms of managing the system. Might have to give this one a try in a VM to see how I like it.