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Anyone else a fan of role playing games?  I used to play off and on.  Dungeons and Dragons was my first experience playing.  I've enjoyed DMing and creating worlds for D&D - even thought about having an interactive map/game reference online at one point.  One of my other favs is Whitewolf's World of Darkness - the original (I haven't tested the new system but I already don't like the new storyline).  My favorite Whitewolf games are Mage and Werewolf for sure, but often times I ran a mixed group campaign.  I also have Whitewolf's sci fi/psionics in space game, Aeon Trinity but only got to play it once.  Anyone else play, DM, or just have a good or funny RPG story to tell?

I could never get into RPG's even though many of my friends did.  They were never my cup of tea.
Around 1997, I got into Magic The Gathering pretty heavy.

I do have The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion for my Xbox 360.
That keeps me busy enough.
I've heard that game can take over 100+ hours to complete.

I was a huge D&D-er (among other RPGs) when I was younger, but I fell out with it when I was about 18 or 19 and never really did it again after that. I dabbled with online RPGs but fell out with them too. A happy part of my youth but nothing I'd care to repeat.

I was big into console (PS,PS2) RPGs. Suikoden, Final Fantasy, Shadow Hearts,Persona....

Never really got into MMORPGS on PC. Just way to much time.

Sure. Especially Fallout 2, and Planescape torment.

I did play some D&D in college, and then later did some more in law school.  Haven't played in years and really didn't use my Gamma World games (have all three versions.)

Well, I was referring mainly to table top pencil and paper RPGs but digital RPGs are cool too.  I enjoyed my fair share of digital RPGs, mainly on the PC.  I sank some time into Everquest and although I love my character (55 Iksar Necromancer) I regret sinking all that time into a game that just wasn't all that rewarding.  I'm all about Neverwinter Nights, which is based on the table-top D&D. 

But I focus much more on table-top RPGs due to not having the restrictions that come with the digital version.  Plus, it's just a good excuse to round up a bunch of friends and have a good time, usually aiming to make a good story.  I always try to make interesting characters.  I typically play a wizard - last time was a gnome with an affinity for mechanical devices.  My designs for the next game are for a split class Fighter/Rogue.

Ah, split classes.  Granted this was back in the days of 1st ED D&D and I hear almost anything goes now but. . .

In the good old gold box days of CRPGs I had a great band of adventurers that, technically, shouldn't have been together since one was a, IIRC CE half-elf, Wizard/Cleric/Fighter and the rest, like the Paladin, were LG.

Yeah, try getting those two into a RL game, without having them kill each other before the adventure starts.   :wink:

When we can, Todd, Gary, Bill, and I still get together to play AD&D.  It is a continuation of a story started when we were 13.  Plus, since we only get a chance to play once every 4-6 months, we make it a binge and usually end up laughing and grinning.  RPGs are all storytelling, with some rules and dice thrown in to give you random elements.  With Gary, the uncertain priest (he runs away from undead, as he has a phobia), Todd, the much put-upon and usually abused thief, and Bill, who is a monk from an oriental setting trying to understand these people - it gives you all sorts of weird situations.

We are playing AD&D 2nd edition, as it is what we are used to and there has been no reason to change the entire system.

I was very much into TSR's (later Wizards of the Coast) various D&D and AD&D stuff. I didn't play as much as I would have liked, as many of my friends were barred from playing after the mid 80's D&D scare. I gave up buying anything other than the novels about ten years ago, though recently I have purchasing some of the world of Eberron books. I still have all my old stuff:

http://www.bmoviegraveyard.com/Misc/dandstuff.jpg

And Warhammer 40,000 I see.  I play Tyranids myself.

I bought that starter set because I wanted to start playing, but never got the chance. I never even finished painting the marines that came with it.

I never got into playing D&D type role playing games with the dice and such, but I'm a huge fan of RPG's on various systems.

I'm actually playing through both of the Shen Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga games (great games if you don't mind getting attacked every 5 steps but the battle system makes it a snap) at the moment in addition to the 3rd Shadow Hearts game (weakest of the series IMO).

I just finished up getting all of the hidden/extra stuff in Final Fantasy XII.  Logged about 120 hours on that one!

Here's my favorite RPG's of all time:

1) Final Fantasy 6   (SNES)
2) Shadow Hearts: Covenant   (PS2)
3) Chrono Trigger   (SNES)
4) Phantasy Star IV   (Genesis)
5) Final Fantasy 7    (PS2)
6) Lufia 2     (SNES)
7) Final Fantasy  IV   (SNES)
8) Phantasy Star II   (Genesis)
9) Grandia II   (Dreamcast)
10) Final Fantasy  XII   (PS2) 

Or a evil necromancer guy running around with a bunch of good characters.  Plus, after the one magic-fearing barbarian dies during a battle, the necromancer raises him as a zombie.  Finally, after suffering a number of wounds that should have been mortal, the barbarian realizes that something is amiss.  He stabs himself repeatedly, screaming, "Why can't I die?"  It helps to have a bunch of weird people playing, that is for sure.

Were you the DM or did you run a character too?  I too have been playing D&D with pretty much the same group of guys since we were around 13 (on and off again) but we usually try new characters, but we still have our originals.  We took turns DMing too, so each of us got to play at some point. 

Seems I always get stuck DMing the majority of the time though.  I don't mind really as I like to create the world.  I've been planning on getting together with some other writers and create an interactive web site for a large campaign, if I ever make time for it.  Right now I'm just trying to get many of my old players back together.

I use 3rd edition simply because it's so much more efficient; it's also more rewarding as you go up levels (you get additional points for ability scores at certain levels and the Feats are awesome).   I do still have my 1st and 2nd edition books though.

I never got the point of paper RPG's ut there are some electronic ones I play and love.
1) KOTOR and KOTOR 2
2) Fallout and Fallout 2
3) System Shock 2- RPG and 1st person shooter all in one, a classic. 
4) Arcanum- less good than the other two.

Personally, I don';t like D&D based games, or anything Tolkien based. 
And Diablo is plain silly. 

-Ed

I was pretty much always a DM.  Tried playing in Todd's campaign as a character, but I like to play LG and with the bunch of miscreants (all of that was back in HS, there were more miscreants), I tended to get killed trying to do the right thing - often trying to fix a situation that Gary or another friend (James) had created.

One example was my ranger's heroic last stand against a pack of werewolves, which were after us and had been brought after the party by Gary's actions.  He jumped off the wagon, expended every silver arrow he had, then drew his longsword and dagger (magical) and went down swinging.  On the other hand, Gary took that as a reason for his character to doubt his CN ways and change.  We always had something strange going on.  As I said, half of the time the players tell as much of the story as the DM.  I guess that is what I like about AD&D - it is storytelling.

I myself am a HUGE fan of RPGs.  I currently play on a MUD (Multi User Dungeon) Its an online text based game that is pretty much like playing tabletop with people from all over the world.  Its great to be able to play with so many different people.
As far as some of the more conventional electronic ones go....
World of Warcraft
NeverWinter Nights
Dungeon Seige
Guild Wars

Those are my favorites

Seems my core group has always been intent on effing with each other.  You know the list of the five types of gamers? (real man, thespian, brainiac, loon, and munchie) - well, we had one of each (and a few hybrids).  Since we took turns DMing, some of the guys would take turns "getting" each other with the nastiest, most humiliating traps you could imagine.

Heck, even as players they'd mess with each other, pulling me, the DM aside with their secret plan.  I started putting a box on the table so they could write down their secret plans and drop it in the box.

It was usually pretty damn funny.  Our residential loon, Ryan, would do the craziest stuff.  We were playing World of Darkness and he, playing a Mage, secretly hired a male prostitue to climb in bed with John, the werewolf.  Of course, John made quick work of the poor sap, killing him, and then abruptly dumping the body in Mark's car trunk for him to discover later.   Everyone f#kkd w/Mark lol. 

In D&D, Ryan always seemed to play a Chaotic Evil wizard - one time, he played a high charisma evil wizard chick, approached another party member (a newbie) who was trying to be funny himself by having his character drop his pants.  Well, Ryan's female wizard grabbed the guy's schlong and casted Burning Hands at point blank range lol. 

It's even funnier when he DMs.

The refrain, in our party, was "kill him and take his stuff!"

As in, "Russ went to get a pizza."

Chorus:  "Kill him and take his stuff!"

One player (a persistent and rather appropriately classed Barbarian) would reply to almost everything the DM said with "But I'm a barbarian!"
As in, "I jump across the moat."    "You can't jump that far."      "But I'm a BARBARIAN!"

I miss those days.
We played second edition AD&D, first edition Shadowrun, and the occasional game of Toon (which is absolutely, stunningly insane!)
We also played quite a bit of first edition Champions, which was awesome, and one of my favorite RPGs ever, hands down, after AD&D.

I am also convinced, by the way, that the first edition DMG is THE worst written book ever.  As in, if you could translate the raw badness of non-MST3K'd "Manos" into poorly written book-ness, you'd have Gygax's first ed DMG.    I remember trying to read that bastard in fifth grade, while everyone else was doing something healthy like tag football.    I was a very, very good reader, even then -- one of the best in my class, for sure -- and that book taxed me.

Also have played a fair bit of first edition Gamma World, a bit of Star Frontiers.


Ash:  Are Stu and Wes still running Emerald City Comics?

Star Frontiers (Alpha Dawn) was a pretty darn good science fiction RPG.  The expansion, with its rules for space combat, was really quite good.  We used to play the UPF/Sathar War all the time, using the complex battle damage system.  I remember light cruisers limping back to a UPF fortress for repairs, battleships with terrible damage continuing with the fleet because of the firepower and jump navigation upgrades that made it worth the risk - great fun.  I should track down all the stuff for Star Frontiers.  The Volturnus modules were quite good too.

Damn, you all seem young to me.

Anybody here remember the original Chainmail rules with its little supplement to add roleplaying aspects to a fantasy miniatures game? It was published by a little company out of Lake Geneva, Wisconson called Tactical Studies Rules. They later just used the initials TSR.

My first foray into roleplaying was, of course, D&D. I also played Runequest, Traveller, Call of Cthulhu, among many others. At one point, I had over 60 rules sets for different roleplaying games; I had even more wargames.

Of course, in the early 80s, I was on a hate trip about TSR, along with half or more of the wargaming community, about their takeover of SPI (it still stings). I used to get a newsletter (yes, printed and mailed) from Rick Loomis (Flying Buffalo) in which he had no inhibitions about bashing the hell out of Gary Gygax over that.

One of my favorite systems, though, was FGU's Aftermath. I loved the complexity, but it was still not complex enough for me.

Another favorite, because it captured the spirit of the stories so well, and was not trapped into a numbers system as so many RPGs are, is TSR's Conan.

I will be taking a roleplaying game I designed (yes, pencil and paper) and updating it to include as a free download on my CargoShip site. It is, of course (fitting with the theme of the site), a science fiction roleplaying game. :tongueout:

I have (or had, might need to go look through my books) Chainmail.  Never much cared for it, but I was a young lad when I tried.  Could never get my friends into playing the upgraded version, which was Battlesystem, except for a few battles that I worked into the AD&D campaign over the years.  Now I play Warhammer and Warhammer 40K, so my urge for tabletop wargames is sated that way.

The original Chainmail rules came in a stapled, and cheaply done, beige colored booklet, like the original boxed set of D&D; this was around 1973. Battlesystem came many years later and there was an updated version of Chainmail previous to that, expanded, which I believe was gray in color and spiralbound.

I do not believe that my copy of "Chainmail" was spiral bound, so it must have been the first printing.  I am certain I did not buy it new, but got it from either a flea market or from a comic book store that had a rack of new and used RPG items.

If you still have it, and it is the first printing (it was reprinted), you could probably get a pretty penny for that on eBay.

First version of the D&D rules I played were the original basic rules (the blue booklet with the mage firing a wand at a dragon).  And good old original B2 -- Keep on the Borderlands.    I was introduced in the late 70's, late gradeschool for me, by one of the kids I grew up with.

I quit playing somewhere along the second ed rules -- the typical college group gradually fragmenting deal, where one guy gets a girlfriend, another guy has to get serious about exams, the DM misses a few weeks, etc..   

So yeah, Menard, you're definitely old.   :hot:  Born at least in the sixties if you were playing Chainmail (that is, if you could read it and glean any sense of it -- you couldn't have been a third-grader in '73 I'm guessing).    I was two, that year.  =)     I never played or had sixty game rule sets, but I did play a wide variety.

My favorite aspect of CoC was the SAN score.   I loved the concept of the SAN score. 

That was my very first adventure as well.  Ah...fond memories.

I think that may have been my first as well.  We have replayed it a number of times over the years, (I made changes to keep things interesting and new).  Some of the old AD&D series were great.  Like "Against the Giants" and the "Slavers" series.  Oh, and the "Saltmarsh" series was always a favorite.

And once, I actually DM'd a group of players (who had not read the module) through the original Tomb of Horrors.

That... would have been a good B-movie.  =)

(First post, woohoo!)
I started playing tabletop RPG's with Rifts back in 2002.  I soon dropped that system when I realized how horribly unbalanced the game was.  Then I started GMing Big Eyes Small Mouth.  Now my big thing is Deadlands: Hell on Earth.  I have started collecting all the suplements before they get hard to find.

As far as computer/console rpgs go.  I have played Fallout and Fallout 2 and I ador those games. I have Oblivion for my XBox 360 and I'm looking forward to the relase of Fallout 3.

However, I LOATHE JRPGs.  Except for Final Fantasy XII, that one is actually okay.

Oblivion is the sole reason I want an Xbox 360. Well, that and the eventual Halo 3.

Wow.  Just, wow.

I've read/heard complaints about how the Spelljammer rules were far from comprehensible over the years (mostly from people who don't understand it was a supplement, not a game unto itself) but, seriously, the 1st ED DMG is what you consider the worst written book ever?

May I kindly direct you to my review of the Dragon Wizards e-Book (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/10/10507.phtml).  That smothers bad until it's dead then takes it's place.

Now if you meant "rule book" then. . .



There's your problem right there.  The DMG is nothing without a PHB.  Of course it helps immensly to come to AD&D from D&D, which at least took the time to spell things out for the reader.  If the DMG was your first exposure to RPGs it's no wonder you thought it was bad, doesn't mean it was though.

I meant "rule book," yeah.

And yes, reading it again after all these years, I still think it's way up there in the hierarchy of stink-dom.  You can't argue with someone's opinion, dude, and mostly we avoid doing that here.   We respect each others' revulsion.   :twirl:     Well, except for certain moderators with unhealthy (that is to say, any) Gigli preoccupations...

I should have said "worst rule book I've ever read," since clearly I haven't read them all.  And I did read the DMG after having played Basic (that is in an earlier post, you might have missed it).   It was still a "confusion" spell to me.  Or maybe a "feeblemind.

Uh no, that pretty much means it was bad. The concept of a book is to communicate with your reader, and in that respect they failed miserably. It did, however, lead to many local and published variations and rules additions making up for what was left out, poorly written, or contradicted. Of course, in the end result, Gygax and the Blumes did not care about how well written anything was as it gave them the opportunity just to sell more product to make up for deficiencies.

Gygax in the early days of D&D would defend the lack of comprehension in the early rules as an 'open to interpretation' type of rules where gamers added what they needed. As sales increased and TSR released more products, he did a complete turnaround and wrote an editorial specifically denouncing tweaking the rules as only TSR could add to the 'canon' of rules (provided that TSR made lots of money and Gygax and the Blumes were able to cheat employees out of promised stock options).

D&D/AD&D has the distinction of being the first, but they also had the distinction of being among one of the worst.

I think many systems were written pretty poorly when they first came out and over time they were revised and organized better.  Whitewolf's World of Darkness is also a good example.  The first edition of Werewolf was written rather poorly, or at least, it was a collection of great ideas presented rather poorly, as it was unorganized, had a poor table of contents, and the rules were a bit foggy.  First edition Mage wasn't the clearest thing in the world either.  But after they got their ideas ironed-out and actually cared about editing, things made a lot more sense by second edition.

Whitewolf really dropped it though when they recreated the wheel and rewrote their backstory.  Booo.  Now mages come from Atlantis!?  wtf.  Oh well, at least I still have my original World of Darkness books.

I think that parts of the AD&D rules were left unwritten to give people more freedom.  They often resorted to "roll a dice" if you wanted to randomize something, but definitely encouraged the DM and players to brainstorm what would happen if this or that took place.  In other words, giving free reign to the storytelling.  Granted, later systems came up with ideas that were fairly easy to operate within and still tell the story.

We've had whole gaming sessions taken up by following the strange tangents that sprang to mind when one of the characters did something bizarre.  There is no way for the rules to cover every single possibility.

That's why you were supposed to subscribe to Dragon and eventually Dungeon magazine. Remember, E. Gary said that the players are not suppose to improvise the rules; he was (so you could pay him).

*On a side note: After the takeover of SPI by TSR, several attendees of the following Origins convention wore a special button which read "E. Coli eats sh*t; so does E. Gary". (I provided the asterisk as it was amazingly absent on the button)

I figured that much have been what you might have meant.  Still that "book" I valiantly tried to review stands out in my mind as the worst gaming related product I've ever read, to date, and you know what they say about misery loving company.

Unless you didn't read it in which case. . .   :hatred:

j/k


WTF is a Gigli, that some sort of fetish perversion?   :bouncegiggle:

ANYway all I have to say in RE: to worst written rulebooks is be glad you've never read Cyborg Commandos.  Oddly enough that was also written by Gygaz.  Hmm.


I'm not sure if there was much of a difference between print runs but, FWIW, my DMG was the one with the wizard opening the double doors.  And, yes, there were references to rules that were nowhere to be found, long winded diatribes bordering on fetishism about number crunching and charts that had to real relevance, not to mention the numerous contradictions in certain of the more expansive rules sections but if you took a yellow highlighter and underlines the relevants bits and took a pink highlighter to underline the stuff that might be useful and ignored the rest and relied on the PHB for the bulk of your gaming needs. . .

You'd be golden.  Unless you encountered a rules lawyer, a particularly evil fiend, then G-d have mercy on your pitiful soul  for not even a Exorcist will take on one of those devils!

Sounds like the problems with the boxed set of Stormbringer and it's modules.  Lots of grammer errors, map keys that were TOTALLY wrong, IIRC there was even an errata sheet for the errata printed in the book!  At opposite end was M.E.R.P.  Very well written.  Professionally presented.  Yet no one (in my gaming group anyway) would go near it with a ten foot pole.  Apparently the rules were "too hard" to grasp.

I've played my fair share of RPGs, too.  My longest-running campaign was with AD&D (which I DMd), while the best campaign I played in was the Dragonlance 5th Age game (right before WOTC bought out TSR).  I've also played Rifts, Heroes Unlimited, a Final Fantasy RPG, a friend's attempt at a Gundam RPG, and my own home-grown systems.  I'm starting up a Silver Age Sentinels game in a week because I've had a longtime desire to try a superhero RPG.

I used to play D&D and TOP SECRET back in the day.  We also tried TRAVELLER, but we couldn't get into it.

The only role playing games I get into these days are "Out of Town Business Man and the Wicked Nanny" and stuff like that . . . but that's another story entirely.

Oooh, I loved Traveller, but our GM was an uber nerd.  I loved the psionics in that game because my character owned the starship and one jerk was trying to take over.  His characters kept dying in unused portions of the ship with their brain stems either burnt out or twisted. He never seemed to catch on.

I've played a bunch of RPGS before in the past.  Mostly Pokemon games though.  I don't play them much though since they demand a lot of my time.  I have been getting into the Dragon Quest series though.  Good stories and classic RPG battling.

I bought OBLIVION the week it came out, and haven't needed another game since.  I have both SHIVERING ISLES and KNIGHTS OF THE NINE expansion kits, and I have added a really cool downloadable mod called THE LOST SPIRES to the mix.  By the time I do the three main quests, the Spires, the guilds, and all the random adventuring I want, I just start off with a new character and build a new set of skills.  WHAT A GAME!

That being said, I am curious about DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS.  And, of course, I will get ELDER SCROLLS V when it comes out, even if I have to buy a new computer to play it!

Its only in the past few years that I've started playing d&d. In my last campaign (3.5 ed), I was a human warlock rootworker (kind of like a voodoo priest) in the service of the raven queen. We had a good group going, although I was building my character's mythology on stuff that I was reading about at the time, and it didnt really mesh well with the world of the game. Also, my friends and I are all writers, so we write these side stories and post them on facebook. Our DM will give us extra credit for anything we do to build up the character, either during gameplay or on the side.

I'm currently working on my character for an upcoming game, a tiefling bard. This time, we used a character builder program to do all the technical stuff, which really saved a lot of time (I highly recommend the program, it comes free with a subscription to one of the magazines). The story is set 500 years after the previous campaign, so there's now a steampunk element to it. Also using 4th ed, and bards apparently dont suck nearly as much as they used to.

 <=  My current profile pick is when I dressed up as my previous character, Black Fox, for a halloween party.

Hey Indy, I've heard you go on and onabout this game.  How would you say it compares to MORROWIND?  Years ago I played that and enjoyed it, though I didn't have the rection you do to OBLIVION.  Just curious if you'd played both and whether you thought OBLIVION was a great leap forward.

I have played both games several times.  Graphically, OBLIVION is much sweeter than Morrowind, although the world of Cyrodil is much less alien than the landscapes of Vardenfell.  But the landscapes, the wildlife, and the overall scenery are simply incredible.  SHIVERING ISLES, however, contains that bizarre otherworldy aura that Morrowind had, without the annoying Cliff Racers.  Fast Travel is a very convenient feature; you can walk from place to place as much as you like (or ride a horse), but you can also travel instantly to any spot that you have visited before, a real timesaver.  Dialogue is way better than Morrowind - you hear everything the character says, and it is also run across the bottom of the screen in print large enough you don't have to squint to read it.  Also, the monsters and bandits are levelled to your character's ability, so the game gets harder as you get tougher.  And the hellish world inside the Oblivion Gates is rendered in incredible, very gruesome detail!

In terms of  storyline, the Main Quest of Morrowind had a more satisfying ending, BUT if you play the Shivering Isles Add-On, it has a wonderful conclusion.  And the Guild Quests - Especially the grisly conclusion of the Dark Brotherhood saga - are lots of fun, and earn you some awesome magic artifacts.  As with Morrowind, there are tons of mods onine that add quests and changes to the game.  OBLIVION really is one of the most engaging games I have ever played, and I simply have not gotten bored with it yet!