Saber Forum

Hello,

Few time ago, a member registered on the forum and put something about table top RPG in his/her signature. As i am preparing a RPG Week End with old friends, I have the idea of this topic  :P

I play Table Top RPG since the late 80's when, as a teenager, i discovered AD&D 1st Edition. At this time, i used to play a lot (like every weeks) and we played many RPG: AD&D, Vampire the Mascarade, Star Wars (of course!!!) D6 1 later, the Saga Edition, Rolemaster & MERP, Warhammer, Stormbringer ... and many other.

Today, 30 years later, with the same group of friends, we are still playing 2 times per year. We let wife/husbands and kids at home and we play for a little week with Games, BBQ (summer), melting mountain cheeses (winter), liters of beer/wine and a lot of fun (Yes, we sit are kids in our heads) ;).

My favorite game is AD&D and my favorite scenario is "Queen of the Spiders", both as a player of a master. With a good master, this story is really exiting and the game is full of surprise, even if it is not the first time.

So, is there any Table Top RPG fan here? How do you play? What type of game? What is your favorite scenario? .... Tell me every thong !!! ;)

Oh hey, I dunno if it was my signature that you happened to see, but I am certainly ALL about this thread!!  ;D

So I am a child of the 80's, and while I have been a gamer of some form my entire life (I was raised by Nintendo and also had a long stint playing CCGs), I didn't really get to play any tabletop RPGs until I was 19.  My first experience with AD&D was 3rd Edition, and even though in retrospect it's probably my least favorite iteration to play, it still served as my introduction to RPGs so it holds a special place in my heart (though I'll take 3.5 any day of the week).  Those first few years of gaming were a lot of fun with good friends, though I'll admit that the campaigns themselves weren't fairly memorable -- we ran a lot of canned dungeon crawls and/or hack-and-slash adventures.  Those can be fun, sure, but I am particularly drawn toward complex characters and nuanced stories -- the combat is just a bonus for me. 

When I moved to Nashville, RPGs kind of fell by the wayside for a few years -- I no longer knew anyone who was actively running a game, and so I put it on the shelf.  When I met some friends about 3 years ago and one of them mentioned the desire to start a game, I practically squeed in excitement.  We had a good 18-month run of a Pathfinder game in a Ravenloft setting, and that game was where I really found my voice as a PC. 

Unfortunately, that campaign has fizzled out due to a number of factors, but around the time that happened I was invited to join another group of friends in their weekly adventures.  These guys are definitely the best gaming experience I've had thus far -- everyone is awesome, we all work together to create a cohesive and well-rounded party while still expressing our individuality as players, we have three people who regularly DM (so one DM can prepare/run a campaign story arc and then take a break to enjoy playing while someone else take the reigns for a while).  We play mostly Pathfinder (which I admit I really prefer to the AD&D Eds I have played and I am unapologetic about this fact), though right now we're running a Star Wars D20 campaign and it. Is. AWESOME.  ;D

So yeah.  I may have thought I could live without tabletop gaming for a while, but I doubt I will ever make that mistake again.  With the right group of players, it's hands-down the best form of gaming I could possibly imagine. 

It started in a dark, candle lit dormitory back in grammar school - I still remember the very first fight trying to escape from a cave and a town overrun by orcs! :)
Now, 25 years later it's such an event when the same team comes together from every corner of the world really (we all jumped to hyperspace and left our hometown behind, even home country) for a night's game.
Thinking back I have to say AD&D had a huge effect on our RW characters and how we developed and literally grew up through these sessions. I still could not recommend a better and more in-depth and honest way to grow up while the child within is not being killed nor opressed/deconditioned.
Our AD&D adventure was not through preconstructed modules but it was a whole, organic journey with many epic and emotional peaks. Our game master was such a creative guy, we all learned a lot from him and carried the flag forward when we started game mastering later in different groups.
Of course we ventured into Star Wars too, it was a blast backed up by the then newly published Timothy Zahn novel-trilogy (which I still consider as the best possible Ep7-8-9), we even started to put our own RPG system together (which is still an ongoing project and hopefully it'll get published sometimes in the future).
I've just bought FFG's Force and Destiny core rulebook nearly the same day I ordered my first lightsaber from US. Ok, it's just something I read in cloudy evenings to keep my memories well fed but I know we'll put this one to the test as soon as possible.
So it's a game always on, hopefully we can get together sometimes again and roll the dice!

Hehe ... yes, it was your signature :)

For me it is the same, i do not think that i can spend too much time without gaming. It is like fighting with cane/lightsaber, impossible to live without  ;D

I never played to Pathfinder but i discovered the D20 system with Star Wars Saga Edition ... I think i would love it. In fact, we will make a try with D&D 3.5 this summer ... and i have understood that it is D20 system ... So, maybe i will have a taste of what Pathfinder is.

In fact, my best experience in RPG is with AD&D 1st Ed. but, in 30 years we have created our own customized rules as well as many many character classes. We have played numerous campaigns by several DM. I have personally masterised 2 campaigns from lev. 1 to lev. 18+.
During the 90's, we discovered VTM. At this time, only North America was developed and every DM chose a city. I chose New Orleans and i continue to run scenario here as my players rule the City ;)
A good friend made also numerous scenarios in Star Wars D6 during the Civil War era ... i played a clone of Han Solo lol. Then, in early 2000 we moved to Saga Edition ...

The campaigns you play in Pathfinder are official ones or home made ones?

Ohhhhh yeah ;)

A canon universe without Mara Jade and the Twins is not good as it could have been ;)

It is the same here but we moved only in every corner of France ... which is not so huge. So we can roll the dice Twice a year as i said. And us to, we mainly play home made scenario but sometime we played famous official ones like the "Bloodstone pass" series, "Queen of the spiders", "Tombs of horror" ....

What was the plot of the campaigns of your creative game master? (if not too difficult to explain)

If you know (and I assume you do :)) how Emile Zola was creating the "background simulation" to his novels and series, you'll see how we played :)
Somehow our GM had a sense of coherence in situation and the phychological background of the characters (motives, actions-reactions, etc.) From these information he could put any situation in a context coherent to the characters (NPCs included) and their attributes and the story just unfolded itself.

For example: we as characters reached a castle on the border between civilization and chaos (sort of). We needed to go there to check on an information we got previously. Now the GM injected one element into the game: the lord of the castle wasn't completely sane but had enormous power over his people. Of course we ran into a murder on day 1 when - ok, we've somewhat been involved - one of the guests in the caste, a duke was murdered. (He turned to be a lycantrope and we had no choice, it was self defence, LOL :D) So when we tried to escape from this madhouse, the lord relocated us to the tower where the duke had been held and also (as he was insane) nominated us, the whole party to be a duke. We had four members in the party so four of us became a duke. We had to play our duke-role but only together we could do that, one of us missing and our title wasn't "complete" so as the protection the title gave evaporated.
The problem started when more mysterious deaths were coming in the castle and when one of our party members had his alignment turned to be evil because of an artifact. I had to kill him (which I did confidentally as one of our party members was a necromant so death was somewhat temporary) but to be able to execute our rights as a duke we had to present him somehow in the lord's council... and so on.

So what he did was not to preinstall any storyline but let the whole story flow wherever the action-reaction-action took it while he injected some attributes into the situations in critical moments and observed how we act on that so he could react in the name of the whole world...
Of course he always sacrificed some rules if it was necessary to forge an epic moment or an unexpected turnaround.

I still remember a particular scenarios where I and my character pulled a stunt that negated several weeks worth of planning by the GM.

So, picture this... I'm playing a kobold named Boomer. He's a Rogue with a penchant for fire and explosions (okay, it was a very unhealthy obsession that led to multiple resurrections to the point that all the religious folks in the land had heard of me and about a quarter of the temples had attended to my needs). Somewhere along the way, we manage to gain the favor of an Great Wyrm Gold Dragon, who presents yours truly with a magically altered Bag of Holding that led straight to the land of Infinite Explosive Powderkegs. I just reach in, pull one out, light it, and throw it. Big boom. Life was good for old Boomer.

Fast forward a bit, and our party now cosists of myself, a Human fighter, a female Elven ranger, a female Dwarven bard, an elven Cleric, a Red Mage, and a Half-Orc/Half-Dragon barbarian, and we've managed to piss off an entire empire, and the bulk of their army (some 40,000 footsoldiers, 5000 cavalry, 5000 archers, and all their support staff) are coming for us with no way to turn them back.

Now, the DM's goal was for us to lead the entire army into a neighboring empire and start a huge war, plunging the entire continent into war and causing an ancient war god to regain power and rise, giving us a real threat to face.

Well, things didn't exactly go according to plan... We just happened to be in the same area as a huge system of caves that my clan had inhabited before being slaughtered, leaving the child me (equivalent to 10 years old) as the only survivor. So I led our party into it and had the ranger leave very noticeable marks as to where we were going (Ray Charles could have found us).

We went in. The army followed later. We had plenty of time to prepare. Basically, we went to a natural underground amphitheater that my clan leader would use to speak to everyone, led the entire army into it, and I set off explosives at the only entrance, trapping them inside the amphitheater. Then we built a fire at a higher elevation and I calmly reached into my Bag Of Goodies and lobbed powderkeg after powderkeg down onto this army. We were so high up that even the best archer with the strongest bow couldn't reach us. At the end of the day, I had dropped the equivalent of about 50 megatons of TNT on this army, killing all of them (over 100,000 people), eating up all the XP on my own, and utterly ruining the DM's plan for the God of War.

On the plus side, we made off with some nice weapons, armor, and a buttload of treasure.

I started with Basic D&D in 1980.  Graduated to AD&D in the mid 80's and still play today with pretty much the same group.  Course now we live all over the planet so it's Roll20 for us.  Cool site that allows us to game around a virtual table.  Don't know what i'd do with out this game as I've been DMing in the world we all created for over 30 years. 

Never played a SW based rpg suggestions? 

cheers
g

Aaaahhhh Zola, Balzac, Hugo ... Love these real fictions in the 2nd Empire :) 

It is always great when the DM knows his player well enough to do that. Sounds like many Vampire the Mascarade Scenarios. DM just creates a situation lets the characters live :) And you are right, if the players are really involved, this type of scenario provides the best session :)

Always love that ... even as a DM.

One day, i made a very big scenario and the party has to search for multiple parts of a map that leads to a treasure. At the beginning, i gave them some clues about the first part ... but my players started to assemble these clues and some facts from previous scenario ... and they found the treasure in 30 min ...

... i prepared 50 hand written pages of scenario  ;D



Sometimes you need diplomacy ... and sometimes you just need a bomber man ;D

Virtual table ... how it works?? Some kind of visioconference??? I do not know that ...

For SW, i play D6 Edition and Saga Edition ... In Saga Edition, there is less difference between Jedi and Other characters ... I prefer


Ah, and sorry for multiple posts ;)

Hahahahah, that's really a Boomer! Nice story, I guess it was the GM who levelled up after this!


The D6 version Seb mentioned is fantastic, no matter how old it is! That's what we played a lot and loved it. Also there are masses of expansions and other add-ons for it, not easy to get them though.
If you like the D20 versions of RPG there was a Wizard of the Coast publishing on SW roleplay, also with a bunch of extras. Personally I make every effort now to avoid D20 systems but that's probably because of our playstyle so don't take my word for it! :)
What I really do like is the new Fantasy Flight Games SW roleplaying system: I'm great fan of the "storytelling dice" - I believe it makes every situation extra tasteful and doesn't let the "compare the numbers" part taking over. Unfortunately I haven't had the time to try it out yet, I only read the rulebook on stormy evenings and I like what I see. But it'll take at least another year before our party can come together to test it :)

Hope this helps!

I've tried lots of different ones but my current favorite is Heroscape. I got introduced two years ago when my best friend moved in. He lied to me to convince me to play it too. I've had some memorable games with my  group which has changed in the past two years. At first it was me, my firend and his step-dad. Then the girl he has a crush on started playing too and then she moved out of state. My dad started playing and it was hilarious how. The girl my friend had a crush on convinced him and here's the joke. My dad wouldn't play for two years and then he started playing when a pretty 20 year old girl asked him to(He's 43 btw). So yeah it's just my friend, his step dad, me, and my dad(Who hasn't been playing much lately). But yeah that's about it. So...

Well, he DID almost do the tableflip rage quit....


Oh, this is one of my favorite sessions. Not one I was in, but it's still funny as hell.

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The D6 version is fantastic but it has a major cons (for me): In this version, Jedi are too powerful compare to other characters ...

Never play with member of my family ... but i imagine my dad frighten me for gaining advantage during the game lol

Is this a chat from a virtual table?

"But who's gonna fly that ship, kid? You?" ;)

Actually a jedi is always way more powerful in one-to-one comparison to non-force users. I think it was the video games's tradition to nerf them down for gaming purposes otherwise any game gets seriously imbalanced.
And still, Luke Skywalker had been rescued several times by force insensitive friends before he made his big shot :)

Jedi have to be powerful!!! But with the D6 version, Order 66 would never happened :)

Maybe it was because of our GM but when we played D6 version, Jedi characters were so powerful that we usually plot against them  ;D

You are correct, Pathfinder is a D20 system. The rules are maybe somewhere between AD&D 3.5-4, and the world in which is set borrows a great deal from D&D. Personally, I have come to prefer Pathfinder for a number of reasons -- the improvement of some rules over AD&D (while still being similar enough to jump right into), the expanded range of character classes (particularly the hybrid classes outlined in the Advanced Class Guide), easy access to rules via the website and apps (like PFRPG rd) to name a few.


We play almost exclusively in homebrew worlds. A couple of our GMs are pretty talented writers, so world-building and storytelling are things they greatly enjoy. Some of the encounters may be pulled/adapted from official campaigns, but those are pretty few and far between.

An apps with the rules??? Really??? :)
After this story about virtual tables, i understand that i am older that i hoped to be lol


Here to, we all created our own world for campaign ... but sometimes, within a set of homemade scenarios, we put official ones ...

For example, i finished my last campaign with Labyrinth of Madness ... a very fun scenario made for the 20th anniversary of TSR ;)

We should start a thread for character advice. For example, I have a knight that specializes in _____, and has a _____ personality, and I can't think of a name. Or naming abilities on characters.

This is true. Jedi are ALWAYS really powerful.

Ok ... the next RPG Week End will be next WE (a long one in France because of the 14th) ...

And it will be a very old school AD&D ;)

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I was just telling Darth Nonymous earlier that I've always wanted to play D&D (or another tabletop RPG), but never gotten the chance.  Never knew anyone who played when I was younger, and nowadays I can't seem to get any friends interested!  I think they're all deterred by the negative stigma or something.

One day... one day I'll play a game, somehow!

I do not know in the US or other countries but here, in the 90's and early 2000, we had so many TV shows explaining, with MANY experts point of view, that if you play to table top RPG, you will lose your friends, your life, your futures ... you will abandon your studies and become some kind of serial killer ...

... I never understood why there is such a hate for RPG and RPG players ...

It comes from a long, LONG line of thinking that was a convergence of Christian beliefs when it came out that "DnD = Satanism" because of the demon and magic aspects coupled with a desire to place the blame for crimes on anything except the actual perpetrator. Basically, gamers were just the next iteration of "the Devil made me do it" crowd, and people just ate it up. After all, it makes sense to place the blame on something otherworldly, otherwise people are faced with the idea that some people are just born bad and also faced with the question of whether or not THEY were born bad.

It's just the general lack of knowledge about a subject what usually ends up in being afraid of something one does not understand.
The 1980-90s was an era in which the "typical" parents had the obsession of controlling the kids by the illusion of knowing what's right or wrong (it's still an issue in some households I hear :P) and playing tabletop RPG could have fallen into the judgement somewhere between "terribly wrong" and "dangerous". Sitting in a candle lit room with a book in the middle of it with a big pentagram on the hardcover had already been a bad first impression and when the DM (that's me) waved with his hands chanting magic words did not help either. That was the scene when my step-cousin's mother breached the door on us.
The DM's magic worked because my step-cousin's mother ran out with a powerful counter-mantra, something like "ohmygod-ohmygod" and returned with a strong backup of other adult-pretenders of the family, they harshly switched the main roomlight on and stood there demading answers of what "cult" we were part of and since when.

So the environment became pretty hostile which left us not much room to excercise our creativity on how to explain this game in two, possibly three words thoroughly because that was the time frame given by their gestures.
I grabbed the book and handed it over to the leader of the adult pack and said: "Have a look inside and see for yourself. It's a game of imagination."
The Force had duties elsewhere that day - she opened the book up randomly and had a shock. The random page showed a drawing of a witch-like sorcerer and described the spell "rotting the tongue" in great detail.

I still don't think of this day as the biggest victory in my life but at least I could introduce the game to my step-cousin and another friend. Although the game was over for a good while for this little group, we went on a year later when those parents of my mates had other thing to afraid of. And pretty good sessions we've played! :)

So overall it was a witch-hunt in the media as I remember and I'm still amazed how terrified "people in charge" can be when they see others' mind wandering uncontrolled and misunderstood.
Don't give up, Master Nero, it can be a lovely new colour in the rainbow to try and play it!

I tried "the one ring" this summer ... as a player

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Of course, it takes place in the Middle Earth like old games like MERP or Rolemaster ;) It is very interesting as the rules are based on how player deals with the fellowship of characters ...

And we started a Star Wars D6 campaign ... After years of playing the Saga version, it was a real pleasure to play D6 again ... i have forgotten ;p

Just read "Empire of Imagination"  A biography about Gary Gygax it goes over pretty well the madness of the early and late 80's.  I was a player in that time period glad it's gone.  I still don't like Tom Hanks because of his role in Mazes and Monsters.  Thankfully my parents though worried let us play.  Still playing 34 years later with mostly the same guys. 
Ever wanna talk AD&D I'm always available. 

Yeah !!!!! ;)

We are going to start a new campaign in D&D 3.5 system ... and the DM asked us for thinking about our character.

I think i will try to create a kind of blind Monk/Warrior fighting with a staff ... (Ok, i am a little inspired by the trailer of Rogue One  ;D )

So, i can have access to many books including "Oriental Adventures" ... so i think i will play a Sohei ...

I have a question for you guys, have you ever played a blind character??? How was it? The DM ask me for idea to make this character fun to play ;)

One of the campaign worlds my table is running is in an Eastern setting -- it's a lot of fun.

I've never personally played a blind character, though from a roleplaying perspective, a blind character would be an easier one to play -- sure, you'd take some penalties for certain game mechanics, but at least your abilities to interact with your party members would be largely unencumbered (which wouldn't be the case with, say, a deaf and/or mute character).  I think it would make for an interesting character for sure.

I think that it should ne interesting ;)

Finally i will play a monk with some penalties but the DM is open to this idea ... it will be fun :P

What is the plot of your Eastern Setting campaign ?