Tabletop Roleplaying Games??

[Master Seblaise]

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  

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 !!!

[TheDarkOpossum]

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  

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!! 

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. 

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. 

[Master Medwyn]

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!

[Master Seblaise]

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

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. 

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. 

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  

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?

[Master Seblaise]

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!

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)

[Master Medwyn]

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 ) 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.

[Jev Moldara]

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.

[gpm]

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

[Master Seblaise]

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 ) 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.

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

[Master Seblaise]

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

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 

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.

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

[Master Seblaise]

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

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

[Master Medwyn]

So, picture this... I'm playing a kobold named Boomer. He's a Rogue with a penchant for fire and explosions...

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

Never played a SW based rpg suggestions? 

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!

[Grey Owl]

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...

[Jev Moldara]

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

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.

[Master Seblaise]

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!

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