Role Playing Games: Search/Destroy

Destroy: Stuff with animals.

Destroy: That whole generation of pompous 'character'-based RPGs that Vampire and Ars Magica kicked off - people with an aptitude for character play never needed huge tables of 'personality traits' and 'flaws' and a restrictive gothy background story. The one system that did this stuff quite well was Torg with its 'story cards'.

Oh also Tunnels And Trolls was really shit.

I think like Tom there is a lot to be said for a roleplaying game that is straightforwardly about crawling through dungeons fighting with Orcs and stuff. It only really gets rubbish when you through in all that character class and experience point shite.

geek kitten to thread...
3rd edition is crazy, it's very different. no class restrictions and stuff, so it's very versatile for making any kind of character you like but this can make stuff very unbalanced. but it's good. not that i've played it, i just read the books cos i got nobody to play with since i was like 15 (blub).

Destroy: GURPS, Champions (too much math by far), possibly Palladium but I could be argued out of this one.

Third ed. D&D has really changed the whole gaming world, not only with the changes to the system (now called the d20 System) but also that the system is open-source...anyone can publish a sourcebook; it doesn't have to be licensed by TSR or WotC or whoever. If you haven't been in a game store in the last year or so, the whole landscape has changed. Nearly all the competing systems have switched over to the d20 system, including the Vampire world. So now we have GURPS-style universality as a byproduct, but great market competition...small publishers and good sourcebooks now have an opportunity to find an audience. But part of the fun for me was learning new systems and seeing how the structure of the system affected your game world-view, you know?

other than Rifts i kind of gravitated towards MERP ... just on the strength of those critical hit tables ;-)

does anyone remember a game called Earthdawn? it was a pretty cool spin on the traditional Tolkien-esque fantasy world. it was somehow spookier and more ethnic ... i bought a bunch of the books all at once but never really managed to get a good game going as i was sort of "growing out of it" at the time.

"Strike to head destroys brain and makes life difficult for the unfortunate fool. Expires in a heap, immediately"

four words: teenage mutant ninja turtles.

"Strike to head destroys brain and makes life difficult for the unfortunate fool. Expires in a heap, immediately"

i tell you, those guys were on PCP or summat. that's just the tip of the iceberg.

The direction of it was pretty much up to the players, leading to some hilarious plot bits including them milling over wether to slaughter the firstborn of their native village (they'd got the wrong end of the stick about "a newcomer to the town")and breaking into the local guard house to get some clues (still not sure why they did that).

It was tremendous fun, largely cos it just consisted of getting pissed and gossiping more than actually playing the game.

ancient hackles rise - "true" here = "commercially available". Most freeformers I knew distrusted or disliked Amber hugely.

(ph34r my indieism!!)

that was my experience, anyway.

Isn't PARANOIA the one where the players get in trouble if they read the rulebook? and where the game is so deestructive that each player has to have six lives to stand any chance of completing even one session?

I STILL play Settlers of Catan whenever I run into willing players.

You guys are making me miss my old days of D & D...this makes me sad, 'cause my friend Kurt who was the best DM evah isn't alive anymore. :(

That really is the key argument, and a good argument in favor of Eric Wujcik as well. (You were arguing in favor, right?) Obv. I'm pro-Amber, but yes, I should have used Tom's 'commercially available' modifier. (Please recommend me some indie free-form games, Tom!) I still think Amber's a great game with the right group, and never have a problem with the GM being monopolized to the detriment of the other players because all the players are scheming bastards who go off in little groups when the GM is busy.

I'm actually trying to work up a screenplay idea based on this.

Destroy: angry vindictive DMs/GMs

I loved the old amendments to D&D, ie. Expert, Companion, Masters. No, D&D != 'Basic' D&D, though WD and every other tosser used to call it that routinely.

AD&D: I had an affection for the rulebooks, but actually playing it would have been far too complicated.

I like the sound of Ewing's Victorian game.

I recently discovered old Traveller books: again, you hardly need them for 'playability': it's just the sheer coolness of those black pamphlets with yellow / blue piping and Scouts, High Guard, etc. 'High Guard': those words strike me as cool even now.

then we did one based on some caves and a miniature "canyon" near our houses.

as for commercially, we only played ad&d because we were poor and we could get this stuff from the older kids in the neighborhood.

+2 to peeing in the hot tub, roll 2d12 to determine radius.

speaking of, that was my first introduction to computer noise musics was playing cpu tapes on the hi-fi.

Tom,didn't I guest-star at an episode of that? were any other ILXoRs there, apart from you, me, and AlexT?

D: Paranoia (I never met a GM who could run that worth a shit) and anything by White Wolf (munchkinism reigns forever in that system)

Dreampod 9 did Heavy Gear, right? I was going to get into that but then the GM moved or some such.

Oh, I feel dumb now. That's too much freedom for me.

Also Search: Gencon USA. Anyone been to the UK version? is it as much stupid geeky fun?

Yes, Dreampod 9 did Heavy Gear and Jovian Chronicles. The high quality continues apace with Gear Krieg. They've even started issuing miniatures in a standard scale so that they're compatible with your Shermans and Tigers! Yay!

Destroy: D&D third edition. I went to Neutral Ground last fall to watch a bunch of post-college urban gamers play it, thinking it would be dynamic and pleasantly nostaltic. Instead we watched them battle a bunch of puny goblins for 70 minutes with a stupid roll of opportunity every single round of the melee. It would have been more efficient for the wizard to cast Level One Cloud of Ennui in the goblins' direction (instead of mine).

of course!
let's hear it for SDC. alright.

heroes unlimited also = very good. i like the paladium stuff, except rifts. MDC = shit idea.

Which it is.

I ran a few Paranoia sessions, but it is difficult to make all the players act in character and not constantly shoot each other (which is kind of the point of the game).

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0966892690/helioinc/002-5344300-8792809

It needed a good keeper - but not half as much as Toon.

Bunnies & Burrows was interesting but kinda got confused as to whether it was Watership Down or Night of the Lepus or Bugs Bunny. A bit like Traveller which could be everything but generally failed to be anything.

The Morrow Project ahd much to recomend it. Guys with a clear mission and lots fo firepower discover things have gone wrong, very wrong. Loads of potential for disaster. Appalingly supported of course resulting in its premature death.

actually, I'd really like to play a role playing game in which you are one of the cuddly toys with which David plays Monopoly with his seven year old son.

hilarious! i bought a copy of toon on a family vacation to seattle when i was about 12, but aside from trying to play it in the car with my dad on the way back i couldn't manage a good game. how the heck do you capture the zaniness and fast pace of a cartoon in an RPG?

I actually was almost commissioned to write a module for this once. Ah, 1989.

My gaming history -- Basic D&D, Expert D&D, Advanced D&D (guess the pattern), Call of Chthulu, a smidgen of Vampire. My interest level petered out somewhere around 1993.

holy crap!!!! i appoint you GM for life! writing modules was my dream career for a while in my early teens, how did you manage to almost score such a gig?

1 Troll
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The idea behind it, or at least what's proven its success, is that new games/settings can come out without a) needing to develop a new mechanics system which won't be subjected to the same level of playtesting as that which the Big Publishers can afford; and b) requiring the customer to learn a new system. A lot of licensed properties end up as D20 games now -- Star Wars, the Wheel of Time -- and a lot of older games, especially ones with cult followings, also have D20 versions (Deadlands, Call of Cthulhu, Big Eyes Small Mouth).

A lot of people bitch about it, because that's what gamers do; I have a D20 supplement coming out this summer, and being able to leave the system out and direct the reader to the book they almost certainly already own (or have downloaded) keeps the price much lower.

(several xposts)

though i dont like the psionics shit.

GURPS books make great writing references, sometimes, especially in the pre-google era ("what was the name of the Russian hero who fought Koshchei? oh yeah ..."). I still keep GURPS Martial Arts handy for brainstorming when I'm writing fight scenes.

wasn't there a subset of WW books that were adults only or something?

I don't think I'll run anything at GenCon, although I'm going to bring a couple of things -- Little Fears, All Flesh Must Be Eaten, and my game Fierce Lullabies, probably -- in case I want to run a pick-up game. That's one thing that makes GenCon odd for me: on the one hand, I've only been a player (in the "not the GM" sense) like 3 or 4 times since jr high; on the other hand, I've never run a game for people I didn't know. I wouldn't know where to pitch, so to speak.

I'm going to bring Once Upon A Time, too, the card game thing, cause I got it cheap from a going out of business sale and haven't had a chance to play it. I have no idea what to expect from this thing, but that's all right (it'll probably be my first time in Indianapolis for more than an airport trip, too).

S: the superhero game where you had to make flaws for your character rather strengths. I never played it, but it sounded more fun than AD&D (root canal sounded better than AD&D)

Orion's arm
* hard science
* plausible technology
* realistic cultural development
* vast setting
* 10000+ year timeline
* no humanoid aliens

Big ideas, grand vision stretches imagination and is also based on a good premice: Hard science fiction, Technology drives change, Human nature is not fixed, No feudalist space-empires, Alien aliens, No Jumpsuits, Conflicts are different.
The intro:
"300 years ago humans left for the stars. On the colonies humans have discovered marvels, developed new cultures, changed in new directions - separated by gulfs measured in light-years. But now they are brought together again. Culture clashes with culture, philosophy with philosophy. Technologies recombine into something new, something that can transform humanity or destroy it. Ambitious people plan for the dynamic future. It is a time for...
Big Ideas, Grand Vision"

There's also Transhuman Space by Steve Jackson games who got lots of ideas: bioships, Toxic Memes, obsolete cybertechnology, parahumans, digital consciousness, intelligent octopus, smartcats , Spacegoing transnationals etc etc

1. skyrealms of jorune
2. warhammer 40k
3. kult
4. call of cthulhu
5. underground
6. star wars 1st ed (west end, not d20)
7. castle falkenstein
8. tribe eight
9. ad&d 2nd ed : oriental adventures
10. white wolf's kindred of the east
11. earthdawn

Oriental Adventures absolutely rocked; Kindred of the East had a lot of potential, too, although it suffered from White Wolf's perpetual Look At Our Fonts syndrome (for a company that has thrived in no small part because of the appeal of games which are fun to read even if you don't end up playing them, they really like putting out products no one can actually read). Never got around to playing that one much, though -- I had a play-by-email game going that disintegrated rapidly.

i think aside from aging one of the things that turned me off roleplaying in general was the rapidly increasing gothyness of the whole endeavour. if it wasn't like a star trek convention it was like hot topic menace and tim burton twee.

For me, it's lack of place -- I don't like running a game anywhere but my own home, ideally, and this place just doesn't have any rooms more than 4 people can be in without feeling claustrophobic, much less four people and their gamer detritus -- and not being around my old players anymore. Finding the right people to play with can take so much time -- I really don't need five people who are just going to fill the air with recycled Something Positive jokes and arguments about LOTR. The best people I've played with, come to think of it, were the ones who played RPGs because they specifically liked them, not because it was an inevitable result of their being geeks: they weren't Star Trek fans, they didn't have collections of Star Wars books, they didn't make mead in their spare time, etc.

I would post this on the LOL thread but the other kids would probably give me a wedgie.

(Yes, I am a ghost pirate.)

Yeah so I played Warhammer, D&D, TMNT (pre-tv show thanks), some James Bond-type spy game, Cthulu, and probably a couple others.... God, I'm so ashamed.

makes you think.

obviously, not being around your old players is a pain, but the smallness of everywhere in your house could be turned to an advantage - the claustrophobia could be good for horror roleplaying games.

by the way, was anyone else from ILX (other than Tom & AlexT) at the roleplaying game thing Tom brought me to in South London some years ago (in the pre-ILX era)?

That's true ... I guess the problem is a lack of seating area, in part -- the living room has a love seat, an easy chair, and my computer desk, but if you fill those seats (or the small amount of empty floor space -- my living room is also my office/place for my bookshelves), not everyone can see each other. It might be interesting to have everyone in the front of the room with me at the desk behind them, though :)

idea of the Vicar always playing a Vicar = best idea of today

but *simpering* vicar?

CoC, modern setting, Wiltshire. Fire Vampires. Inbred cultists (though only a handful).

Lustmord, The Drums From Mt Eerie, New & Rediscovered Musical Instruments, Project Dark are planned... anything else spring to mind? Looking for some kind of alien language type thing (heavily treated vocals) without having to play death metal...

G--ff - are GURPS going to reissue their version of Bunnies & Burrows?

Phoenix Command was highlighted in the May '89 issue of the Belgian edition of Playboy magazine article "Role-Playing Outside the Bedroom" written by Gore Vidal. It was revealed there that, not only was Hugh Hefner a fan of role-playing games, but that he refereed a weekly Phoenix Command game at the Playboy Mansion. Whether he still runs the game today is unknown.

lol

i wish i could play in some rpg campaign - even generic fantasy i don't mind (tho my pref has always been cyberpunk) but a. no time b. no gm :(

let's do one on ILX

Some kind of game where people write in character according to some kind of story might be a fun thing to have here

lol maybe on an invite-only private board - have u posted to ilx before bro?

That was assumed.

https://twitter.com/AndrewWK/statuses/425038191914012672

turns out i partied a lot in high school :/

DM: "Your quest is to seize the Keg of Inebriation from the grumpy Storekeeper in the village."

this looks cool https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1004444231/dungeonforge-be-the-ultimate-dungeon-master

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/01/27/dm-from-the-am-to-the-pm-in-dungeonforge/#more-186713

this book looks interesting

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0615642047/downandoutint-20

I have that book and it's ridiculously interesting

i actually joined in a game recently at work! short sessions post-work on wednesdays booking a conference room to play a french-language game (we play in english, but the ruleset is french only) called... vermin? vermine? unsure on spelling. post-apoc nature-reclaims-earth-from-humans horrorish setting. not sure how long it'll last since A) it took months to get people to even start coming and B) who the fuck wants to leave work at 10pm on a wednesday?, but it's pretty neat so far. ABSURDLY lethal but dm promises to more or less make combat something that we'll only get into if we're stupid enough to make it happen

I ran a 2nd edition ad&d campaign from about 2009 to last year (built my own world and maps, natch) (previous ad&d stint being from about 1980 to 1985) and it was soooo fun but sooooo tough to actually get sessions together when some players are in NJ and one's in Metro North land and half of them have small children and most of them are comix freelancers who have to be draconian w themselves about time. I've thought about converting it to a private blog format or something so we could keep going.

Also that book looks fucking awesome.

hey happy 40th birthday D&D

I am very tempted to start buying 1st edition Traveler material, am I insane

Some people on the Brooklyn OSR/RPG Discord I am on were trying to get a game of that together. I don't recall if they ended up playing. Caverns of Thracia might have taken that over.

If you think you will play it, why not? (lol, I know, I know.)

I found the first edition of Traveller frustratingly vague and at the same time overly complicated. It rarely lent itself to good gameplay.

The GURPS version, on the other hand, really rocks.

I bought the two Bundles of Holding during lockdown that had 50 (fifty) LBBs so I share your pain.

They look good alongside my actual twenty or so LBBs and just the one or two reissues.

SPI published a science fiction RPG called Universe that I thought was really cool. The rules were cool, anyway, I never got a group to play it.

Sixteen-year-old me loved this cover.

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91SUGOShrxL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg

Ok now I’m wanting to just get a bunch of Gurps traveller books… I’ve always been intrigued by Gurps. I have a few of the hustorical setting books, and the new sun book. So I should get that core book and compendiums and a bunch of the cheaper traveller books, right?

GURPS was one of my most played RPGs back in the day. It's definitely not rules lite or OSR - it has a heavy character creation and skill system - but most of the complexity after character creation can be ignored.

Btw, Free RPG Day is happening this Saturday at various places around the globe. Check your FLGS if they’re participating

https://freerpgday.com