Gamer Community

[Arkhilokhus]

Probably. It's fairly easy. I won't touch the current edition though. *blech*

Its easy to play through the net with a small group. Less so when it gets larger. Much less so when some people are using mac and others PC. There are a few pieces of software that apparently work very well (Battlegrounds is one, IIRC). I would guess that people set up a Teamspeak style server to go along with that. I've got a friend that uses similar software in her tabletop game. She's a bit control freakish though, and is the type to sit for hours plotting everythign out minutely. I'm mor elikely to write a half sheet's worth of cryptic notes and run everything else off the top of my head.

There's always Neverwinter Nights, too. An interesting middle ground between tabletop and an MMO.

 

[Recidiva]

I read two of them, Dream Park itself and the one with the Weight-loss story. Were there more?

And there was a game that came out based on that series. I found the idea a hoot, as you were running a game about a park where people run holographic games. Not quite as meta-meta-game as "Killers" was, but still neat. And, well, far less incredibly depressing than "Killers". I love John Tynes, but sometimes he's a bit dark even for my taste.

Dream Park, Barsoom Project and The California Voodoo Game.

 

[Recidiva]

and this would be the anomaly known as the "GM's girlfriend"?

Yeah.

I didn't last long in that group.

It's a correlary of the "Biggest, brightest and best" syndrome.

If you can't die, get off the table.

 

[JustaNobody]

I also started with tabletop games when I was eight. Still play them on average 2 nights a week. And at least 2 more nights a week, all of our tabletop gaming group is playing World of Warcraft instead. 80/78/77/75/74, all on one server. We just killed Malygos 10 last night, and I was in class and missed it.

We also just finished a D&D 3.5 campaign at 22nd level. It was almost pure dungeoncrawl, so wasn't horribly long...only 4 months, I think. A lot of fun, but definitely helped us realize why they made so many of the changes they did for 4th edition.

I'm on the young side for the board here, I can tell, by how I remember the Bard's Tale trilogy and Wasteland. While other kids in the neighborhood would go play ball with their dads, my brother and I learned how to draw maps on graph paper so we didn't get hopelessly lost wandering around in those games.

 

[jockdom]

I too am addicted to WoW(hangs head in shame), I have a 78 lvl rogue with Assasinate spec and 22.7 crit. Most of the people in our guild I've known since our early teens(The D20 days) we raid and do instances most evenings and week ends.

Pass word. Ambush,Mutilate.

As for the old fashioned Role Playing, I used to play AD&D, Call of Cuthulu, Vampire the Masquarade, Pendragon, GURPS, Cyberpunk and others. Vampire being my favourite.

I'm such a geek!!!!!!!

 

[Homburg]

and this would be the anomaly known as the "GM's girlfriend"?

Yes, just that. Made our little game interesting as both players were the GM's girlfriend.

My life is so weird.

--

There's always Neverwinter Nights, too. An interesting middle ground between tabletop and an MMO.

I played NWN on my PC. It was so buggy and twitchy that I couldn't really get into it. On a whim, I rolled a half-orc paladin with something like an 8 Int. Everyone he talked to made comments like "Oh, you're not real bright, are ya?" and things like that. The game suddenly got amusing. Then I found this really spiff helm, and one of its' powers was +2 Int. Man, it hurt giving that thing up, but the dialogue was the only fun part of the game for me.

--

Dream Park, Barsoom Project and The California Voodoo Game.

California Voodoo sounds familiar. Did that have the scene with the cargo cult and the zombies, one of which was one-legged and was played by a girl that was actually one-legged? Or am I thinking of a different book?

I wanted to read Barsoom Project, if only because of the name. I have an inordinate fondness for John Carter of Mars.

--

We also just finished a D&D 3.5 campaign at 22nd level. It was almost pure dungeoncrawl, so wasn't horribly long...only 4 months, I think. A lot of fun, but definitely helped us realize why they made so many of the changes they did for 4th edition.

As much as I recognise the flaws in 3E, everything I've seen about 4E just puts me off badly.

I'm on the young side for the board here, I can tell, by how I remember the Bard's Tale trilogy and Wasteland. While other kids in the neighborhood would go play ball with their dads, my brother and I learned how to draw maps on graph paper so we didn't get hopelessly lost wandering around in those games.

Heh, I did the same stuff with graph paper.

--

As for the old fashioned Role Playing, I used to play AD&D, Call of Cuthulu, Vampire the Masquarade, Pendragon, GURPS, Cyberpunk and others. Vampire being my favourite.

I'm such a geek!!!!!!!

Pendragon is SO good. It really is one of the lost gems of gaming.

And, let's face it, there is no modern combat system cleaner than CP2020 and their Friday Night Firefight.

 

[Recidiva]

California Voodoo sounds familiar. Did that have the scene with the cargo cult and the zombies, one of which was one-legged and was played by a girl that was actually one-legged? Or am I thinking of a different book?

I wanted to read Barsoom Project, if only because of the name. I have an inordinate fondness for John Carter of Mars.

Cargo cult is Dream Park, the first one. South Pacific setting.

Barsoom project is Inuit culture.

California Voodoo is post-earthquake California, with voodoo. But the point to the final book is that the whole thing isn't just for the gamers, it's televised and the whole game thing has gone much higher tech and higher stake.

 

[myinnerslut]

Yes, just that. Made our little game interesting as both players were the GM's girlfriend.

My life is so weird.

you did NOT treat us like THAT!

 

[JustaNobody]

From my experience, the "GM's girlfriend syndrome" generally becomes problematic when she's the dominant member of their relationship, so the guy fudges rules out of fear she'll get even later. On the other end of the spectrum, I have a friend who told his girlfriend(now wife) after sex, "That was great honey, you get 50 experience points!" and she just complained because he thought of it first.

 

[Recidiva]

From my experience, the "GM's girlfriend syndrome" generally becomes problematic when she's the dominant member of their relationship, so the guy fudges rules out of fear she'll get even later. On the other end of the spectrum, I have a friend who told his girlfriend(now wife) after sex, "That was great honey, you get 50 experience points!" and she just complained because he thought of it first.

Yup, they sound like cool folks. You can be a GM and a GM's girlfriend (or boyfriend) without being prone to the syndrome.

Just like you can play tennis without having tennis elbow.

 

[Homburg]

Cargo cult is Dream Park, the first one. South Pacific setting.

Barsoom project is Inuit culture.

California Voodoo is post-earthquake California, with voodoo. But the point to the final book is that the whole thing isn't just for the gamers, it's televised and the whole game thing has gone much higher tech and higher stake.

Okay, so I did read Barsoom Project then. My memory is apparently shot.

--

you did NOT treat us like THAT!

I was sooooooo easy on you guys. What, I think there was only one PC death the whole time, and that was at 1st level. Whee. If you guys even got below half hit points it was cause to mark it on the calendar.

*whistles innocently and prepares to duck*

 

[Homburg]

From my experience, the "GM's girlfriend syndrome" generally becomes problematic when she's the dominant member of their relationship, so the guy fudges rules out of fear she'll get even later. On the other end of the spectrum, I have a friend who told his girlfriend(now wife) after sex, "That was great honey, you get 50 experience points!" and she just complained because he thought of it first.

I was well known for taking bribes from my players. Never sex bribes, well, rarely sex bribes, but still very much someone that a player could curry favour with. My thinking was that if my game was so very important to one of my players that they were willing to spend real world cash to buy me dinner or what-not, then I was happy to make their game more enjoyable by giving them some nitnoy little bennie in game.

Once I ran a fairly low-fantasy game set in the Warhammer Fantasy universe. One of the players reeeeeally wanted a magic sword for his Bretonnian knight. Low fantasy game means magic swords are way rare, so I jokingly said that it would require a bribe of substance. We happened to be at the game store when I said this, and he asked me what it would take. I flippantly pointed to a box of miniatures that I wanted, but was to cheap to buy. Without looking at the price, he whipped out the credit card and bought them. DING, one magic sword coming up.

When we realised that said box was $70+, it became a bit more than a magic sword. The game left The Empire, and wandered quietly into Bretonnia, where his knightly status meant more, and his personal side interests turned into a rollicking huge plotline of epic proportions. Fortunately, I was skilled enough to keep everyone wound up and involved, and no one complained about GM favouritism as they were getting theirs as well. Good times.

Bribes are your friend.

 

[Arkhilokhus]

I was well known for taking bribes from my players. Never sex bribes, well, rarely sex bribes, but still very much someone that a player could curry favour with. My thinking was that if my game was so very important to one of my players that they were willing to spend real world cash to buy me dinner or what-not, then I was happy to make their game more enjoyable by giving them some nitnoy little bennie in game.

I've never understood the attitude of some that giving players what they want is somehow a Bad Thing. I mean, there should be challenge, of course, but still.

 

[akuyim]

I have been playing tabletop games for nearly 25 years now. They are my vice and i have many of them including Synnibar as Homburg mentioned, as well as two of my personal favorites Dark Conspiracy and Senzar.

I have played and ran nearly everything i can get my hands on. I also play WoW, i have an 80 troll rogue as my main.

 

[TerribleChester]

Anybody play Conan? I've heard that it's better than WOW.

 

[Recidiva]

Anybody play Conan? I've heard that it's better than WOW.

I've seen demos and I think we played some.

I find it hard to find a game with the humor and anachronistic glee that Warcraft has.

If you look around the Undead starter area you'll find a ton of little easter eggs. Names of horror directors and actors and such.

The "Dead Man's Party" quest has NPC's with the names (just slightly misspelled) of the band members of Oingo Boingo. Danny Elfman is instead Daniel Ulfman.

That sorta stuff makes me endlessly loyal.

Even Everquest 2 would have a Stephen Colbert quest with an NPC stating that the greatest threat was Bears.

FUNNY stuff. I'm not sure Conan had any sort of a sense of humor at all.

 

[JMohegan]

This is to avoid hijacking other non-gamers. Well, we already hijacked them, but...to try to avoid FURTHER hijacking non-gamers.

Tell your game stories here. Roleplay, board, dice, online, offline, running around in woods (LARP) and otherwise various and sundry welcome.

Password is: "The Cake Is A Lie"

I love most offline, competitive games involving a racquet, and every game I've ever tried involving a ball - including the ones at which I well and truly suck, such as soccer.

The password joke flew right over my head.

 

[Recidiva]

I love most offline, competitive games involving a racquet, and every game I've ever tried involving a ball - including the ones at which I well and truly suck, such as soccer.

The password joke flew right over my head.

"The Cake is a Lie" is from Portal. A very dark humor game that I can't actually play myself because it involves being...well...fast.

But I watched my son and husband play.

The setup is that you're stuck inside this death trap for the scientific purposes of developing new weaponry (i.e., it's being tested on you.) She keeps telling you there will be cake at the end. And at one point there's grafitti scrawled on the wall - in blood "The Cake Is A Lie!"

The vicious bitch computer looking over the experiments is named GLaDos and she's hilarious.

Another Johnathan Coulter song - these run during the end credits and I LOVE this:

The lyrics are my kinda genius.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6ljFaKRTrI&feature=related

This was a triumph!
I'm making a note here:
"HUGE SUCCESS!!"

It's hard to overstate
my satisfaction.

Aperture Science:
We do what we must
because we can.

For the good of all of us.
Except the ones who are dead.

But there's no sense crying
over every mistake.
You just keep on trying
till you run out of cake.
And the science gets done.
And you make a neat gun
for the people who are
still alive.

I'm not even angry...
I'm being so sincere right now-
Even though you broke my heart,
and killed me.

And tore me to pieces.
And threw every piece into a fire.
As they burned it hurt because
I was so happy for you!

Now, these points of data
make a beautiful line.
And we're out of beta.
We're releasing on time!
So I'm GLaD I got burned-
Think of all the things we learned-
for the people who are
still alive.

Go ahead and leave me...
I think I'd prefer to stay inside...
Maybe you'll find someone else
to help you?
Maybe Black Mesa?
That was a joke! *HAHA- Fat Chance!*

Anyway this cake is great!
It's so delicious and moist!

Look at me: still talking
when there's science to do!
When I look out there,
it makes me GLaD I'm not you.

I've experiments to run.
There is research to be done.
On the people who are
still alive.
And believe me I am
still alive.
I'm doing science and I'm
still alive.
I feel fantastic and I'm
still alive.
While you're dying I'll be
still alive.
And when you're dead I will be
still alive.

Still alive.

Still alive.

 

[JMohegan]

Ha! Thanks for explaining.

I've watched my nephew play a couple of games, so I sort of have an idea as to what you're talking about here.

 

[jockdom]

Pendragon is SO good. It really is one of the lost gems of gaming.

And, let's face it, there is no modern combat system cleaner than CP2020 and their Friday Night Firefight.
__________________
Pendragon was great. In my home town there is still a game running which started 17 years ago!

I remember when we started we didn't have any D20 so we used 3 D6 and worked our way round it.

 

[ResAris]

Anybody play Conan? I've heard that it's better than WOW.

I've been playing AoC since launch, and absolutely love it. I'm a Guild Wars refugee, and look forward to the release of GW2. Which reminds me; an earlier post showed the WoW version of "The internet is for porn". The following is the GW version (which I found more entertaining):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPTnxrZeCWE

A humorous video depicting life on a RP-PvP server is shown below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G23PR_QoynA

 

[Homburg]

I've never understood the attitude of some that giving players what they want is somehow a Bad Thing. I mean, there should be challenge, of course, but still.

Heh, well, in my book, giving the players what they want is a challenging story with lots of fun, that they will talk about out of game. And the core of what they really want is the interaction between friends (including the GM).

I don't do too much impersonal gaming, and prefer to work only with people that I know well. The LARP modified that, as I went from being entirely exclusive (I actually had an informal waiting list for spots in my game at one point) to being completely inclusive. Did you walk in the door and express even a smidgeon of interest? Cool, here's an experienced player to tell you how the game works. Make up a character and we'll get you involved tonight.

At the end of the day, I liken my work as a GM to a director/producer of a movie. If I want an audience, I have to please my audience. If I want to please my audience, I have to know my audience. If I want to really know them, it helps to like them.

And some days, yeah, they're my friends. I want to see them smile. And if a sporty magic sword will make em smile (and not unbalance my game) dude, you earned that sword, yeah.

--

I have been playing tabletop games for nearly 25 years now. They are my vice and i have many of them including Synnibar as Homburg mentioned, as well as two of my personal favorites Dark Conspiracy and Senzar.

Haha! Man, I feel like the only person that bought that Synnibar book. I still have it. I had the expansion for it too. Even more psychotic. Still, I mined it for ideas. I'm a whore like that

And Dork Conspiracy, wow, another obscure game. Er, Dark Conspiracy, sorry, long habit of my overall gaming group refusing to call it by name for no reason other than it made people laugh. I have a Dark Conspiracy Prole ID card somewhere. They were giving them out at Origins 91, the year they intro'ed the game (I think). (I traded one of the prole cards for a Shadowrun Docwagon card.)

Senzar I am unfamiliar with.

--

"The Cake is a Lie" is from Portal. A very dark humor game that I can't actually play myself because it involves being...well...fast.

I have been wanting to play this game. I am just not willing to buy the box with all the other games that I'm not interested in.

 

[Recidiva]

I have been wanting to play this game. I am just not willing to buy the box with all the other games that I'm not interested in.

It's available for an X-Box 360 rental, I think.

But then if you don't have an X-Box 360...

We have everything. /proud

 

[Homburg]

It's available for an X-Box 360 rental, I think.

But then if you don't have an X-Box 360...

We have everything. /proud

We have a Wii.

Wii > all when there are small kids involved

 

[Recidiva]

We have a Wii.

Wii > all when there are small kids involved

I think here in the house we have...

About five computers, two X-Box 360s, a PS3, about four PS2s, a WII, two old X-Boxes, a gamecube...

For four people.