The Granddaddy of Them All: Tabletop RPG thread

[Anthony Edward Stark]

I looked backwards for ALMOST THREE PAGES and found out we didn't have one of these, so I'm fucking making one.

I like tabletop games.  I've been playing BattleTech for about 15 years now.  Still can't paint a miniature for shit, but that's what knowing dudes from Camo Specs Online is for. Recently, though, I've been playing in a different system: the newest Marvel RPG system.  I find its general spirit very enjoyable; rather than be a serious RPG based on superhuman powers like, say, M&M, MRPG thinks of itself as a "comic book simulator."  In fact, one of the lines in the core rulebook about character death says "even if your character is maxed out on trauma and dies or turns into a vegetable, don't get too upset!  People come back from worse stuff in comics all the time." 

Rather than be focused on having hard target numbers to hit like a D&D game with its AC numbers or BT's to-hit modifiers, everything in MHR is based on opposing dice rolls.  That means that Daredevil can throw four eight-sided dice against Galactus' pool of 4d12 3d10 4d8 and still win if he does really well and Galactus does really poorly, because your target number is, by default, two dice.  You can change that through various things, mostly plot points (which the players get and spend to break rules) and doom dice (a pool of dice the Watcher keeps and uses at discretion) but the main point is, there's never a point where someone is totally unable to do anything.  No matter what there's always a chance that your punch manages to find the place that Terrax the Destroyer keeps his dick.

I've been running a game for a while now.  We are a superhero non-team (Iron Man is planning on reforming the Avengers, but he hasn't yet made his speech about how Earth's Mightiest Heroes were brought together to face a foe no one hero could face alone) made up of Iron Man, Dr. Strange, Spider-Man (Iron Spider armor forthcoming), the Beast, She-Hulk (with stolen Carnage powers) and Iron Fist.  We started out playing through the Breakout scenario, based on the first arc of Bendis' New Avengers, but I took it off the rails after we let the Raft.  Turns out it was orchestrated by Dr. Doom, who set the whole thing up as a diversion so he could try to siphon the power of Mjolnir using a complicated magic ritual and an orbital satellite platform.  You remember how I said everything was based on opposing dice rolls?  It's intentionally super-hard to pull Mjolnir out of the ground.  She-Hulk tried and failed, and got thrown through a building for it by Doom (who is using Mjolnir to give him control over weather because his intellect knows no equals).  But backed into a corner, Iron Fist decided to give it a go, and he rolled really well, and I rolled really badly, which means the Immortal Iron Fist... has been judged worthy.

On the other hand, it's not all great for our heroes.  Mjolnir was also powering a spell that Doom used to push all the people in town out of phase, as a sort of human shield tactic, figuring they wouldn't tamper with the enchantment if it was keeping the people out of his line of fire.  But pulling the hammer took it out all at once, and now there's people all over the place as the team pretty much levels a shitty town in Oklahoma.  It's actually kind of worked out well for me, because I now have a perfect segue into Civil War (our next adventure, and yes, it will be better than the original version). 

So that's been my tabletop campaign thus far.  What do you play, what have your campaigns been like, and so on?

[SnowFire]

I like tabletop games, but I prefer pretentious narrative based games ideally which tend to suit themselves either for one-shots, or for hardcore unemployed GMs who have tons of time to do that kind of plots properly.  I don't necessarily mean totally systemless or anything, just I'd rather the focus be on the plot, and the actual fightin' to be "yeah yeah you win unless your plan was totally stupid in which case we'll roll it out."

That said, as far as campaigns, it's D&D and D&D spinoffs that have actually  been run by friends in my area, so that's what I've done.  Was in a D&D 3.5 campaign for awhlie but the GM had a kid, which has pretty well crimped playing of it.  It was a tad too system-heavy and not really character based for my tastes, but whatever, I can do a social D&D that's a tad hack & slashy.  Still technically alive but we haven't had a session in awhile.

Other than that, playing in a Pathfinder campaign at the moment (Pathfinder = D&D 3.75 for those who don't know).  We're only 2 sessions in (3 counting the character creation party), but it's potentially amusing, with a solid custom setting & some potential for a volatile overplot that our characters can screw with.  Again, I personally wouldn't really be doing D&D on my preference, but hey, system is well-known, and in fantasy settings it's very easy to come up with excuses for some more combat.  Our GM so far has kept it to two-legged monsters, which is appreciated, as while hacking through the occasional monster is fine, give me fighting antagonistic D&D organizations & groups anytime.  (If you don't mind some out of context mustaches, some amusing pictures from our previous session).

There's also one-shots at GenCon every year, which totally counts.

[VySaika]

This is actually my primary hobby, with video games coming second.

I play in: several play by post games on RPoL(Roleplay Online, obviously a pbp site), one  3.5 game that gets run 1/month or so that Jenna runs for me and the sprog, and one pathfinder game that gets run 2/month by dude who lives pretty close to here that I met on the internet(from soulriders, if any of you hang out there too).

I run: one pbp game on RPoL and two solo games for Jenna.

Having said that, I run far, far, far more then I play, since we're playing one or another of those solo games 2-3 times a week. <_<;

DnD 3.5 is my system of choice, though what I run doesn't really resemble RAW too much anymore. I like to create stuff, races, classes, PRCs, variants, etc, and I'm familiar enough with 3.5 to know how shit works and be able to make stuff in it fast and have it work right. Pathfinder is also cool, and Mutants and Masterminds will do in a pinch. I'm willing to play just about any system, but only run the ones I know really well.

[Captain K.]

Honestly haven't done any real rpging in years.  Some of the students in my class play D&D and invited me, but it conflicts with my Perfect World addiction.

But seeing the mention of the new Marvel RPG made me want to plug the previous Marvel RPG (the diceless one, not FASERIP).  It had a wonderful, rather well-balanced character creation system and was a breeze to play online.  Used to have a blast just making characters and having them fight battle royale style with other people's characters online.

[Sierra]

All my traditional gaming is done via IRC. This is fine by me since I'm more articulate in print than in speech, and anyway I always run female characters and that's less awkward on the internets than in person. And with a monitor between me and everyone else they can't tell that I'm horribly unprepared for everything and mostly making it up as I go.

It does mean that Hatbot does all our rolling, though.

Any game I participate in or run is based over at Soulriders. DnD 3.5 is pretty common, or Pathfinder. I prefer to stick with systems I'm familiar with when running things, as I am tremendously lazy and the less work I have to spend on preparing the mechanics of it all, the better.

I have run several games. First was an original fantasy setting running in Tristat (not spectacular but it gets the job done) which ended after a relatively short time, highlighting mostly the fact that I am way too brain-fried to run games right after work but also that I am very lazy. Then was an original sci-fi setting using a d20 Star Wars system (functional, but not terribly exciting in practice) that ran for a somewhat longer duration before petering out largely due to conceptual flaws. I consider these learning experiences! For which reason I flailed somewhat less egregiously when subsequently running what was basically Shadow Hearts with Nazis In It (I was sad that we never received this thing) using d20 Modern (very clunky, not recommended). This ran for...a little over a year? Getting through maybe 40% of its intended plot. The primary lesson here is that everything takes two or three times as long in practice as I expect it to. Even when I plan short. I subsequently ran what was pretty much Castlevania in Pathfinder (Pathfinder is pro and I recommend it) intending it to be maybe three months and it finished at eight. So yeah, something like 2.5x planning to playing multiplier.

I am currently running a planar campaign in 3.5, though it's so heavily houseruled that it's functionally Pathfinder anyway (I prefer the latter, had decided to go with 3.5 just to grab established monster builds tied to the setting to make gameprep easier). I am always having other ideas for things to run, but it is not possible for me to deal with more than one game at a time, so they just have to wait in line.

As a general rule, I am better at the storytelling aspects of gaming than the actual gameplay. I freely admit that I do not know how to properly balance combat, and probably for fear of murdering the party and, you know, ending the story prematurely, I tend to build battles that are easier than they should be. For better or worse, Cidgame is talkygame. It is basically interactive fiction for me--I don't have the discipline or focus to actually write anything on my own, but it's much easier when it's a collaborative enterprise (that I can still retain control over).

Of course, as a player I tend to favor the same priorities. Hitting the bad dudes is not as interesting as why we are hitting the bad dudes.

[AndrewRogue]

Unfortunately, I also really haven't RPed in years. I do keep up with the news, but I've shifted my focus to general tabletop gaming rather than RP.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Been RPing on and off with some friends for... gosh, close to a decade now. (I also tried a bit in high school, but it never stuck.) Currently in a D&D4 campaign which is good fun, been going for three and half years.