So, roleplaying games!

[Klaus van der Kroft]

There are few activities I can think of that go so well hand-in-hand than map-making and roleplaying. So I'm guessing many of us here either roleplay, have roleplayed or are interested in roleplaying games.

What games do you play, and which ones are your favourites? On the other hand, which ones do you want to play but have not had the chance to? What about your roleplaying group? Any interesting experiences to share?

As for myself, I've been playing since 1996 with pretty much the same group of friends ever since (we had one player leave about a decade ago and a new one join in 2010). Though we have had some dry spells (particularly in the heavier university years of the mid 2010's), we have gone through a lot of games together. And since they are all lazy bastards, I've been the DM for almost the whole 15 years we've been playing together.

We prefer fantasy roleplaying, mainly D&D. We grew up with AD&D 2e, so while we no longer play it regularly (Pathfinder took over in 2010, and prior to that it was D&D 3.5 since 2003), it holds a honourary spot as out favourite game. Our main game, which gathers us twice per month on saturdays, is Pathfinder (pretty much D&D 3.75, created as an alternative to D&D 4e for those who prefered 3.5's way of doing things), intermingled with 7th Sea (a cape-&-sword game of high adventure in a fantasy world very similar to XVII century Europe), Space 1889 (a game set in an alternate XIX century where steam-powered ships have taken humanity to conquer the canals of Mars and hunt dinosaurs in the jungles of Venus), and Ars Magica 5e (a game set in the XII century where players participate -mostly- as very powerful wizards). From time to time I manage to convince them to play some old OD&D module which ends up with everyone dead in a matter of hours, though.



What about you guys?

[MindOfTheo]

Normally I play console based roleplaying games since I don't know enough people in real life to do table top roleplays anymore. The RPG's I have played are Mass Effect 1, 2, and 3. Elder Scrolls Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim, and some J-RPG's like Final Fantasy and such. The only series of rpgs I can think of that I want to get into is the "Tales of" series, but they don't port them over to the U.S. much anymore.

Ah. Now for the fun part of my reply. There was a point a couple of years where me, my wife, my brother and sister in law, and my friend and his fiancee played a Star Wars Roleplay at my house for almost a year. Now, I forgot all of the characters or their race name, but this is what I remember. I played this green squid head guy I called "Hun-Gari" who was the rogue pilot, my wife played a female space elf that was my co-pilot (he let her create that), my brother-in-law played a male Bothan who was our assassin, my sister-in-law played a female zabrak jedi master, and my friends fiancee played a space ferrett / squarrel / rat thing that was a jedi apprentice... we don't know what the race was... and my friend was the DM. Oh the stories. Sadly, I can't go into too much detail due to site rules, but we had some fun times with it:

Fun moment 1) So, there was this time where my Squid head, and the bothan walk into a bar. Twi'lek dancers everywhere. Well. Both our characters got a little tipsy and they both ended up having a "fun night." For me anyways. See. Supposedly, the Bothan got so drunk he ended up going to a room with a Gungan... and the gungan walked out a happy man. My character on the other hand caused such... "a disturbance in the force" that of the two ladies he was with, one committed suicide, and the other was so messed up on the inside, she couldnt have kids anymore... and then my character got banned from the bar.

Fun moment 2) So, our characters are standing around trying to figure out what to do, and the DM hinted that the Jedi master should role a force check... well, she rolled a force check and got a 1. Her response? "Hey guys! Guys!.... I think... I'm a jedi!"

Fun moment 3) Our characters were later captured by a hutt lord and thrown into a pit with a rancor. Well we killed the rancor and were making our escape when I joked, "Pfft, I bet I could take on all of these guys!" Since like, 20 guys had jumped into the arena with us. Our DM looked at me and told me to roll a dodge check for every guy there and lucky for me, I didn't get hit once.

So yeah, those are my fun stories and sadly after that rp, I lost contact with my friend and some other family matters happened, so it will be a while till I can get going again.

[Joshua]

Roleplaying. Mwahaha! That's actually what got me more interested in learning cartography. I enjoy GMing partially because I love creating worlds. But the worlds are always so much better with maps to go along with them! This works the other way, too... As a player, I love exploring other worlds created by other GMs, and the greater the depth, the more I enjoy it.

I started playing AD&D 2e as well, around the mid 90s too. When I finally found a steady group, we rarely played one particular system and often even smashed systems together to create hybrids. We also did use GURPS and D&D 3.5 though. That group lasted for several years until a lot of us (myself included) moved away. I hadn't played again until about 2008. Now I'm in a couple different groups, and I GM one of them (we also share a couple players among the groups, too). Similarly, I absolutely dig Pathfinder. It's a really well done "next step" to D&D, and I enjoy it a heck of a lot better than 4e. Truth be told, I can't stand 4e. However, I also still love GURPS and it's a constant battle as to which system (PF or GURPS) I want to use for my campaigns. We recently played a Rogue Trader adventure, and that was a lot of fun. And my fiance's working on starting up a Shadowrun adventure soon.

Over all, while we use particular systems for the base of the rules, we almost always play homebrews (both the adventure and the setting). Because of that, new maps are always needed. Finding this forum was like finding a hidden treasure.

[ravells]

Heh .... great stories! One of the best things about real life RPGs is that there's invariably a belly laugh moment which you remember for years. Generally they are mostly of the 'you had to be there' variety though.

[Korash]

hehe...

Like the time my ace pilot blew so many rolls in Space Master and had a planet smack him down while he was doing nap of the earth over the water....damn whales

[ravells]

Slightly off topic, but this had me in stitches for about 5 minutes.

http://www.wimp.com/shooterdisease/


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxF0vygnF2Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SouhxAZoTi4

[Jaxilon]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SouhxAZoTi4

At 1:31 is that one of Torstan's battle maps? Looks like it could be.

[Jaxilon]

I use GURPS almost exclusively. I own several books and I'm not that kind of guy who wants to just buy a ton of books to have some fun. If I don't know of a rule I make one up, the group votes on it's fairness and the dice fly.

My first introduction to RPGs was (let's get in the wayback machine) in the 70's when DnD showed up around my Junior High School. The whole concept just hijacked my imagination and consumed so many hours I can't bear to think about it. We eventually got into other games like Gamma World, Boot Hill, Top Secret, just to name a few before I discovered GURPS. We used to take turns being the DM back in the day but being kids it was pretty much player against the dungeon with the GM trying to kill you off. It sure taught you to think outside the box because if you just went along blithely you were sure to get crunched. Over the years I was the one who became the GM almost exclusively. We had a guy who used to run Star Wars for a couple years but he moved away. Now, it's just me and we only get to play about once a year which sucks. It could be more but I'm usually just too busy with life to get it all together.

There have been a lot of great times with our group and they still talk about them today, which goes to show the enjoyment that folks get out of being a part of a good story. Our core group consists of myself as GM, my wife, two of my oldest friends, one of their sons, and my sister. My world is basically a collapsed future mankind where technology sort of destroyed the world. Now basically a mid evil society with various groups and secret societies complete with castles and all. Technology takes place of magic and mutations can be found almost anywhere. (Some from fallout and others from mankind's genetic experiments.) There is a lot of other stuff but that would take a story in itself. The caveat with technology is that it has been blamed for the loss of a Utopia so anyone using it has to keep it on the down low or risk possible mob action depending on where they are. So, the technologist has his normal looking staff which isn't normal and/or gadgets that look like ordinary everyday things.

Some of the best times from my perspective as the GM:

1) The adventurers got into a pile of unguarded treasure including a fancy looking staff. The noob technologist recognized it as a Tech Staff and quickly grabbed hold of it. This created a connection that overloaded her system and she fell unconscious on the ground. Well, everyone just made sure she was breathing and then went back to loading up their bags of loot. Until the guardian showed up that is. Well, facing an irked Dragon and being trapped in the trove of goodies, the Dwarf says, "Let's toss the unconscious player to the beast and skedaddle while he's busy". You should have heard my sister start yelling about how much they all sucked!

2) Same adventure they were split up trying to get off the spire while that Dragon hunted them - one of the players found a relic from one of the races who used to fly using a sort of hang glider and they decide to try it. They assemble this thing as best they can while an angry Dragon is tearing down the walls trying to get to them and finally they leap out into space to begin flying. Well, it went pretty good for a couple of seconds, LOL.

3) Locked in a life and death battle the fighters hold off a force while the brains of the team are trying to figure out the runes and get this transportation portal activated. Eventually they get it more or less figured out and placing their hand on the device the players begin to *Poof* wink out off the room. Meanwhile one of the archers is hit and falls to the ground. The Dwarf, one of the main combatants in any fight grabs his unmoving comrade and drags him to the portal. He then holds the archers hand against it. The other two players fighting in the room yell, "Noooo!!" as I say, *POOF*, and both the archer and dwarf touching him are transported far away. The dwarf just looks at the two left behind and says, "Opps, sorry."

One more thing - It always seems our Dwarf player tries to climb a wall or cliff and he almost always falls. He's broken both his legs before and it's to the point now if he falls he has to make a phobia check. For some reason, even though he has climbing as a skill, he flubs the roll and everyone including him starts grinning the moment he starts to climb.

Right now I have to create a map of a lost civilization underneath a mountain before we can play again but that's been on hold while I do commissions. (which reminds me, I need to get back to them).

[loogie]

I haven't been able to roleplay in years, tho I keep up on systems and stuff and constantly try to set something up irl or online (using maptool for instance)... but nothing come of them...

I too started in dnd, however it is not my favourite... I find it too limiting and number crunching, depending the the DM and players your playing with... I have a soft spot on my heart for everything Iron Crown Enterprise related, (Rolemaster, Middle Earth Role Playing, or High Adventure Role Playing) mainly because their source material is amazing... For GM's (DM's to u dnders) I enterely suggest the book "GM's Law"... which is about 75 pages of system inspecific gold for creating, understanding, and running your games.. from story design, to helping players get the most out of their games... it's a great read...

Lately I have gone over to the FUDGE side of things, for I find it's all encompassing qualities quite interesting.. I'm specifically working with the system called FATE, which has a number of cool features I really like.. one of which is character creation.. in which you actually design your characters background, not pick skills.. in the end your skills come from the background you choose, which is built as a basis of the storyline the GM creates.. it all fits, it all works, and it is so much more then choosing what type of character you want to play.

[haha i went on a rant here.. but i'm thinking of making a blog entry on it.. so stay tuned]

Mapping to me is a passion... I believe my love of maps started with all those juicy fold-outs and such that come when you buy a game.. but my passion really flowered when I started taking GIS in highschool... Seeing first hand the stuff you can do with information blows my mind.. the analysis that you can do with results like the flow of rivers, the best habitat for a specific species based on it's shade requirements, grade, soil, distance from civilization... not to mention remote senseing blows my mind.. and honestly makes me want to create a world using such advanced tools... the data and methods are lacking when it comes to fantasy mapping.. but i believe that one day.. people like waldronate (creator of Wilbur) and many others (many of em here) will end up creating a series of tools that will make it possible to create a world randomly based on a big bang.. create the topography, extrapolate climates, place wildlife and resources and settle cities all in a plausibly sound way... It'd be amazing i tell you.. and I look forward to that day.

[torstan]

OT: @Jaxillon - not mine, that's one of Mie Schley's Thanks for the compliment though.

As for myself, I play D&D in all its forms. These days I run a 4e group and a Pathfinder group using maptool and skype with old college groups.