Not only do I remember it, I was friends with Dave Hargrave!
Old-school RPG's?
- Thread starter Itisnotlogical
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Not only do I remember it, I was friends with Dave Hargrave!
"Ars Magica" is great. On a lighter note I have good memories of playing "Toon" years ago with friends. As the name suggests you're in a cartoon world so anything can happen. As I recall the last game I played I played as a coathanger. Good times.
The gaming world lost a great creative mind when he died.
The Arduin crit and fumble charts added a fun twist to our D&D games.
I agree, and they were added to the AD&D games I played as well. Those charts also inspired the Crit/Special and Fumble charts in RuneQuest and the other Chaosium games that used the Basic Role-Playing rules as it's basis.
Every week for the last 5 years or so. About 9 months in to my very first d&d campaign and I'm enjoying it. Before that it was pirates, spies, space marines and super heroes. Always a good time.
In fact last weekend we had sort of a mini convention, a whole weekend of gaming. One of the games we played was based in the Cthulu universe and took place during WWII. We were all playing Nazi SS soldiers, each with intersecting agendas and backgrounds trapped deep in the african jungle. Don't want to give away any more just in case anyone else wants to try it, but it was a blast. Paranoia, fascism, and H.P. Lovecraft. Probably one of the most entertaining single session campaigns ever.
In fact last weekend we had sort of a mini convention, a whole weekend of gaming. One of the games we played was based in the Cthulu universe and took place during WWII. We were all playing Nazi SS soldiers, each with intersecting agendas and backgrounds trapped deep in the african jungle. Don't want to give away any more just in case anyone else wants to try it, but it was a blast. Paranoia, fascism, and H.P. Lovecraft. Probably one of the most entertaining single session campaigns ever.
In case anyone was thinking of running it. The scenario given is that you're part of a Nazi mining company deep in africa looking for gold. Each character is given a sheet with a brief description of their background, motivation and goals. Some of them want to kill others, some want to just do their job, others are completely clueless and one is a british spy. The campaign opens with two NPC's walking in to a PC's tent and telling them that they've found something strange while digging. After that it's up to the players agendas to mold the rest of the campaign. In our campaign everyone ended up killing each other, and the final survivor ends up being captured by the british, only to spread demonic sickness throughout europe.
That was a fun game as well! I used to run a campaign that I had to stop because it grew to be too big to run at anyone's house. I ran a campaign during the time I worked at the local game store, Games Of Berkeley, and I kept having to tell my customers the game was closed after word got out that it was so much fun to play. This was a game where everyone was a mutant and belonged to a secret society in a world where being a mutant or belonging to a secret society was considered treason. Luckily, each player had five spare clones to be activated if the one being used gets killed for some reason.
My players would be constantly passing notes to me, not wanting to reveal what they were about to do. One player who had the power of precognition, sent me a note that he was actively trying to use his power when he felt the group's leader, an NPC, had some nefarious motives. So his power tells him that the group leader was about to draw his gun and shoot their supervisor who had a much higher security level (as he was actually about to do until the next second).
So this player reads the note and then, planning on saving their supervisor and making himself look good, draws his weapon and begins to level it at the group leader (who had a higher security clearance than the player). The other players see this, yell "GUN!", and they all level their weapons and shoot the player dead while he was standing there stunned by their reaction to his altering of time. Pulling a gun on a person of higher security clearance was also a treasonous offense, you see. So everyone else got credit for stopping this "traitor", and he activated the next clone in line to continue playing.
Just one of about eight deaths that night during a mission titled (IIRC) "Frigidaire", where the players have to analyze and repair an old refrigerator. Good times.
Reminds me of a session we once played on a Con with a game called Degenesis (a postapocalyptic game set in Europe).
I was playing a Judge (think Judge Dredd), a girl played a member of a tech cult, another one was something close to a hooker and 2 brawlers.
We were on our way to the adventure and had to cross a village full of religious fanatics.. they spot our "hooker" and want to burn her on the stake.
Result of the entire thing? Half of the village is burned down, most of the group is wounded, a guy has toasted the village leader with his flamethrower and i, as the leader of Law, have thrown out the book of Law and gone on a rampage!
And we didn't even get to the real adventure...
Reminds me of a session we once played on a Con with a game called Degenesis (a postapocalyptic game set in Europe).
I was playing a Judge (think Judge Dredd), a girl played a member of a tech cult, another one was something close to a hooker and 2 brawlers.
We were on our way to the adventure and had to cross a village full of religious fanatics.. they spot our "hooker" and want to burn her on the stake.
Result of the entire thing? Half of the village is burned down, most of the group is wounded, a guy has toasted the village leader with his flamethrower and i, as the leader of Law, have thrown out the book of Law and gone on a rampage!
And we didn't even get to the real adventure...
That is one of the better things that an old school RPG and a good gamemaster will always have over the current computer RPGs. The ability to allow the game to go off on some unplanned tangent and then just run with the change. I often found the more spontaneous the game, the greater the fun. It was somewhere where anything could, and often did, happen.
I used to play D&D almost every day back in Junior High and High School. That was in the early to mid-80's so it was strictly first edition with the six core books and even before miniatures took off. I haven't played in over 20 years but I still get the urge to go back to that world. I am still very much into the whole mythology of that world. I even own a few of the books just because I like to read them.
I know there is gaming in my area, but I always get a little shy in these situations. Even if I wasn't shy I'd be little intimidated though. There has been 4 different editions come out since my day and I still don't know what the difference between Planescape, Greyhawk, and Forgotten Realms is. I am curious does the latest edition of the game completely supplant the older ones or do people still play different editions depending on their preferences? Are the rules for each edition significantly different or is it just the details like the different class abilities that change? What are your preferences for what you like to play?
I know there is gaming in my area, but I always get a little shy in these situations. Even if I wasn't shy I'd be little intimidated though. There has been 4 different editions come out since my day and I still don't know what the difference between Planescape, Greyhawk, and Forgotten Realms is. I am curious does the latest edition of the game completely supplant the older ones or do people still play different editions depending on their preferences? Are the rules for each edition significantly different or is it just the details like the different class abilities that change? What are your preferences for what you like to play?
Different groups will play different editions, and most groups will have various house rules supplanting the book rules that fit their style. My advice is to find a group with players you like, and a DM who is a good storyteller, and the rest will come with time.
Like I mentioned above, my group plays a complete house rules system. it's mostly 3.5, but we've kept some things from 2ed we really like, and we have a custom magic system which is pretty similar to how magic works in 4ed. Our DM also rewards roleplaying/parley and non-combat with XP pretty well, so our group tends to be a lot less hack-n-slash then the stock rules.
The different rules systems are pretty wildly different. AD&D had a lot of... I use this word loosely... but realism in it's engine. You wouldn't find oddballs like Half-orc Wizards in a 2ed campaign, the stock rules just didn't allow for it. It also tended to be a much slower moving system, as every action you wanted to take had a table associated with it SOMEWHERE, so you were always digging through obscure books. Multi-classing was a complete headache, and every class had its own XP chart, so the "harder" classes levelled slower, but were more powerful. AD&D required boatloads of exotic die (d30, I'm looking at you), and everything required a different type of die.
3ed (and by extension 3.5) came along from a good place. It wanted to simplify and streamline. It was known as d20 system because ALL skill and attack rolls were based off a d20. You still needed one each of the random die for things like damage and HP, but they were used MUCH less frequently. it's an open system, so if you can think it, you can be it, and the rules will help.
4ed, I haven't played (i have too much invested into 3ed to switch up) but from what I've read they've over simplified to the point that anyone can jump in and know all the rules in 10 minutes. I know it requires a board for everything (3rd ed had some flexibility in this). I know they also worked long and hard to perfectly balance all classes, so at the same level a warrior is just as effective as a druid or a wizard, etc.
