ATTN: Old school pen-n-paper RPG'ers-

Mak · Post by **Mak** » June 19, 2008, 12:13 am

I'm soliciting comments on interest in a P&P RPG forum in our Games forum.

Are you a pen-n-paper, dice rolling gamer? Are you at all interested in the new 4th Edition of D&D? Mutants & Masterminds? Fireborn? Exalted? Iron Heroes? Other?

If you have an interest, please comment.

Thanks!

Spang · Post by **Spang** » June 19, 2008, 12:23 am

I'd wait a couple of months. If people are still RPGing by then, then give it its own forum.

Until then, make a bunch of threads and put "RPG" in front of every title.

Midnyte_Ragebringer · Post by **Midnyte_Ragebringer** » June 19, 2008, 1:14 am

Spang wrote:I'd wait a couple of months. If people are still RPGing by then, then give it its own forum.

Until then, make a bunch of threads and put "RPG" in front of every title.

LOL

Ashur · Post by **Ashur** » June 19, 2008, 1:58 pm

Hey Mak!

I have a group of friends that gets together weekly and has since about 1987 to play games. We started out with D&D, played a bunch of other RPGs (Call of Cthulhu, Vampire etc) then played MtG for a year or so before playing LAN games and then switching back to D&D with 3.5. Throughout that whole time we'd have occasional nights (both scheduled and when we didn't have a quarom for whatever RPG campaign was going on) where we'd play board games (Settlers of Cataan, Kingmaker, Munchkin, any number of "Eurogames", etc).

We have a 3.5 Greyhawk campaign going on now, but gave 4E combat a try because one of the guys who's normally a player offered to run a 4E campaign when the 3.5 one wraps up.

I ran a Judges Guild Wilderlands campaign using Conan RPG rules that Sylvos and Vaemas played in along with some other folks over on http://www.sylvos.com/SMF. I'm running a continuation of that campaign as an event at GenCon this year (off the grid, not a catalog event).

If you want to talk games, I'm all ears, but I know people have their panties in a bunch over wanting a Age of Conan subforum of games (I canceled my AoC subscription yesterday because I don't have the time for it, may do the same for EQ2 if work doesn't let up...).

I will probably subscribe to the new digital initiative thing if WotC ever pull their heads out of their asses and give us something instead of vaporware propaganda, because I like online play. I was a Living Greyhawk player (both online, home games, and at cons) and am not that keen on Forgotten Realms. I'm curious how easy the game table will be to work with other systems though because I'd love to be able to run my Conan/Wilderlands game live instead of just by message board, but it's 3.5 OGL.

I've used OpenRPG and Fantasy Grounds II and while I think FG2 is closer to the experience they want, it's a PITA to run games through it due to the server prep work involved.

Sabek · Post by **Sabek** » June 19, 2008, 3:33 pm

Ashur wrote:Hey Mak!

I have a group of friends that gets together weekly and has since about 1987 to play games. We started out with D&D, played a bunch of other RPGs (Call of Cthulhu, Vampire etc) then played MtG for a year or so before playing LAN games and then switching back to D&D with 3.5. Throughout that whole time we'd have occasional nights (both scheduled and when we didn't have a quarom for whatever RPG campaign was going on) where we'd play board games (Settlers of Cataan, Kingmaker, Munchkin, any number of "Eurogames", etc).

We have a 3.5 Greyhawk campaign going on now, but gave 4E combat a try because one of the guys who's normally a player offered to run a 4E campaign when the 3.5 one wraps up.

I ran a Judges Guild Wilderlands campaign using Conan RPG rules that Sylvos and Vaemas played in along with some other folks over on http://www.sylvos.com/SMF. I'm running a continuation of that campaign as an event at GenCon this year (off the grid, not a catalog event).

If you want to talk games, I'm all ears, but I know people have their panties in a bunch over wanting a Age of Conan subforum of games (I canceled my AoC subscription yesterday because I don't have the time for it, may do the same for EQ2 if work doesn't let up...).

I will probably subscribe to the new digital initiative thing if WotC ever pull their heads out of their asses and give us something instead of vaporware propaganda, because I like online play. I was a Living Greyhawk player (both online, home games, and at cons) and am not that keen on Forgotten Realms. I'm curious how easy the game table will be to work with other systems though because I'd love to be able to run my Conan/Wilderlands game live instead of just by message board, but it's 3.5 OGL.

I've used OpenRPG and Fantasy Grounds II and while I think FG2 is closer to the experience they want, it's a PITA to run games through it due to the server prep work involved.

Nerd

Ashur · Post by **Ashur** » June 19, 2008, 4:15 pm

Takes one to know one!

Sabek · Post by **Sabek** » June 19, 2008, 4:24 pm

I suppose

Truant · Post by **Truant** » June 19, 2008, 4:32 pm

I haven't played pen and paper since 2nd edition AD&D.
I really miss it tbh.

Siji · Post by **Siji** » June 19, 2008, 4:57 pm

If you didn't play Gamma World, you suck.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » June 19, 2008, 5:03 pm

I do miss the round table board game get togethers. All the bullshitting that went along with the gaming was fun. Somehow, I don't think webcams would replace the face to face part of pen and paper games. Has anyone tried that? Some sort of app that placed webcam images around the outside with the center being a boardgame/hex mat for positioning stuff. Maybe skip the webcam and just do voices along with the game display on screen.

Kilmoll the Sexy · Post by **Kilmoll the Sexy** » June 20, 2008, 11:32 am

The OpenRPG kind of does that although without webcams, etc. You have an application that has hex grids on it that you and the DM can move around and also have maps that can be loaded to it. There is even a whiteboard feature that you can draw on if need be (and where I drew the scary dragon RAWR!)

Ash and I used Ventrilo for a while until he broke it so we could plot while playing. OpenRPG has a chat client and also has a client to handle dice rolls and a lot of customization features so all bonuses can be added in. The downside is that you can't use your lucky dice for rolls! (or in my case my sekrit 20 sider that I painstakingly filed certain edges down to give a much higher % chance to roll from 15-20...and which I actually tested with 1000 rolls to test)

Sabek · Post by **Sabek** » June 20, 2008, 11:36 am

Winnow wrote:I do miss the round table board game get togethers. All the bullshitting that went along with the gaming was fun. Somehow, I don't think webcams would replace the face to face part of pen and paper games. Has anyone tried that? Some sort of app that placed webcam images around the outside with the center being a boardgame/hex mat for positioning stuff. Maybe skip the webcam and just do voices along with the game display on screen.

Ashur, Threnody, and I had a game we did local here that we had Sylvos on a webcam playing.

Was kinda cool from a geeky perspective, but it didn't have the same feel as being at the same table.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » June 23, 2008, 1:27 am

Speaking of old RPG with new PC Applications, here's a demo of the upcoming D&D Insider software:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aLXuMb6WWw

They guy says it has voice chat so that's nice.

This is a better example of game progression:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt9qtQCj5Y0

Character customization Screen: (hidden due to size)

[Show]

Home Page for D&D Insider:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/insider

For those that want a peek at the D&D 4th edition books, you can see them on this thread:

http://www.veeshanvault.org/forums/view ... 10&t=22899

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » June 23, 2008, 9:02 am

Some of my friends back in Kansas still play. Being able to play with them again in at least some manner would be cool.

Ashur · Post by **Ashur** » June 23, 2008, 9:37 am

I have high hopes (and low expectations) for this thing. The issue I have is the business model. They want to charge MMO-like rates for all this content (Dungeon, Dragon, Character Visualizer, Rules Cyclopedia, Game Table) but they want to charge for a lot of the content as additional surcharges, which is what I cry bullshit to.

Want e-minis beyond the ones they give you to start with? Pay extra!
Want dungeon tiles beyond what they give you to start with? Pay extra!

If you want to charge subscription rates, provide subscribers with additional content. They should have left Dungeon and Dragon as print products. People don't want to have to go online to look up the damn rules, especially since WotC cries that the rules primarily remain a print product.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » June 23, 2008, 6:56 pm

Ashur wrote:
If you want to charge subscription rates, provide subscribers with additional content. They should have left Dungeon and Dragon as print products. People don't want to have to go online to look up the damn rules, especially since WotC cries that the rules primarily remain a print product.

Didn't you see my link in my last post to all of the "printed" rules for 4th edition in PDF format?

-->This is the link<--

From what I could tell, it looked like just the online Compendium would cost more money but all of the other stuff was included (except expansion modules) Visualizer, Character Builder, Dungeon Table, Dungeon Builder.

This Youtube discusses pricing (I cant watch view from remote access)

If they are price gauging, you'll just have to pirate it. The comments on that link under the video say 600.00 for 5 party members?

Ashur · Post by **Ashur** » June 25, 2008, 12:21 pm

I'll check that Youtube later, as I'm multitasking at work.

Winnow wrote:If they are price gauging, you'll just have to pirate it. The comments on that link under the video say 600.00 for 5 party members?

My concerns are about additional pricing for stuff that should be standard for D&D Insider content (i.e. virtual dungeon tiles and virtual minis for their virtual game table).

I liken this to having an MMO where you get a generic MOB (say a Human in cloth armor) and greyish backgrounds (rather than actual dungeon art) for dungeon content unless you pay extra for the art. It's bullshit. I don't want to use some sort of generic token for a monster they have already developed as a virtual mini and paying extra if I'm already subscribing to the service is bullshit. New virtual additions should be included as part of the subscription fee.

Kilmoll the Sexy · Post by **Kilmoll the Sexy** » June 25, 2008, 2:00 pm

True, but if there is one thing they know, it is nerds. Like all nerds, they know you will buy what they feed you (just like all 4 editions of their game, plus every optional book they can think up later ie: fiend folio, dieties & demigods, wilderlands, etc). You will end up bitching about it, but the day it comes out you will pay for everything like all the rest of the Sylvoses of the world.

Ashur · Post by **Ashur** » June 25, 2008, 2:43 pm

Not true! I didn't buy any 3.0 book except the PHB and I didn't play 2E at all.

I did outlay a significant sum on 3.5 books (including WotC, Wilderlands, Rappan Athuk, and Conan RPG books), but purchased all of those at huge online discounts (fetchbook.com for the win!). I don't think I paid more than $18 for any of them except the Conan RPG Atlantean Edition, which I paid in the high $20s for and the two Necromancer Games boxed sets.

I did buy the 4E set for $57 from Amazon, so that was $19/book.

With the big product push being Forgotten Realms, they (likely) won't see as much of my money. It also depends if I decide to stay involved with the RPGA. I liked Living Greyhawk, but am not leaning towards being in Living Forgotten Realms. I'm in a few at GenCon, but I'm not sure it's something I have the interest or bandwidth for. I have a pretty full dance card as is.

I do acquire PDFs of everything I own for the convenience factor (I'm not vehemently anti-piracy, but I do like a physical product and do like supporting good products, although I do realize I'm f-ing over the FLGS that can't compete on price w/ the wholesalers. Sorry.). The books I use regularly stay in my game bag in my car trunk. If at my desk, it's easier to just bring up a PDF. If it's something I'll want to use regularly at a game table, I buy it.

So I'll own up to nerd, but don't label me a lemming.

Canelek · Post by **Canelek** » June 25, 2008, 4:50 pm

How about nerdling?

Xatrei · Post by **Xatrei** » June 25, 2008, 4:50 pm

I think too much of a graphical interface, such as the official product demonstrated in the above videos, takes away from what makes pnp RPGs special: the imagination. I haven't played a pnp game in over two decades, and maybe players are much different these days, but I don't want to see some artist-rendered textures, tiles or 3d miniatures. That stuff just gets in the way of the participants' imagination. For me, that's the ingredient that always made any RPG special was the same thing that makes a book infinitely more enjoyable than a film. The imagination of the GM to paint a picture of the setting, the imaginations of the players visualizing and working within that setting - it's these things that make the games what they are (were). I understand the desire to have a way to play with friends that can't physically be together, but I think that a simple whiteboard with a dice client and a voice chat application would be much more desirable, at least for me.

Fifteen bucks a month to play D&D, 75 bucks for you and your 4 friends? Fuck that...

Ashur · Post by **Ashur** » June 25, 2008, 5:21 pm

Xatrei wrote:I understand the desire to have a way to play with friends that can't physically be together, but I think that a simple whiteboard with a dice client and a voice chat application would be much more desirable, at least for me.

OpenRPG: Free. I've played with this off and on for years including lots of Living Greyhawk. The only thing that sucks is your game tree (i.e. all your customizations and characters) gets corrupted and crashes in a spectacular fashion very regularly.
Whiteboard w/ chat, scripting and die roller a la "I attack! [d20+6] to hit and [1d8+3] damage if I hit".

MapTools: Free. Installed but never used. A long time group has been switching to this one, but some folks have had problems (I keep missing the sessions since then, so haven't used it yet)

Fantasygrounds II. Not free, but only a one time charge of $15-35 (GM Client/Server costs more). More work for setup, but gives the added fun of actually picking up and rolling (virtual) dice and managing multiple windows for characters, graphics, notes etc. A LOT prettier than OpenRPG.

What people want is something that will make the game EASIER to play online. I think the $15/month ($100ish a year w/ typical discount for subscription vs month to month) will seem cheap to people who want to play Living Forgotten Realms or other RPGA games all the time and want game preparation to be easy. Then they can print off their character and take it to a convention or a face-to-face game.

If you just want to play with the same people and you don't mind the added work, OpenRPG or FG2 is fine, with or without a chat client (I've played in some GREAT Living Greyhawk games that were all chat in OpenRPG. A lot will depend on how well WoTC integrates the character tools with the game table (and how easy it is to run a game using it), of course.

I'm going to sign up, as IMO it has too much potential not to give it a shot. But if it sucks, I'm out...

Kilmoll the Sexy · Post by **Kilmoll the Sexy** » June 26, 2008, 9:08 am

Hey Ashole.....if you DO run a consistent game, ie: NOT the 3rd thursday of months containing the letter M unless there is a full moon or some other shit like we had in Wilderlands, you can let me know.

Ashur · Post by **Ashur** » June 26, 2008, 10:08 am

Yeah, I've missed a bunch of those as well because he got really bad about laying them on at the last minute (and flipping around "team good night" vs. "team evil night") and I'd not been in the loop because the web site got migrated from EZBoard to Yuku and got flagged by our work firewall as Social Networking and thus verboten.

If I do a regular game it will probably be conan rpg/wilderlands setting, but I don't know yet.

Noysyrump · Post by **Noysyrump** » June 27, 2008, 6:26 am

Is there an online 'Hero system' server... Oh that would just cook my bacon. D&D is for 6 year olds. Gimme my 4d6+1 HKA w/ Knockdown plz.

Hammar · Post by **Hammar** » June 30, 2008, 10:36 am

Siji wrote:If you didn't play Gamma World, you suck.

I love this comment. Awesome game.

Too bad its collecting dust on my book shelf.

Why did all my friends have to move away?

Sylvos · Post by **Sylvos** » July 10, 2008, 8:42 pm

4th edition D&D KICKS ASS!
that's all I gots to say about that...

Xyun · Post by **Xyun** » July 10, 2008, 10:35 pm

Siji wrote:If you didn't play Gamma World, you suck.

OMG. Gamma World ruled. So much fun. So glad I don't suck.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » July 10, 2008, 10:55 pm

Xyun wrote:
Siji wrote:If you didn't play Gamma World, you suck.
OMG. Gamma World ruled. So much fun. So glad I don't suck.

Oh come on. I mentioned Gamma World back in 2004 in the "Monday Morning Quick Nerd Test" thread:

http://www.veeshanvault.org/forums/view ... f=1&t=8484

Siji beat me by 14 months though:

http://www.veeshanvault.org/forums/view ... f=1&t=1799

Ashur · Post by **Ashur** » July 11, 2008, 11:46 am

I can out-nerd you all. I have a picture of me with Gary Gygax taken in August last year.

And Sylvos, in one of those old threads you gave Ed Greenwood D&D co-creator status

BZZZZZZT

Dave Arneson, sir. Who I had the pleasure of meeting two years ago in Indy. Ed was your creator of (Best) Forgotten Realms, which isn't (contrary to popular belief) synonymous w/ D&D's origins. (Greyhawk > FR)

OK, I can't out-nerd you all. I'm still not yet playing any 4E (and I didn't play/own 2E at all, those years were my college years of drinking and boardgaming and any AD&D played was 1E still. But I did run Call of Cthulhu for over a year!)

But I *am* going to GenCon next month! wuwu

EDIT: I played Gamma World and Traveller. I thought both games were more fun to make characters for than to actually play.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » July 11, 2008, 1:06 pm

This made me think about what games I played or ran...I am sure I will forget some, but:

AD&D (mainly 2nd - 3rd editions): played/ran a little Greyhawk, a lot of Forgotten Realms, and even more homemade settings - I think Castle Greyhawk was my favorite adventure book that I ran...random monster generator 4tw!

Shadowrun (no clue what edition, as there was only one at that time

) - I ran and played the hell out of this one. My box of 6 siders caused at least one person to run out the door in fear in combat.

Champions (some other Hero settings as well) - played/ran

Mechwarrior/Battletech - played

Cyberpunk - played. fun friggin game

Warhammer - very rare...the fantasy setting, not 40k

Star Trek - played a few times...think we burned the books/boxes in a bonfire

RIFTS - played...my roommate had some nasty shit to throw at us in this one

Gamma World - played and loved it

Spelljammer - played, but it had no real support for long...managed to work it into a couple sessions of my AD&D campaign

I'm sure there were more, but those are all I could remember off the top of my head.

Xatrei · Post by **Xatrei** » July 11, 2008, 1:45 pm

I was thinking about it the other day, I played a bit more recently than the 20 years I previously estimated. I had stopped playing pnp rpgs by the time I was in the army for sure, though. A list of stuff I played regularly over the years, some of it a lot more than others. D&D, AD&D, Traveller, Mega Traveller, GURPS (space, swashbucklers, horror), Call of Cthulhu, Vampire: The Masquerade (never got into any of the other WoD stuff), Rifts, Palladium FRPG, Recon, Twilight 2000, Spacemaster, MERP, Shadowrun, Cyberpunk, Cyberpunk 2020, Top Secret, Gamma World, Star Frontiers, Star Wars, Star Trek. I know I'm missing some, but... Wargames I played were limited mostly to a bit of Battletech, Warhammer and Warhammer 40k. Also, dabbled a bit with some fantasy system whose name I can't recall now, a briefly experimented with Battlesystem. A guy that used to run game shop here in town had me dabbling a bit with Napoleonic era wargaming, but I got bored with that.

Traveller remains my favorite game of all of those that I played. Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, AD&D and Vampire would probably round out a top 5 for me, even though I hated the mechanics of Shadowrun, that was an awesome game setting. One of the more entertaining campaigns I participated in was a GURPS Swashbucklers game. SJG's ship-to-ship rules in that supplement were actually pretty decent and fun.

Bubba Grizz · Post by **Bubba Grizz** » July 23, 2008, 3:32 pm

Add on to that list Paranoia and Runequest.

Most fun I had though was playing Fantasy Hero (at spin off of the Champions system).

Noysyrump · Post by **Noysyrump** » July 24, 2008, 7:30 am

Bubba Grizz wrote:Add on to that list Paranoia and Runequest.

Most fun I had though was playing Fantasy Hero (at spin off of the Champions system).

I absolutely loved the hero system. 4d6 Hka axe swingin dwarf!

Bubba Grizz · Post by **Bubba Grizz** » July 24, 2008, 4:06 pm

I'm good friends with Sean Fannon who did a lot of writing for them. He introduced me to the game. He went on to write The Fantasy Roleplaying Gamer's Bible 1st and 2nd Edition. Those were some fun times. Even playing the super heroes was great.

masteen · Post by **masteen** » July 26, 2008, 1:09 am

My nerd progression was:
4th grade: D&D (remember the red box?)
6th grade: Star Frontiers (I can't even describe how much I loved Zebulon's Guide to the Galaxy. It was a mess, but so chock full of ideas that we fleshed out)
9th grade: Gamma World and AD&D
11th grade: Talislanta
12th grade: Shadowrun

Most fun was Talislanta was great because we had just the best GM running it. Guy was a born storyteller, and the wide open world with assloads of races and settings let him really do his thing. Second was the AD&D campaign another buddy made based on Ravenloft. At least once per session, he'd throw just an uncalled for amount of zombies at us, which we always managed to win with a few lucky 20s at just the most opportune times.

Noysyrump · Post by **Noysyrump** » July 30, 2008, 1:48 am

Gawd, you must be as old as I am...

Star frontiers. wow I remeber that one.

And I may still have a red box D&D here somewhere.

Kilmoll the Sexy · Post by **Kilmoll the Sexy** » July 30, 2008, 9:13 am

I still have a special fondness for Start Frontiers.....it is just a shame it did not get a larger following and more modules and all put out for it.

Xatrei · Post by **Xatrei** » July 30, 2008, 12:13 pm

I remember when it was released, my friend Mike got it and tried to get our group to play it. Maybe it's because I had been playing Traveller for a couple of years by that point, but I was totally underwhelmed by SF. A guy in a different group I played with a few years later ran a semi-regular campaign, but it was always one of my least favorite things to play with that group. I didn't care for most of the races available in the game. I hated the blobbish creatures and the monkey guys. My characters were always bugs in that game.