aluminiumtrioxid

It was cool enough, but I was hoping for somewhat more unique monsters than generic bandits, spiders (why does it always have to be spiders?), and a dragon.

Me too. Then again, I was never crazy about the previous installments of the series, so...

Eh.

Pretty much this. Also, never understood the fascination with Asimov.

Strange, I've always thought you'd strictly err on the short side

Very much so. Its become forbidden to discuss the matter in a reasonable manner without raising a ****storm of accusations. The climate is so unhealthy it actually helped create a monster like Breivik and in Hungary, it even had a hand (along with the economic crisis) in bringing a more or less openly fascist party to power. Excuse me, but... what?

You need to immediately see a doc, he'll give you painkillers via injection which is absolutely necessary because back pain can turn into a permanent problem even when you've just pinched a nerve. This can't be stressed enough.

That's a GLORIOUS dragon, by the way.

...Naah.

I'm guessing that's exactly the kind of arrogance that leads others to react with hostility ("looking down on it", as you put it).

Not wishing to sound pedestrian. But wouldn't a locksmith have made more sense? Actually, I'm more baffled by the fact that he either keeps a spare shotgun outside his house, or regularly brings it with himself to business meetings.

Count me in whenever that time in the future might be. I'll send you guys a PM, but I wouldn't expect it before the summer

Well, to be fair, I find that any kind of seemingly-harmless magic can be used offensively with a little creativity. With space magic, you can simply teleport opponents to their deaths, or turn their archers' projectiles against them, or make that huge rock you've been holding in a pocket dimension appear over their heads. (Not to mention the endless possibilities for support: teleporting melee-oriented allies close to their squishies, while scattering their close combatants; hiding injured allies in pocket dimensions; screwing with ranges so your archers can fire basically point-blank at anything, etc. etc.) Illusion's fine for concealing traps, reducing opponents to sobbing wrecks with fear, making them attack each other, and a lot of protection/misdirection oriented shenanigans that are not that harmful directly. Metallomancy would let you turn your enemies' weapons into deadly shrapnels, or simply crush plate-wearing opponents. Hell, even the seemingly useless plant control could, at least, slow them as per the classic Entangle, or turn their bows into useless pieces of gnarled wood or fine dust, whichever you prefer; but more savvy mages could make harmless plant life grow vicious thorns and synthetise deadly neurotoxins, then animate said plants to wreak utter havoc among enemy combatants. And I didn't even start about how a character well-versed in healing magic could swiftly become absolutely terrifying, because, frankly, that's kind of self-evident... Man, I want to play a game where I can make my own spells.

Well, "tsheeksentmeehai-yee" sounds closer, but you also have to keep in mind that only the first "í" is pronounced similarly to, say, "sea", the others are shorter (intimidate was a fine example). And, of course, it goes without saying that the dash doesn't signify a pause, it's just there for easier comprehension. Meh, easier just to show. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKc1lQNgrX4 0:06-0:08.

Well, two groups it is, then. One yet-unspecified nWoD game, and one Dark Heresy. That should be manageable; game will probably be one session this, one session that, so if anybody wants to participate in both, that's fine with me. But I don't play PbP, because a/ it tends to move at a pace that would make glaciers ashamed of themselves, and b/ sometimes there is this expectation that you have to write a certain length, or you're "not roleplaying properly", which, aside from being total bull (I prefer to find out about a character by his/her words and actions, not a pages-long and usually terribly written "here are my thoughts and feelings right now" rant), further contributes to a/. So, Skype. Unless somebody's in an absolutely unworkable timezone, in which case I'll probably sigh and comply. As for Numenera, I'd be happy to DM a one-shot sometime later, if there are more people interested.

Well, all in all, this sounds pretty awesome. A pretty good fit, I'd say, since I'm quite good with systems and overall story ideas, but the execution somehow tends to fall short of how I've imagined them playing out. Also, I'm guessing assistant GMing also covers discussing story ideas and asking your opinion about stuff from time to time? Anyway, point is, I can see this working out very well. If you intend to limit yourself to assistant GMing, and system matters little to you, I think we should go with one of the three nWoD lines - Vampire, Changeling or Werewolf -, since these games are pretty big on political maneuvering, therefore they seem to be optimal for providing reasonably complex NPCs for you to play. We can discuss the unique themes and possibilities of said game lines over Skype as a group, and then decide (mostly based on Osvir's preference, I guess).

Yupp, it's mostly a W40K-WoD mashup, as in "mages are all kinds of dangerous and a ****up leads to Nasty Things" (W40K), but the Fade itself is fairly hospitable, albeit dangerous (WoD).

Well, it depends Right now, it seems to me that Vampire (the Masquerade) will be the game of choice; on the other hand, I have some reservations about putting Wals and Player #1 (LC) in the same group, since a/ they seem to have very little overlapping interests, and b/ LC is quite attracted to themes and character concepts which others may find upsetting, and from what I've gleaned about Wals thus far, this might make him uncomfortable. Pre-play getting-to-know-you talks and boundary setting can, of course, alleviate this problem, but right now, I'm unsure. If I decide to create two groups, you can choose whether to play in just one, or both. LC's mostly interested in Vampire: the Requiem, Werewolf: the Forsaken, and Changeling: the Lost from nWoD (if you have no preference, no other players join us, and she doesn't change her mind, Werewolf seems to be the most likely candidate), Vampire: the Masquerade and Mage: the Ascension from oWoD, and Kult, Unknown Armies and SLA Industries from other companies. She could also be persuaded to try out Eclipse Phase, but only if it's unanimously voted on. Wals' preferences, as he's laid out earlier, are Vampire: the Masquerade, Call of Cthulhu, or Warhammer Fantasy; of these, I only have experience with V:tM, but I have a lot of official adventures for the other two, so they're not out of the question. (As a fourth option, Warhammer 40k: Dark Heresy seems to be an ideal game for this group, since I have the most DM-ing experience with that system, and it's basically Call of Cthulhu in Space Warhammer.) (Don't let this massive list scare you off, though; these are fairly simple games, so you don't necessarily need to familiarize yourself with them right now. We'll teach you along the way.) By the way, I've obtained a preferred playstyle description from LC: "It should be known about me as a player that I'm leaning towards the "soap operoid"/dramatic/method acting/narrativist/soul-searching playstyle - mostly, but not exclusively. Either the dark, angsty, brooding-under-the-dark-clouds, or the light, cute, humorous, or the morbid/surrealistic/trippy/grotesque/"mind**** sick ****ery" approach fits me, at times with a dash of splatterpunk (it depends on the game which applies, of course); at the same time, I'm quite bad at hard strategy/resource management and other "accounting"/dungeon crawling/obsessive ruleplayer/gamist-oriented stuff. Unfortunately, I'm not imaginative enough for the overly sandbox-y adventures, but railroading also irks me, so I prefer a healthy blending of the two. Furthermore: I love playing animal(istic), shapeshifting or weird freaky characters; sometimes, I'm prone to suffering from "unique snowflake syndrome" (as is everybody in my usual party, so it's kind of a bad habit), but I'm generally flexible, and if there are expectations toward the players (which, in my opinion, doesn't hurt, in order to avoid later facepalming and disappointments), I'll play accordingly." And, as far as I've gleaned from this introduction, somewhat fond of overly detailed descriptions But I've interviewed her since, she seems pretty cool.

Consider yourself "in", then Well, VtM seems to be a common ground, but I have to ask: how much is that preference set in stone? Is preferring it to the nWoD lines based on familiarity and lack of free time to get to know the new edition/the other lines, or some other reason? (E.g. "no [insert preferred clan] in the new" or "nWoD characters start out too weak for my liking" or "I find the 'toolbox' approach of the game unfocused and hard to get into" - these seem to be the most common ones in my experience.) If it's more the former, that can be helped, since we'd most likely only start seriously in January/February, anyways, and the core system is basically 80% the same. But if you find that playing ghosts navigating the perils of the Underworld (Wraith)/ mages fighting for the enlightenment of mankind (M:tAs) / abused escapees of the horrors and wonders of Arcadia constantly on the run from their sadistic captors (nChangeling; yeah, that one's pretty hard to get into) / half-human, half-spirit warrior-investigators trying to maintain balance in the spirit world (nWerewolf, lends itself surprisingly well to noir-inspired games) doesn't interest you, then we'll most likely go with Vampire, if no new players show up. If they do (which I hope will be the case), we'll sort it out taking everybody's preferences into account. Helping me GM sounds pretty cool, although I'm a bit fuzzy on the details: do you propose to play your own character and non-essential NPCs (as an aside, that's my preferred method to dealing with players whose characters are not active at the moment), or to co-DM (basically act as a second GM, with no main character, but a say in everything that happens)? (I'm fine with either, and the traditional player role, too, by the way.) Edit: completely forgotten about it in the OP, but it would also be a tremendous help if any prospective players would describe their preferred playstyles (or the style of the games they've played in so far).

...Aand we have a player interested in classic Vampire, Mage, Wraith, and new Changeling, Werewolf, (and to a lesser extent) Vampire. Also, Kult, but I'm understandably somewhat reserved about playing that with an all-new group.

...I actually liked Philippa.

...playing any of the following over Skype? My usual group either isn't interested, or busy playing different games. - Dragon Age RPG (mostly the pre-written adventures, because they look pretty solid to me) - Eclipse Phase (again, pre-written) - anything New World of Darkness, except Promethean (no ideas yet, adventure would be specifically tailored to the PCs. Although if no one's familiar with it, and you choose Mage, I'd gladly run Reign of the Exarchs with minimal, if any, modifications.) - classic Vampire, Mage, or Wraith - the new edition's better at doing the personal horror stuff, so these would be a bit more "epic" in scope. Well, if we define "epic" by number of explosions, that is. - Orpheus (Ghostbusters: the Ghostbusting from White Wolf; comes with a pretty awesome pre-made adventure path that could last for years, methinks.) - Numenera (no idea about adventures, but I've heard some of the pre-made ones are very good) - Dark Heresy (I have a pretty extensive DMing experience with this one, and some half-baked campaign ideas, too. On the other hand, I'm already in two different DH games, so my interest is somewhat reduced.) I could also be persuaded to run a few other games, but I generally have pretty good reasons why I didn't include them. Game would be strictly text-only; while it comes with its limitations (foremost of them being speed), my accent makes pretty much anything I say unintelligible for most people, so voicechat is not really an option. Also, I really, really don't want to get a webcam/microphone/whatever, because my laziness knows no bounds. I'm neither a nice, nor a particularly good GM. I tend to gloss over descriptions, have NPCs holding the Idiot Ball (it's the job of the players to solve the adventure, after all), and generally offer very little handholding, while ruthlessly following up on the consequences of the PCs' actions. On the other hand, I'm trying to be as fair as possible, let PCs have a chance at almost anything they attempt (however small that chance may be), and I'm generally listening to player feedback, changing my approach if they want me to. If you're interested, write a PM, or post here. A small summary of which game interests you, why, and something about your previous RP-ing experiences would also help.

Wow, this looks pretty much like a The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch RPG. With biomechanical monstrosities and some faint Kult vibes. Awesome.

Then Age of Decadence is THE game for you Didn't like it. Pseudo-romans are a big turnoff for me (along with the yet-another-postapocalyptic-wasteland). Also, the game had kind of an artificial feel to it, dunno why. (Ironically, though, loved the combat.)

Being able to play a character who is not an adventurer by default. So, if I'm playing a noble, I want to do courtly stuff, and trust the dungeon-delving to the (very well-paid) specialists I employ just for that. More intrigue, more subtlety, more using methods and resources outside the standard threatening/murdering/bribing triumvirate employed by Generic Murderhobo from Generic D&D-inspired Fantasy Game. Edit: also, I wouldn't mind a bit more personality in our characters, depending on background.