PnP Gamers

[EnderAndrew]

My view on larping, PnP, or whatever, is that the game is likely only going to be as fun as rewarding as the the group will allow. Systems and rules be damned. I don't care for D&D rule sets, but with the right DM and group, I can have a good time dropping dice. LARPing is the same way. Some people don't care for the concept, or have had bad experiences. It depends upon the group. LARPing is generally more player driven than DM/GM/ST driven.

[Adria Teksuni]

Completely agreed. Even if someone managed the impossible and came up with the "perfect" system, a bad GM or group could easily destroy any possibility of enjoying it.

[Blarghagh]

LARPing? Is that what it's called? What does it stand for? I didn't know they had a term for it.

 

But it IS true that it depends on the group. We had a group full of whiners once. Boy, they sucked.

[Sammael]

Live-Action Role-Playing.

[Judge Hades]

But it IS true that it depends on the group. We had a group full of whiners once. Boy, they sucked.

I tend to kill off whiners in the game. Fastest PC kill for a new campaign was 47 minutes using 2e ADnD and homebreew setting.

[Eclecticist]

I DM a D&D 3e campaign fortnightly. I enjoy it.

[Judge Hades]

Well, I am wrapping up my d20 Modern campaign next week then I am going to be a player for a while. The next campaign that the group will be handling is a Diamond Throne/Arcana Unearthed Variant.

[ramza]

I hate PnP games! They take too much time (I'd rather play a NWN mod online with other gamers) and you can't find decent playmates...

I have played twice PnP and it was a total disaster (everything is real):

 

- The first time, we were a group of 5 people... One of them was the DM and another crazy guy in the group had a chaotic evil dwarf... We were around level 3...

DM: "the group of fellow adventurers now enters a forest..."

Crazy guy: "Let's chop some wood! MWAHAHAHA!"

DM: "Are you sure about what you are doing?"

Crazy guy: "Of course I am! I am evil after all, right? hehehehe!"

DM: "A weird sound comes from the bushes, the group of adventurers now feels various vibrations around them and feel an aggressive aura heading towards it... There came out 4 Treants!"

Crazy guy: "HAHAHA! Bring them on!"

Rest of the group: *gulps*

 

We literally got our asses kicked: the dwarf was blown away, my two other friends failed their initiative rolls (the first one tried to attack the Treants and the other was trying to persuade them not to attack us)... I tries to save my hide by running away but they managed to get me in the end...

 

- The second time, I was the DM... After crossing a difficult dungeon, my friends finally arrived on the last level which consisted in a large cave with a treasure chest... In it, they found gold and a silver horn of Valhalla (I was inspired from BG2)... The party was around level10 at this point...

My friends: "Yes! We are rich now and we have a magical item!"

DM (me): "Not so fast! On its way back, the unsuspicious band of adventurers run into ... *TADA*... Drizzt and his band!"

Drizzt says then: "Hey! Where are you going with all that stuff? It's mine, you thieves! Give it back or face my wrath!"

My friends: *Glups*

The Crazy guy from above (still playing a dwarf character): "HAHA! Bring it on!"

 

So a battle started but since my friends were at an unfair disadvantage, they summoned the 20th level berserker warrior with the horn and he fought on their side... They finally killed Drizzt and his band but the summoned warrior had died in the fight and thus, the horn was destroyed... They wanted to take Drizzt's weapons but I told them that if they picked them, Harpell would tell to everyone if the FR what they had done and their reputation would drop by 10 points... They had to leave the items there so they just earned some gold and some xps from the whole thing... They got mad with that and an argument started and we never played again...

[sniggy]

looks like you ended up in an action-oriented group.

 

it's not enough to know the rules of a pnp game, one must also agree on the type of play.

 

do you want to roll dice, get some action and have a demigod-level char?

 

do you want to be part of an entertaining story?

 

do you want humour? horror? sexuality?

 

the group has to agree on what to concentrate on. my simple rule of thumb is:

 

if i can't do anything else with the group i'm in, i don't play with them. with anything else i mean stuff like playing soccer, watching a movie, playing some strategy-board game... whatever. if you don't meet the people besides rpg, then you probably won't get much out of it.

 

i still play with different people, but we only do one-shots know. maybe it comes with the age, but it's rather fun to just meet for a quick session with pizza, wine and music then develop characters for ages and ages...

 

as to the system: anything really. it's just rules anyway. we've become pretty fond of the d20 system actually. it's pretty straight-forward and fast to play. you don't have to calculate much.

[Eclecticist]

That sounds like a fun campaign. Maybe not the most serious, but fun nevertheless.

[EnderAndrew]

I agree completely on styles of play.

 

When I knock on D&D, what I'm really saying is that I don't care for the style of play that the rules encourage. I'm not saying that great stories can not occur during a D&D session, I merely believe that heavily rules-intensive systems seem to attract action-oriented, rules-oriented, or power-gamers. I prefer story intensive games.

 

And while I enjoy action and tension, I like the storyteller to control said flow. I like rules systems that are simple, fast and cinematic. A good storyteller will wield these rules efficiently and fairly and keep the tone/pace appropriate to the setting.

 

Games that are too heavy on the rules break down to mathmatical simulations rather than stories. That appeals to certain players, but not me. I refer to it as roll-playing rather than role-playing.

[Judge Hades]

In my games I try to have a good mix of action and story telling.

[sniggy]

if everyone is familiar with the system, it doesn't matter whether it has many rules or just a simple set. familiarity with the system is important, too. if you don't have to stop every 10 minutes for a rule-based question, you don't get out of the story flow.

[DemonKing]

I've been playing off and on now for over 20 years - while D&D has always been my favourite game, I have played a lot of different RPGS and I would have to say the quality of the game experience rarely comes down to the system used, but rather more to the quality of the players involved.

 

If you have a good group, you'll probably have a good game. If you have one or more disruptive players, then your experience will likely not be so good.

 

We used to have a great group of friends from uni that would get together 1 or 2 times a week and play to the wee small hours. Sad thing is now every one of us lives in a different city, and most in different countries! Damn careers and women get in the way every time.

[Adria Teksuni]

Yeah, moving really sucks for game groups. That's why we imported ours.

 

Sorry to hear about your disastrous games, but pnp gaming can be a hoot and a half. The thing is you must be flexible, and not pin your characters down to what you WANT them to do just because you wrote it. There is an insane amount of improv going on behind that screen. I've learned to give every single cute female NPC a name and background, even if she's just there to bring them a drink in a bar, because I KNOW that the party is going to talk to her and want to know more about her, and yes, sleep with her.

 

Magical contraceptives play a large part in my games.

 

More than one of my campaigns or one shots have been close to wrecked because the party decided to focus on one single stray element I introduced and pursue that instead of the massive storyline I'd spent hours and hours coming up with. More than one epic battle has been cut very short because of excellent die rolls on their side, or my side of the screen. Once, as a player, we had an entire party of 10+ characters in Rifts wiped out by a bunch of semi-mutated sharks because of the absolutely horrid die rolling.

 

So we just made it into another adventure to get those characters resurrected.

 

As far as the Drizz't thing goes, well, you kind of got yourself into that. You gave them the Horn, did you not expect them to use it? I sure as hell would have! But, there are ways around it. Drizz't is a pretty experienced guy, all he and his party would have had to do is lay down on the ground, and the berzerker would have fallen right over, as per the rules of berzerkers (played one for a while, used to make me SO mad when the bad guys did that).

 

Anyway, that's the thing about pnp gaming, gotta be ready to pull stuff out of your fourth point of contact.

 

That's also one of the reasons why I love it so much, the spontanaity of it is something that will never be matched by a computer.

[EnderAndrew]

I had the luxury of having a very steady group for a few years. We rotated on games a bit, though we kept rather lengthy running Star Wars and Legend of the Five Rings campaigns going.

 

The group all seemed to have more fun with less rules-intensive systems.

 

West End's Star Wars system was incredibly simple.

 

You have an attribute rating. You have a skill rating. You roll them together against a difficulty number I set. If you hit the difficulty, you succeed. One die is a wild die. If you hit a one on it, you have a complication. If you hit a six, it explodes (ie, you reroll it).

 

That's it. It's beautiful, fast and cinematic.

[Judge Hades]

The next campaign I run will be very much not cinematic. It needs to gritty, dark, and as close to realism that a near future setting (20 years in the future) can be.

[EnderAndrew]

White Wolf has their new storyteller system coming out in August. It looks good.

 

They also pu out a good game called Aberrant. You have to get past the fact that it features "super-powers". It's an X-Men, mutant style game. Instead of being all about spandex and cheese however, it's grounded in a very real setting. And while many of the powers are considerable, the rules system is well grounded and the difficulties are extreme.

[Judge Hades]

Actually I was planning on a variant Classless/leveless variant of the d20 System.

[Maria Caliban]

WoD:

U

R

2

cool

2

B

4gotten

[Adria Teksuni]

You may want to check out Palladium's Nightbane books for inspiration, Hades. I really like the dark atmosphere in a modern setting.

[EnderAndrew]

Are they still in business putting out books?

 

I haven't played any Palladium games in ages.

[Maria Caliban]

www.palladiumbooks.com

I guess so..

 

~edit~

I just did a search and it seems the cover art for Nightbane is done by Brom. His artwork is also the avatar of a certain poster. On the good taste this alone shows, I hardily recommend the book.

[Judge Hades]

I have read a few Pallidium books and played Rifts. They mostly have good stuff there. I might take a look at Nighbane, if the local gaming store has it.

[BetaSquad]

I am actually just restarting to play PnP DnD. Most of my friends save one left the game (they couldn't stand the bad graphics ) but now we both are going to restart the game with a few of my cousins.