I love modern games with all their shiny graphics, intuitive controls and great gameplay; but the one thing that trumps all those are Pen and paper RPGs. The freedom you get in sandbox games on consoles and computers is great but the freedom you get in an entire world created purely on the GMs imagination and your actions is far superior. I myself have never actually been a player in a RPG for longer than 3 hours (mind you in that 3 hours i hang naked from a ceiling because i didn't want my acrobatics lowered due to armour; fell into a barrel of beer and had axes thrown at me by three drunken adventurers. I was a dwarven ninja by the way) after that the GM decided to leave and put me in charge. now i run a weekly session of Paranoia and run a game of RuneQuest for my brother.

I have been looking into some other Role Playing Games aswell. Mainly Big Eyes Small Mouth (BESM) and it's Hellsing based expansion and twilight 2000. and right now with a friend i am working on a zombie apocalypse survival game using the runequest rules and based on the Zombie survival Guide.

So do any other escapists play these relics of the past?

also i don't play DnD

EDIT: is this the right section for this? or does it go in Forum games and RP?

Pen and paper games is a grey area since this forum is for video games. Either way a programmed game beats the GM's imagination every time.
"You enter a tavern."
"What's in the tavern?"
"Er, beer and stuff"
"Well who else is in the tavern"
"The barman"
"Does he know any rumours?"
"umm... no."

linchowlewy:
I love modern games with all their shiny graphics, intuitive controls and great gameplay; but the one thing that trumps all those are Pen and paper RPGs. The freedom you get in sandbox games on consoles and computers is great but the freedom you get in an entire world created purely on the GMs imagination and your actions is far superior. I myself have never actually been a player in a RPG for longer than 3 hours (mind you in that 3 hours i hang naked from a ceiling because i didn't want my acrobatics lowered due to armour; fell into a barrel of beer and had axes thrown at me by three drunken adventurers. I was a dwarven ninja by the way) after that the GM decided to leave and put me in charge. now i run a weekly session of Paranoia and run a game of RuneQuest for my brother.

I have been looking into some other Role Playing Games aswell. Mainly Big Eyes Small Mouth (BESM) and it's Hellsing based expansion and twilight 2000. and right now with a friend i am working on a zombie apocalypse survival game using the runequest rules and based on the Zombie survival Guide.

So do any other escapists play these relics of the past?

also i don't play DnD

EDIT: is this the right section for this? or does it go in Forum games and RP?

No no, nope this is the right section my man...Forum Games and RP are for your...well Forum Games and RP's

thats a bad GM but a good GM can create a memorable moment by reacting to the players feeble attempts at survival with something completely fucked up.

"here are some new experimental boots"
"i put on the boots, and start walking around in them"
"the boots make moving a breeze"
"i stop to pick up the hat"
"the boots dont stop. You are being dragged across the floor your face cheesegrated off"

also dont forget a GM can tell when your bored and throw in something funny or a fight

hypothetical fact:
Pen and paper games is a grey area since this forum is for video games. Either way a programmed game beats the GM's imagination every time.
"You enter a tavern."
"What's in the tavern?"
"Er, beer and stuff"
"Well who else is in the tavern"
"The barman"
"Does he know any rumours?"
"umm... no."

You've never had a good GM, have you?

hypothetical fact:
Pen and paper games is a grey area since this forum is for video games. Either way a programmed game beats the GM's imagination every time.

If you're interested in experiencing a story, a video-game RPG is superior to a pen-and-paper game. You get a professionally-written script, with all the elements tightly integrated and neatly wrapped up. Too bad so many gamers and developers are convinced that "RPG" means "stock tropes and formulaic plot"...

If you're interested in creating a story collaboratively, a pen-and-paper game is far more flexible and dynamic. The players can build up things on the fly and riff off each other in a way that just isn't possible in any modern video game. Too bad so many writers create rules that actually get in the way of doing anything fun and so many gamers equate "GM" with "storyteller."

(Now, it's possible to be interested in neither of those but still enjoy RPGs. If you're interested in a tactical thrill, for example, I think an RPG-like video game can do it better than a pen-and-paper RPG. You have to be really picky, though, since most games in the genre don't try very hard.)

-- Alex

I never played pen and paper RPG's until I met my wife, who is a die-hard D&D geek. Over the years we've found a few people who also enjoy playing, and now we all take turns being the DM since we've gamed together for so long. My personal favorite is 'Vampire: The Masquerade'. We have a real good storyteller for this game, he makes it pretty fast-paced and fun. He keeps saying I should run a story, but I haven't found a good storyline for that genre yet. We also play 'Silver Age Sentinals' in addition to D&D.

Personally speaking, I have always enjoyed the effort people put into being a DM/Storyteller; most everyone I have gamed with generally has a very good setting to start. What I think has ruined or quickly ended (quite) afew of our gaming sessions has been the players themselves. Speaking for myself, I find no joy in playing 'I'm a brooding dark loner anti-social twat of a bastard' characters. They either end up screwing over the game, or, in the back of your mind, you're always thinking 'Oookay... So, really, WHAT are YOU doing here, again...?' I also have no love for these character types, because they feel it is their God given right NOT to talk to a single person in the group. And, no, folks, pissing and moaning about your groupmates is NOT communication.

BESM is fun, and it works well with 'Silver Age'. But be careful, BESM is a bit broken, and if you aren't a very experienced DM, you may find things getting out of hand quickly. Also, pass up 'Vampire: Requiem' and try out 'Vampire: The Masquerade'. It's alot of fun, lot of groups to choose from, and the best thing of all; all you need to really play the game is the one core rule book. Which you can buy for almost nothing off of eBay.

Graustein:

hypothetical fact:
Pen and paper games is a grey area since this forum is for video games. Either way a programmed game beats the GM's imagination every time.
"You enter a tavern."
"What's in the tavern?"
"Er, beer and stuff"
"Well who else is in the tavern"
"The barman"
"Does he know any rumours?"
"umm... no."

You've never had a good GM, have you?

Hell, I'd expect an average GM to improvise better than that. I've created characters, towns, subplots and adventures in the five seconds between the question "So what's actually here?" and the point where I had to tell them or give the game away. And I did it on my first game. Not so well, but certainly better than "Eh, beer and stuff". I can even remember what I made from scratch in that session: a quick adventure involving health potion smuggling (them being rare and illicit in the setting); two encounters on the way from City A to Town B, one involving an invading army, and another a werebear (whose backstory I created later as you'll see); a town and surrounding province in which all weres are so endemic that those who are found are fenced off in concentration camp style facilities (which I then reasoned could be the explanation behind the werebear: he was an escapee); a mage character who had set the werebear free (with good intentions); a showdown with that werebear; an encounter in, and the layout of, the local guard precinct...and that's about it. Wow, impressive now I look back at it.
Yes, any half-decent GM should be able to create something better than "beer and stuff" on the spur of the moment. A computer simply couldn't do the same if the question asked didn't already have an answer.

Pen and paper isn't a grey area on this site: there have been one or two issues of the mag that looked at PnP (or LARP) RPGs specifically. It's not the focus, but this board's title isn't "Videogaming Discussion" for a reason.

Argh, you've awoken the little demon inside of me with this thread!

Ever since I've played my first RPG, I've been thinking of getting into tabletop rping. However, I seem to be unable of getting a group together to do so.

Alleged_Alec:
Argh, you've awoken the little demon inside of me with this thread!

Ever since I've played my first RPG, I've been thinking of getting into tabletop rping. However, I seem to be unable of getting a group together to do so.

See now this is my problem, used to have a group of friends who would meet every week to play. Now that I have moved my new friends aren't interested in doing table top RPGs as long as some one as a 360 and a copy of Left 4 Dead. Plus they all have some stigma against table top RPGs because of WOW.

linchowlewy:
thats a bad GM but a good GM can create a memorable moment by reacting to the players feeble attempts at survival with something completely fucked up.

"here are some new experimental boots"
"i put on the boots, and start walking around in them"
"the boots make moving a breeze"
"i stop to pick up the hat"
"the boots dont stop. You are being dragged across the floor your face cheesegrated off"

also dont forget a GM can tell when your bored and throw in something funny or a fight

I had a DM do that exact thing to me once, except he walked me off a roof, and even after I hit the ground, the boots kept going. Yeah, I had kind of pissed him off earlier.

I love the idea of pen and paper, but I despise following rules in real life, so following rules in fake life seems like stupid on top of boring. Especially since every DM I've ever known is an unimaginative, humorless man-boy who only does it so he can get people to listen to him. I hear rumors that other kinds exist out there in the Wastes, but I've yet to come across one.

That said, I was elected DM back in college. I hadn't played D&D, but for some reason my roomie and his friends wanted me to DM their game and they let me borrow all the books. All was well for 2 weeks, and then I told them that my stories would be more action/drama driven instead of just loser super magic item fetch quests. They took the books back and stopped talking to me.

But I've spent the 7 years since developing my D&D inspired world into my own fantasy story setting. And I get the feeling that that's infinitely more rewarding than DMing would have been.

blood77:
See now this is my problem, used to have a group of friends who would meet every week to play. Now that I have moved my new friends aren't interested in doing table top RPGs as long as some one as a 360 and a copy of Left 4 Dead. Plus they all have some stigma against table top RPGs because of WOW.

That sucks, hard time...

I see a totally different stigma over here. Namely the one of the dressed-up virgins sitting 'round a table, making jokes about attacking the darkness and things like 'beer of +2 drunkenness'.

Pen-and-paper gaming is awesome. There are two problems: it is extremely difficult to find good people to play with, since a lot of players are just whiny assholes and a lot of GMs are terrible, and you need to set aside a considerable chunk of time for it. Once a week is pretty much a minimum or people are going to forget about it regardless of how interesting it is, in my experience.

I have played D&D/D20 Modern/D20 Star Wars, Vampire: The Masquerade and Requiem/World of Darkness, Heavy Gear, Shadowrun, Burning Wheel, and probably a few more... I also adapted the Fallout rules to use in a pen-and-paper setting, but tabletop gaming using percentages is a bit cumbersome, and I was playing with whiny assholes.

linchowlewy:

"here are some new experimental boots"
"i put on the boots, and start walking around in them"
"the boots make moving a breeze"
"i stop to pick up the hat"
"the boots dont stop. You are being dragged across the floor your face cheesegrated off"

Ah the joy of paranoia

blood77:

Alleged_Alec:
Argh, you've awoken the little demon inside of me with this thread!

Ever since I've played my first RPG, I've been thinking of getting into tabletop rping. However, I seem to be unable of getting a group together to do so.

See now this is my problem, used to have a group of friends who would meet every week to play. Now that I have moved my new friends aren't interested in doing table top RPGs as long as some one as a 360 and a copy of Left 4 Dead. Plus they all have some stigma against table top RPGs because of WOW.

Start playing online. My group lives all over the country and we play via an AIM (or Yahoo when AIM is being a twat) chat room. It has its limitations, sure, but I think they're more than made up for the fact that our gaming sessions involve no travel or cleanup-after-the-session. Not to mention the fact that it's often easier to RP tense moments when you can't see the other people.

I love the true sand-box-ness of pen and paper RPGs. In Fable, I can horrifically murder my wife, right in front of them even, but people will eventually forget about what I did. In Fallout 3, I just finished murdering some Brotherhood of Steel members, and had one of their own members helping me do it! Wouldn't the Brotherhood of Steel object to killing one of their own?

What I like about pen and paper RPGs is that I can experience real consequences for my actions. If I murder my wife in town, the DM can have me run out of town and I'll never be able to go back there. Likewise, if I save the town, people don't keep telling me the same 3 things over again because they're grateful.

Those rare times when you hit those magic PnP moments are what make the hobby worthwhile. My group has had a few, the action is at a fever pitch, everyone's playing in character, and then someone does something so unexpected and awesome that the entire room goes silent. That's the main reason my friends and I play.

That's the other thing...

All of my friends PnP and I mean ALL of them. So it's really easy to get game groups together, and everyone is reasonable for the most part, so If we have a problem it isn't hard to talk it out.

Also any GM who won't take style/story criticism is a bad GM, that's your first clue. Tell them their session sucks and see how they react.

I play Dungeons & Dragons with the 1^st Edition and the AD&D rulebooks. When I asked my GM about what edition we used, he told me that, and over half the rules they had were made by him and another GM, and the sessions never has been broken into munchkin-sized chunks. This is why I love the adaptability of the Pen & Paper department of games, because in a scripted game, you can't build Fireball-powered projectile launchers*.

^{*The farthest distance it fired a thing was 60 feet. It wasn't that succesful.}

I really enjoy tabletop gaming. I did it a lot when I was younger. But now, it is so difficult to get a group together. Once is actually pretty easy, but all bets are off for recurring meetings.

I play D&D 3.5 and 4.0 (though 4.0 isn't as good IMO), just about any of the games that use the story teller system (except for minds eye theater, that's just silly), but our group tends to like to play a pseudo-rule-less system (a bastardized Amber).

I've run some pretty epic campaigns, and I've been in some pretty epic campaigns.

The main reason I'm not a big fan of tabletop games are:

1)First and foremost, I have TERRIBLE luck with dice. Really, I've screwed my party over several times due to my habit of rolling 5 and lower.
2)I think they take way too much time to set up.
3)I get tired of constantly updating a character card, and having everyone get confused when someone forgets to do something that he's supposed to.

I have nothing against people who enjoy these games, but after playing a few different titles, and failing miserably at each and every one, I can no longer sit through something that causes as much boredom and frustrating as a tabletop RPG.

xitel:
I had a DM do that exact thing to me once, except he walked me off a roof, and even after I hit the ground, the boots kept going. Yeah, I had kind of pissed him off earlier.

well in reality he wasn't pissing me off i just thought it would be hilarious.

so good to see so many people still play these. just need to know is DnD any good or should i stick with Runequest for fantasy because i dont want to have to learn a whole new rules system for a game that may be rubbish. hell for paranoia i dont even know the combat rules i just use my own rules of if it's funny it happens. this works so well in paranoia because people have infinite lives and i can kill them whenever i get bored,

linchowlewy:

xitel:
I had a DM do that exact thing to me once, except he walked me off a roof, and even after I hit the ground, the boots kept going. Yeah, I had kind of pissed him off earlier.

well in reality he wasn't pissing me off i just thought it would be hilarious.

so good to see so many people still play these. just need to know is DnD any good or should i stick with Runequest for fantasy because i dont want to have to learn a whole new rules system for a game that may be rubbish. hell for paranoia i dont even know the combat rules i just use my own rules of if it's funny it happens. this works so well in paranoia because people have infinite lives and i can kill them whenever i get bored,

Well the great thing about DnD is that it's so modular. There a lot of modified versions for whatever you want to play, like future DnD or Civil War DnD.

xitel:

Well the great thing about DnD is that it's so modular. There a lot of modified versions for whatever you want to play, like future DnD or Civil War DnD.

Thats what i loved about runequest. it uses a simple percentile system and none of the main rules are tailored to one specific rule. that's why I'm basing my zombie game off of that.

xitel:
Well the great thing about DnD is that it's so modular. There a lot of modified versions for whatever you want to play, like future DnD or Civil War DnD.

There's a body of tropes that are embedded deep into the system, though. Whatever you play will have this distinctive hint of D&D-ness to it.

Likewise, most of the RPGs that claim to do any setting are still pretty much limited to one or two genres.

-- Alex

i dont find the limitations because i only see the base percentile rules.

linchowlewy:
i dont find the limitations because i only use the base percentile rules.

How many items have you ever fetched/carried to insert name here?

hypothetical fact:

linchowlewy:
i dont find the limitations because i only use the base percentile rules.

How many items have you ever fetched/carried to insert name here?

i dont' follow...

also i changed my post you quoted because i realized it made no sense

Good morning blues:
I also adapted the Fallout rules to use in a pen-and-paper setting, but tabletop gaming using percentages is a bit cumbersome, and I was playing with whiny assholes.

Really? My big favourite game right now (not much experience personally but it has many fans) is Warhammer Fantasy RPG - it uses a percentile system and still rocks. What about percentiles is cumbersome for you?

they can be really good fun. some friends and i used to play Exalted and during a quest/piss around we accidentally blew up half the town we were in. needless to say we weren't very popular with the locals after that.

IMO percentile is the way to go more chance for skill advancement. also gives GMs a better idea of how badly something failed or how greatly they succeeded and they can create something cinematic from that. only issue with percentile is someone cheating and saying the other dice was tens...

also has anyone played dark heresy? been looking to get into that and want to hear some peoples thoughts on it. they released a demo with some basic rules and it seems a bit boring so far.

Saskwach:

Good morning blues:
I also adapted the Fallout rules to use in a pen-and-paper setting, but tabletop gaming using percentages is a bit cumbersome, and I was playing with whiny assholes.

Really? My big favourite game right now (not much experience personally but it has many fans) is Warhammer Fantasy RPG - it uses a percentile system and still rocks. What about percentiles is cumbersome for you?

We're not math brains, and calculating 66 + 37 - 49 in our heads is a hell of a lot more cumbersome than dicking around with 6, 10, and 20-sided dice, like we did in most games. You could say "use a calculator," but I think that needing to bring in additional equipment counts as being cumbersome. I'm sure it works for some people, but it certainly didn't for us. Additionally, one of the particularly dumb guys had a ridiculous amount of trouble figuring out how to turn two differently-coloured d10s into a d100.

Good morning blues:

Saskwach:

Good morning blues:
I also adapted the Fallout rules to use in a pen-and-paper setting, but tabletop gaming using percentages is a bit cumbersome, and I was playing with whiny assholes.

Really? My big favourite game right now (not much experience personally but it has many fans) is Warhammer Fantasy RPG - it uses a percentile system and still rocks. What about percentiles is cumbersome for you?

We're not math brains, and calculating 66 + 37 - 49 in our heads is a hell of a lot more cumbersome than dicking around with 6, 10, and 20-sided dice, like we did in most games. You could say "use a calculator," but I think that needing to bring in additional equipment counts as being cumbersome. I'm sure it works for some people, but it certainly didn't for us. Additionally, one of the particularly dumb guys had a ridiculous amount of trouble figuring out how to turn two differently-coloured d10s into a d100.

that guy failing at D100 should not be playing it. anyway i find you don't need to do any adding like that as when applying modifiers i work in multiples of 5. 72-20 is so easy and takes away that difficulty.

linchowlewy:

Good morning blues:

Saskwach:

Good morning blues:
I also adapted the Fallout rules to use in a pen-and-paper setting, but tabletop gaming using percentages is a bit cumbersome, and I was playing with whiny assholes.

Really? My big favourite game right now (not much experience personally but it has many fans) is Warhammer Fantasy RPG - it uses a percentile system and still rocks. What about percentiles is cumbersome for you?

We're not math brains, and calculating 66 + 37 - 49 in our heads is a hell of a lot more cumbersome than dicking around with 6, 10, and 20-sided dice, like we did in most games. You could say "use a calculator," but I think that needing to bring in additional equipment counts as being cumbersome. I'm sure it works for some people, but it certainly didn't for us. Additionally, one of the particularly dumb guys had a ridiculous amount of trouble figuring out how to turn two differently-coloured d10s into a d100.

that guy failing at D100 should not be playing it. anyway i find you don't need to do any adding like that as when applying modifiers i work in multiples of 5. 72-20 is so easy and takes away that difficulty.

That's a point; a big reason WFRP is so simple is it doesn't mess around with too many modifiers and weird numbers not divisible by 5.

Saskwach:

linchowlewy:

Good morning blues:

Saskwach:

Good morning blues:
I also adapted the Fallout rules to use in a pen-and-paper setting, but tabletop gaming using percentages is a bit cumbersome, and I was playing with whiny assholes.

Really? My big favourite game right now (not much experience personally but it has many fans) is Warhammer Fantasy RPG - it uses a percentile system and still rocks. What about percentiles is cumbersome for you?

We're not math brains, and calculating 66 + 37 - 49 in our heads is a hell of a lot more cumbersome than dicking around with 6, 10, and 20-sided dice, like we did in most games. You could say "use a calculator," but I think that needing to bring in additional equipment counts as being cumbersome. I'm sure it works for some people, but it certainly didn't for us. Additionally, one of the particularly dumb guys had a ridiculous amount of trouble figuring out how to turn two differently-coloured d10s into a d100.

that guy failing at D100 should not be playing it. anyway i find you don't need to do any adding like that as when applying modifiers i work in multiples of 5. 72-20 is so easy and takes away that difficulty.

That's a point; a big reason WFRP is so simple is it doesn't mess around with too many modifiers and weird numbers not divisible by 5.

modifiers are great it's just they should only use numbers divisible by 5. hell i love them; if i could i would have a modifier depending on the last time you pissed