Do I need to run a Skype game with a die-roller app? Hmm...
Do I need to run a Skype game with a die-roller app? Hmm...
doookaaaallll
roll20.net you guys. I'm serious. Lets you play online and works brilliantly.
My dad once played BattleTech/MechWarrior before I was old enough to understand it. Got my hands on a PC version of MechWarrior and due to my dad's knowledge of the board game (talking about needing things like HeatSynchs to keep my mech cooled) I was able to build a decent mech right off the bat despite not knowing much about the game myself (I didn't bother reading the manual).
As for playing tabletops myself... I have never, but I'm the guy that proposed on these very forums the concept of combining tabletop with console gaming. As in the RPG format involves actually physically picking up a character you designed yourself and moving them across a board and when a battle is invoked, it takes place on a large screen where you actively take part in the combat. Everything still runs more or less on the same odds as a roll of the dice, but you can better control the actions your character takes. I think the concept I liked most about this proposition was the idea that you could design your character anyway you wanted using whatever avatar you wanted. You could use a barbie doll if you so desired, but in the end it was down to the judges to decide what elements to incorporate into your statistics. But the fun part is that those same judges would customize an in-game avatar to match your model as closely as possible. Another option I suppose one could choose would be to use a simple token and instead come dressed up as the character you wish to play.
Lots of interesting stories here! Glad I started this thread.
I'm somewhat familiar with roll20 but haven't really used it seriously. I'd be interested in trying it out, though I'm not sure I'd have time to commit to it regularly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pike
Hey, just a few things I wanted to respond to from early in the thread. I may make more posts of this sort, I may not.
What game was it, and what made character creation difficult to figure out? I say this not to challenge you - I believe 100% that this is an accurate account of your experience - but to see if I can learn anything from your answer and somewhat to test a theory.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hypoallergenic Chie
This is interesting in that this is something of a stereotype of female gamers that I keep hearing about, yet my experience has been so unlike the stereotype that I take the stereotype so un-seriously it's actually jarring to meet someone who will admit to being an example of it. The biggest gearhead in one of my current groups is female - she wants to know a rule system well enough to write a dissertation on it before she'll do anything. Fortunately she has the mental jam to accomplish this in a couple of evenings. I've run games I didn't understand as deeply as she needs to understand a game just to make a character in it. Boyfriends are welcome to make suggestions but God help them if they go so far as to try to do it for her. (Though come to think of it, every guy she's ever been involved with has been a pretty serious gamer too.)Quote:
Originally Posted by Jessweeee♪
My question to you is much like my question to Hypo - what would have made the process friendlier, and better equipped you to do it without outside help?
I just wanted to highlight this point (and I note with interest that others have said similar things). I think this is very important; as much as I love RPGs, I wouldn't particularly recommend spending an evening playing one with people you wouldn't willingly spend an evening with doing something else.Quote:
Originally Posted by LocoColt04
Organized play, where a store sets aside a time every week that people can just come in and play regardless of experience, has gotten very popular and some people swear by it - certainly store owners say it does wonders for their bottom line. As an aspiring designer and publisher I can't ignore that, but I personally view it as a very suboptimal gaming setup. My opinion is that it's a decent-to-excellent way to take your first steps into the hobby, and an... okay way for experienced gamers to try out a new system or to scratch the itch if they haven't been playing for a while and can't get a regular group together. Outside those situations, I really think bringing a home group together, consisting mostly or entirely of people you're already friends with, is the preferable way to do things if you can manage it.
(Interesting thoughts on the relative merits of some different versions and variants of D&D snipped. I will say I disagree with 4E being a significant influence on Pathfinder - I don't think this is any more true of 4E than of any of a dozen other tabletop games, and less than some. For one thing, most of Pathfinder was written before 4E was available to anyone outside Wizards of the Coast, and I don't just mean its 3.5-based core but also Jason Buhlman's house rules.)
I'ved played...
D&D 3rd edition, 4th edition, and basic (which is surprisingly very fun). I'll be playing 5th sometime soon
Also....
Shadowrun (Or, ShoppingRun. Buying crap in that game is just too fun)
GURPS (Played very little of this sadly. Didnt like the group I was in.
And so far, thats all. Though the list is ever growing. I ove me some RPGs.
I meet every weekend on my schools campus for 6 hours of good RPG action.
The books just aren't very newbie friendly. It's like "ok obviously you're a pro now that you're actually dropping some cash for books here." Or maybe I'm just dumb. Probably both! Perhaps a simple google search would have yielded a very simple guide to it all but hanging out with my boyfriend and having him walk me through it seemed like a lot more fun. Really I think it's just a super complicated game, and it's very rewarding even if that does mean a bit of a learning curve. I hope I get to play again sometime with good people because we didn't get to go very far in that first session.Quote:
Originally Posted by PhilosoraptorHey, just a few things I wanted to respond to from early in the thread. I may make more posts of this sort, I may not.
This is interesting in that this is something of a stereotype of female gamers that I keep hearing about, yet my experience has been so unlike the stereotype that I take the stereotype so un-seriously it's actually jarring to meet someone who will admit to being an example of it. The biggest gearhead in one of my current groups is female - she wants to know a rule system well enough to write a dissertation on it before she'll do anything. Fortunately she has the mental jam to accomplish this in a couple of evenings. I've run games I didn't understand as deeply as she needs to understand a game just to make a character in it. Boyfriends are welcome to make suggestions but God help them if they go so far as to try to do it for her. (Though come to think of it, every guy she's ever been involved with has been a pretty serious gamer too.)Quote:
Originally Posted by Jessweeee♪
My question to you is much like my question to Hypo - what would have made the process friendlier, and better equipped you to do it without outside help?
Another thing is the stereotype you mention, it's one more reason why I was okay with playing with close friends and not my anime club. I don't worry about it with close friends. They know I like to fix their computers and that I know every little detail and easter egg in all of my favorite video games. And even if they didn't my "nerd cred" is completely unimportant to them. In anime club there was just a couple of "special" people that would have treated like I was one of those non existent "fake gamer girls" for daring to play a game I know nothing about. Or maybe they wouldn't have, but they were condescending enough that I was legitimately concerned that that's how it would be :(
Oh man, I'm sorry your anime club is like that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jessweeee♪
Our illuminerdy club, anime club, and tabletop rpg club absolutely love newbies and help everyone out.
Our goal is to spread the joy of nerd-dom and everything it entails.
Condescending people typically arent around for very long, or people tell them to stop being such pricks.
We do have an extremely elitist anime club on campus though... but no one speaks of it anymore. They are irrelevant.
Character creation can be crazy hard, and I feel like your first time creating a character to a new game system can be a real confusing experience. I had to learn Pathfinder a bit when we did it here, and then me and Neo and a few other pretty much helped out the rest of the players to figure it out.
I had some real life friends who wanted to have a game try to make characters and the books and free sites made absolutely no sense to them at all. So I ran a game where I just put them in the middle of the action and asked them "What do you do?" If they tried to sneak around, I would tell them to roll their Dexterity score, then add plus 2 since it was their initial reaction, ie, their play style. Then I would give them the Stealth skill. I would let them have 2 or more abilities with bonuses if that was their play style and up to four skills. Then I would ask them what weapons they had and before you know it, they had almost a full character sheet just based on the choices they were making in the game. They also picked up incredibly fast on the combat mechanics this way. It was interesting and something I'd definitely recommend to get new players into playing RPGs right off the bat instead of hours of reading before they ever roll their first die.
Character creation is the most fun part about it all!
I play tabletop RPGs as often as I get the chance, which is annoyingly rare these days.
I prefer world of darkness, but have played pathfinder and 3.5 more, because it's what my friends play.
It's only a matter of time before I try to run another eoff pathfinder game over roll20.
It's just the scheduling that kills me - also it was all through chat instead of voice which was reallllly taxing. - next game I run I'mma veto text chat and do voice only.
Anyone interested, let me know and I'll try to figger it out.
i've played ttrpgs for like... 15 years... and been a DM (NO NOT GM CAUSE I'M OLD) for most of them.
Some of this reminds me of something I found striking in a book called The Kobold Guide to Game Design. It's all about writing for RPGs and is written by insiders who have worked with WotC and/or Paizo and are good friends with (or in one or two cases, ARE) key people at those companies. And even this source describes the Pathfinder core rulebook as "newcomer-hostile".
So, at several of you but Jessweeee in particular, if that's the book you mean, then you're probably not the one with the problem :).
I hope this isn't too much pimping of my own forthcoming system, but this is an issue I am very interested in avoiding if humanly possible in my own products. I think good graphic design can go a long way. Those who had problems with this, would a streamlined visual guide to filling out the character sheet, say a diagram of the sheet with boxes and arrows and simple point-form instructions, have helped? Those of you who like it as it is, do you think this would hurt your enjoyment of character-building in any way?
I've only done a one-shot before. My old college roommate got a bunch of us together to do a one-shot Burning Wheel game (or a modification of Burning Wheel, I can't remember) for his younger brother's birthday. Doing tabletop campaigns are just too much of a time commitment for me, though, and all of my friends that do tabletop games are really into having long, intricate plots that require everyone to be there at a set time every week. If my schedule wasn't so unpredictable, I'd be interested in playing more. The one-shot was pretty fun.
Yeah, that game I ran went south fast.
Like, crazy fast. Our sorcerer blew his entire magic load in the first fight against Dire Rats, our ranger seemed insistant on using a bow in doors firing into melee, and the other guy was rolling like trout.
I've never seen such a fast TPK in my life. :p
My DM desire kind of died with that, but no one else seemed up to it at the time, so the game came to an abrupt end. :p