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I was obsessed with D&D in junior high and high school despite never actually playing for more than a few hours. I had binders full of NPC character sheets, a m
by dhosek 5y ago
I was obsessed with D&D in junior high and high school despite never actually playing for more than a few hours. I had binders full of NPC character sheets, a multiple continent world designed (which included, among other things, Middle Earth and Prydain plus many modules, both the letter-number'd ones and modules from Dragon magazine.
In college, there was a group who played in the dorm lounge and hearing them play, I ended up losing interest in the game. My imagination of how the world I'd designed would come out and the reality of a game just didn't conform to each other.
- themodelplumber 5y agoThere are so many different ways to run games. It can be disheartening to see people play very energetically to what is essentially one's own point of least interest. Maybe it's similar to seeing someone speed run a video game where you mainly go for the sensory thrill of taking it slow. And you feel some pressure to get "better" but it doesn't exactly sound fun. Maybe something like that, anyway... Personally I like to house-rule away just about everything that bugs me about any given game, if I like the setting for example. (And I also appreciate games with optional rules like "here are some ideas for making this game more heroic and less depressing for your PCs") For example I was using one system and realized the writer didn't care very much about how one weapon differed from another, except in terms of raw damage. So I found a way to take the game in the complete opposite direction and I called my rules framework PaG, for "Play as Gun." (As opposed to playing as a character) Every rule that the original game used for creating baroque characterizations was applied across to weaponry, and then ammunition. I started getting into all kinds of crazy smart ammo and it was a lot of fun. This got me thinking of the idea of Ammo As Character in which you could effectively write up your ammunition as an archetype and play it as a character in the game. That world got really cool fast, IMO. And mostly just to me. But that own-world, own-prefs stuff is a huge part of TTRPG culture.
- Jensson 5y agoWeapons functioning the same is mostly about playability. A player can learn their character class and then be set, if they find a new weapon they don't have to learn a new class. But if the complexity lies in the weapon it means that every time a characters weapon breaks or they have to use something new, their entire playstyle now changes and they have to learn new rules, that really slows things down and most players aren't that interested in reading about the rules of new things. Even the basic character rules in dnd are said to be too much for newbies. Having more complex weapon behavior like that works much better in computer games where players can just play without having to understand what things does.
- Erwin 5y agoThere are roleplaying systems that do embrace the complexity (and well beyond CPRG). Here's an "attack table" for one specific weapon in Rolemaster: you roll a 1-100, add and subtract a whole lot of offensive and defensive bonuses and end up with a result like "15DK" -- 15 hit points of damage and a severity D critical hit on the K (Crushing) table. The broadsword can give both Crushing and Slashing criticals. That again has 20 random outcomes such as "Strike lower level; tear tendons. Foe is at -25%. +3 hits. Foe is stunned and unable to parry next round" https://i.stack.imgur.com/SPCmu.png https://i.stack.imgur.com/SPCmu.png
- Aeolun 5y agoYeah, that strikes me as much too complex. I like the games where you get something like ‘3 damage points, pick any effects you want (optionally limited per weapon type) or just pure damage’
- YeGoblynQueenne 5y agoRolemaster? That's rules light. Try Hârnmaster: https://writeups.letsyouandhimfight.com/hulk-smash/hrnmaster-fantasy-roleplaying-system/ https://writeups.letsyouandhimfight.com/hulk-smash/hrnmaster...
- Communitivity 5y agoRolemaster is probably my favorite system, to this day. Had a devil of a time finding anyone to play it with though. Somewhere around here I have a couple boxes full of ICE Rolemaster books. I like the complexity, and the ability to run either a low power or a high power game. I still think ShadowWorld (the main Rolemaster campaign setting) is the most detailed and well put together setting I've ever seen. Just checked, ICE and Rolemaster are still going.
- rectang 5y agoI played back in the day. I was terrible, insisting on omnipotent characters and unable to accept misfortune. If I were ever to return to play, I would aspire to have disposable characters die glorious deaths and weave an epic tragic tale instead. My brother was much better than me. He was a Dungeon Master. Now he writes fantasy novels.
- User23 5y agoAny that I can buy? One of my favorite novel series is based off a gaming session: the Malazan Book of the Fallen.
- rectang 5y agoHe's written a few. Damnation Kane, the story of a time-traveling pirate, is my favorite: https://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Damnation-Kane-I/dp/1387797670 https://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Damnation-Kane-I/dp/138779... > Damnation Kane: Irish pirate captain, born in 1650 to an English Puritan and an Irish druidess. Through means mystical and mysterious, somehow Damnation finds himself, with his ship The Grace of Ireland and his crew of scalawags, in strange seas. His ship damaged by battle and by storm's fury, Captain Kane and his men seek a safe harbor; in the process they make dangerous new enemies, and tensions among the crew worsen. Because they do not know where they are, nor how they came to be there. Is it Hell? An undiscovered country? The land of the Fae? No: it is Florida. In the year 2011. The novel isn't D&D swords and sorcery, but my second favorite scene is fantasy-like, where Kane's druidess mother casts an elaborate spell in a desperate attempt to contact him across the sea and centuries. (My favorite scene is where the pirates invade a Home Depot, and the guy with no thumbs swinging chains attacks a table saw...) D&D definitely played a role in developing his narrative talents. Amazing game.
- asicsp 5y agoSounds interesting. Time shenanigans is one of the bingo square prompts this year on /r/fantasy, so I wanted to check this one. Any reason why Kindle edition is not available?
- Jensson 5y agoDungeons and dragons groups lies somewhere on the spectrum between improvised theatre to strict rules boardgame. If you imagined it to be anything other than that you will be disappointed. But if you want one of those you can always find such a group, just note that most people are really bad at improvised theatre, so you need to find bad acting to be funny to enjoy it so you might not like it even if you like stories.
- Ntrails 5y ago> somewhere on the spectrum between improvised theatre to strict rules boardgame. And players can range from mildly disinterested in combat to tryhard min-maxers. Similar vein, but finding a group with the same overall style is helpful both from a balance and a fun perspective.
- EnKopVand 5y agoBefore I went back to software development I found myself in some national task forces for enterprise architecture in the public sector, and as such got to do a lot of speeches on it at different conventions. For around the first year I literally had to do the presentation for myself. In the beginning I spent an entire day talking to the mirror, otherwise my presentation would be terrible. After a couple of years of it, I can now pull a presentation out my ass on the spot about basically any subject of which I have a solid foundation of knowledge. I imagine game mastering to be a lot like that. Except when playing a game or D&D you also have a bunch of people participate in your presentation. I think you may have skipped the practice part a little too much, but I’d encourage you to get into to it as a player because it can be really fun with the right group. I personally play AD&D with a bunch of other 35-40+ year olds, and the primary reason is to spend a few Saturdays each year drinking beer. Basically the reason for which I play blood bowl. The stories we go through are better than playing Baldurs Gate was though, largely thanks to our game master and the fact that nobody is too serious, and maybe because AD&D wasn’t designed to be as forgiving or “your character is now a God” as the modern systems. Anyway, we found our group through Facebook, and while there are two sets of “friends” in it half of it are solo players who joined us, so it’s certainly possible for you to find something if you look!
- black_knight 5y agoI started lecturing at the university at the same time as I picked up D&D again. I think both activities helped each other out. But I felt a bit like a living circus, pulling elaborate acts out of my head almost every day.
- jasondigitized 5y agoI've always thought there was an opportunity for professional dungeon masters. If you live in a large city, or think you can pull it off in Zoom, I am sure there is a market for a very curated and polished experience for players. I'd imagine there are hundreds of people out there that are really really good at this, just as there are really good speakers, narrators, and voice actors.
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- lupire 5y agoLooks like you were more into worldbuilding and maybe the bookkeeping/accounting. Those are their own kind of fun.
- uncletaco 5y agoThis was me except with Vampire: The Masquerade. I had binders full of characters, all of the clan novels and trilogies, and held a repository of V:tM lore knowledge in my head. Used to doodle shadow tentacles onto little characters I made in notebook margins. I would argue on forums about what clan characters would be that borrowed liberally from the game’s aesthetics and settings (Blade and Underworld being the most egregious) This was when I was in middle and high school. I’m 34 now and I’ve still not played a single game lol.
- count 5y agoHaving played the game (and the other White Wolf games), I think you maximized the possible enjoyment there. I really didn't care for the 'game' part of it, but the world building was amazing!
- stjohnswarts 5y agoYou might have liked the white wolf games better. A bit more slack in world building and what happens :)
- seti0Cha 5y agoThat was pretty much how I was. Played a little in middle school, but picked up an obsession with RPGs. I'd buy pretty much any RPG I could get my hands on and read through the rules, roll up characters, think about a campaign, but do nothing. Later this would translate into playing virtually every MMPORG that came out but only for the first few levels. At some point I realized I just liked understanding the systems, but didn't enjoy the games, particularly the social element. The upshot though was mastering all those rule systems prepared my brain for a career in programming. I now play around with programming languages the way I used to play around with MMPROGs and I enjoy digging around in cloud deployments the way I used to enjoy reading RPG lore.
- brightball 5y agoIn junior high I was absolutely obsessed with character creation for some reason. I just built characters all the time to the point that I was creating my own classes too. I have no idea why. Just a weird phase I experienced.
- AlwaysRock 5y agoSounds like you want to DM rather than play. Build that world! Get some friends together who might have an interest.