I had 2 Fidonet echos I posted too pretty much daily, and a few others on occasion. There was even one RPG echo I played in
for a while.That was diffucult, because you coukd have a week or more between actions, depending where everyone was and hiw
routing went.
I have thought many times of organizing some play-by-post game, but it sounds like an uphill battle.
First of all, dice throws sound hard to emulate unless you use the honor system.
But the most important obstacle is player involvement. . It is hard to
get everybopdy on board with a dynamic service (such as
a voip one). Trying to ensure that players show up with any regularity
in a play-by-post game sounds too difficult and I am
prone to believe it is not a viable option at all.
a voip one). Trying to ensure that players show up with any regularity in a play-by-post game sounds too difficult and I am
prone to believe it is not a viable option at all.
It definitely has it's challenges. The echo based game I played back then, the GM handled all dice thriws to avoid confusion. Same with a play by email that grew from an R
discussion mail list.
The main problem was holding attention of the group. It was back in the days when everything was
still dialup,
I have thought many times of organizing some play-by-post game, but it sounds like an uphill battle.
First of all, dice throws sound hard to emulate unless you use the honor system.
I have thought many times of organizing some play-by-post game, but it sounds like an uphill battle.
First of all, dice throws sound hard to emulate unless you use the honor system.
You'd want to emphasize role playing over mechanics, and handle any random number generation at your end based on the
interactions.
Spec
Arelor wrote to Spectre <=-
I have thought many times of organizing some play-by-post game, but itsounds like an uphill battle.
First of all, dice throws sound hard to emulate unless you use thehonor system.
You'd want to emphasize role playing over mechanics, and handle any random
number generation at your end based on the
interactions.
I have had some success playing Gumshoe based games over VoiP, and I
think it would work well for play by post. In Gumshoe
games you achieve success by spending points and there are not many
dice rolls involved. In fact I have had games with no dice
rolls at all.
Quick explanation of Gumshoe:
Gumshoe is a system for mystery fosucsed RPGs. Each character is an investigator or expecialist (archeologist, doctor,
psychologist, you name it).
When you create your character, you assign points to his skills. So }relor the System Administrator could have 3 points in
Unix, 2 in Maths and 2 in Horses (for example).
When }relor is tasked with finding who hacked the boss' workstation,
the fact he is skilled at Unix at all means he achieves a
partial success at the very least. ie. }relor checks the IDS logs and finds the hack came from California. Now, if }relor
decides to spend Unix points, he gains more information. ie. for one point, }relor learns that the hacking has been initiated
by some place of Sillicon Vally. For two points, he learns from, which terminal the hack was initiated.
It is over the top, but that is the core idea :-)
For the competitive games, Slack has a dice roller you can add. For RPG's that use 'regular' dice, same thing. For the Star Wars game, we use an online roller and share screen shots. It's honor system, sure, but with RPG's there's no win/lose, so why cheat?
Arelor wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
For the competitive games, Slack has a dice roller you can add. For RPG's that use 'regular' dice, same thing. For the Star Wars game, we use an online roller and share screen shots. It's honor system, sure, but with RPG's there's no win/lose, so why cheat?
You would be surprised by the sort of cheating people comes up with in certain RPGs.
My policy is to avoid playing with people who plays dirty. I mean, RPGs are cooperative games! If you cheat in a coop you must be an awful
person!
Sadly, sometimes you can't be picky. A lot of times you have to bear somebody at the table because it is somebody's girlfriend or whatever.
Sadly, sometimes you can't be picky. A lot of times you have to bear somebody at the table because it is somebody's girlfriend or whatever.
Or you're running a table at a store...
Arelor wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
--- SBBSecho 3.12-Linux
* Origin: Palantir * palantirbbs.ddns.net * Pensacola, FL * (21:2/138)
Arelor wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
--- SBBSecho 3.12-Linux
* Origin: Palantir * palantirbbs.ddns.net * Pensacola, FL * (21:2/138)
How are things down there in Florida?
... That's not a bug, that's a feature.
Arelor wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
Re: Re: Running RPGs over BBS
By: Jimmy Anderson to Arelor on Wed Feb 17 2021 12:12 pm
Sadly, sometimes you can't be picky. A lot of times you have to bear somebody at the table because it is somebody's girlfriend or whatever.
Or you're running a table at a store...
Actually, I haven seen much cheating in stores and conventions. Most of the people who went to such places when I was active in the scene were newbies and kids who wanted to learn and wanted to have some fun,
eating snacks and smashing orcs.
In fact, the worst crap I have ever seen was a RPG vet in a 15 years
long campaign faking the XP record on whis character sheet when he
thought nobody was looking. When it comes to mechanical cheating, I
mean.
But then I have seen people throw dice at other people in a tantrum. Picture a 30 years old having a tantrum because some character stole
his +1 dagger. Man now that is sad.
Actually, I haven seen much cheating in stores and conventions. Most of the people who went to such places when I was active in the scene were newbies and kids who wanted to learn and wanted to have some fun, eating snacks and smashing orcs.
Yeah - my point was you can't be picky running in a store - or in a convention. :-) I've only run ONE at a con, but ready to do more!
Arelor wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
Re: Re: Running RPGs over BBS
By: Jimmy Anderson to Arelor on Thu Feb 18 2021 12:13 pm
Actually, I haven seen much cheating in stores and conventions. Most of the people who went to such places when I was active in the scene were newbies and kids who wanted to learn and wanted to have some fun, eating snacks and smashing orcs.
Yeah - my point was you can't be picky running in a store - or in a convention. :-) I've only run ONE at a con, but ready to do more!
I am more of a roleplayer than a Munchkin, but I think min/maxing has a place. There are systems which put such emphasis on character building that building your character IS the game. Playing is just a way to test your build. D&D > 3.x, I am looking at you :-P
I'm having a 9 person get together next month and we're planning
to play a one shot of Spirit of 77 for sure, and if one particular
friend makes it to town he's bringing the old Paranoia! I'm also
prepared to run a one shot of the old Top Secret...
Alpha wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
I'm having a 9 person get together next month and we're planning
to play a one shot of Spirit of 77 for sure, and if one particular
friend makes it to town he's bringing the old Paranoia! I'm also
prepared to run a one shot of the old Top Secret...
I LOVE Paranoia! I still have my original source book (1st ed). FRIEND COMPUTER IS YOUR FRIEND!
I am more of a roleplayer than a Munchkin, but I think min/maxing has a place. There are systems which put such emphasis on character building that building your character IS the game. Playing is just a way to test your build. D&D > 3.x, I am looking at you :-P
Which is one reason I don't play that system. :-)
I'm currently in a twice a month 'live at the dinner table' 5e
campaign. I'm NOT a D&D fan, but it's one of those things where
that is what they are playing so I'd rather play it than not play
at all. :-)
I'm having a 9 person get together next month and we're planning
to play a one shot of Spirit of 77 for sure, and if one particular
friend makes it to town he's bringing the old Paranoia! I'm also
prepared to run a one shot of the old Top Secret...
For the record, we're planning to play Divine Right and Gaslands
for sure, and we'll have other games there to try as well... :-)
Alpha wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
I'm having a 9 person get together next month and we're planning
to play a one shot of Spirit of 77 for sure, and if one particular
friend makes it to town he's bringing the old Paranoia! I'm also
prepared to run a one shot of the old Top Secret...
I LOVE Paranoia! I still have my original source book (1st ed). FRIEND COMPUTER IS YOUR FRIEND!
My buddy Brent has always spoken highly of it, but I never got to
play it back in the day... We did play a lot of RPG's though! :-)
... Knive don't kill people -- football players kill people.
I have heard lots of good and lots of bad from it. I got curious
myself and I
checked to see if I could pick it up, in order to see myself, but
copies of the
early editions seem expensive as heck nowadays.
Arelor wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
But then I have seen people throw dice at other people in a tantrum. Picture a 30 years old having a tantrum because some character stole
his +1 dagger. Man now that is sad.
I have heard lots of good and lots of bad from it. I got curious
myself and I
checked to see if I could pick it up, in order to see myself, but
copies of the
early editions seem expensive as heck nowadays.
I've never played the more recent version (including the Kickstarter re-write) but I've heard good things about them. Also, DriveThruRPG.com currently has PDF versions for $9.99 USD... I check out a lot of RPGs
that way :)
|03[] |12Alpha
|02TheDrunkenGamer.com|06:|108888
|08A Talisman BBS
Arelor wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
But then I have seen people throw dice at other people in a tantrum. Picture a 30 years old having a tantrum because some character stole his +1 dagger. Man now that is sad.
Or demand a character alignment check. I had an elven thief once with wicked awesome dexterity and used to steal stuff just to piss off someone I didn't like in real life. I was chaotic good, though, imagined myself sort of a Robin Hood type.
Arelor wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
I am more of a roleplayer than a Munchkin, but I think min/maxing has a place. There are systems which put such emphasis on character building that building your character IS the game. Playing is just a way to test your build. D&D > 3.x, I am looking at you :-P
Which is one reason I don't play that system. :-)
I'm currently in a twice a month 'live at the dinner table' 5e
campaign. I'm NOT a D&D fan, but it's one of those things where
that is what they are playing so I'd rather play it than not play
at all. :-)
I'm having a 9 person get together next month and we're planning
to play a one shot of Spirit of 77 for sure, and if one particular
friend makes it to town he's bringing the old Paranoia! I'm also
prepared to run a one shot of the old Top Secret...
For the record, we're planning to play Divine Right and Gaslands
for sure, and we'll have other games there to try as well... :-)
I am not a fan of 3.x either. Or 4e for that matter.
5e is fine if that is what you have in the table, but it still has a
lot of this character building minigame. My group used to run a megadungeon campaign on 5e and it was quite ok.
Now, Paranoia, that is a game I have not heard from in quite a long
time. I never got to try it myself.
I think you have lots of systems in your plate, but dunno if that is a great thing. IMO it is better to pick a system your group likes and try
to run a 1-2 years campaign with it. It sucks when you go from a system
to another each week, because then nobody ever learns the rules
properly of any of the games you are playing.
I think the most succesful campaign we ever had was a Warhammer Fantasy one. We played for a whole year. Then we moved to the next Warhammer Fantasy RPG edition and it was also great. It has a nice balance of character building and rules that don't get in your way. That was back
in the day when players would at least try to learn how the game was played.
At some point we switched to Dungeons and Dragons 4e and we had some players that would not bother to learn what their powers were supposed
to do. They wanted to try something new but they really didn't had in
them to learn something new, specially since they knew the old system
so well. I can't blame them. I could only manage my character because I had lots of reference cards clipped to my character sheet.
Alpha wrote to Arelor <=-
I have heard lots of good and lots of bad from it. I got curious
myself and I
checked to see if I could pick it up, in order to see myself, but
copies of the
early editions seem expensive as heck nowadays.
I've never played the more recent version (including the Kickstarter re-write) but I've heard good things about them. Also, DriveThruRPG.com currently has PDF versions for $9.99 USD... I check out a lot of RPGs
that way :)
Arelor wrote to Alpha <=-
I should check drivethrurpg.com for what they have. I don't buy much
from them but sometimes they have interesting stuff. I am not much of a fan of purchasing PDFs though.
I think the most succesful campaign we ever had was a Warhammer Fantasy one. We played for a whole year. Then we moved
the next Warhammer Fantasy RPG edition and it was also great. It has a nice balance of character building and rules tha
don't get in your way. That was back
in the day when players would at least try to learn how the game was played.
Was that the one from FFG with the narrative dice? I had a 3 year campaign of Star Wars using that that was VERY very fun and successful! I also ran
it weekly at a local store for about a year...
Arelor wrote to Alpha <=-
I should check drivethrurpg.com for what they have. I don't buy much from them but sometimes they have interesting stuff. I am not much of a fan of purchasing PDFs though.
Get on their 'deal of the day' list... Sometimes they will have a $20
PDF for a couple of bucks... And there are a lot of free stuff too...
Do a google for "the trove" and you'll find some good stuff too...
... You don't get once-in-a-lifetime offers like this every day.
Arelor wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
Was that the one from FFG with the narrative dice? I had a 3 year campaign of Star Wars using that that was VERY very fun and successful! I also ran
it weekly at a local store for about a year...
No. I think you are talking about 3rd edition, which looked pretty much like a rip off to me. My group skipped that edition
completely.
I mean, a Warhammer game in which a starter character can be a Swordmaster of Hoeth is just not serious.
Arelor wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
Do a google for "the trove" and you'll find some good stuff too...
Also, I don't use Google, because Google has proven itself to be evil,
and when you tell people to "google" for something you
become an extension of darkness yourself... and you know what happens
to pawns of darkness... they get slaughtered by Lvl 1
adventures as they level up to face the real Dark Lord.
I mean, a Warhammer game in which a starter character can be a Swordmaster of Hoeth is just not serious.
Means nothing to me - LOL
In the Warhammer wargame version, they are the most badass foot troopers you can place on the field.
Arelor wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
I mean, a Warhammer game in which a starter character can be a Swordmaster of Hoeth is just not serious.
Means nothing to me - LOL
Well, to put it in context, Swordmasters of Hoeth are Elven warriors
who have devoted their lives to (wait for it) mastering swords and becoming total badasses, studying and practicing badassery for
centuries.
In the Warhammer wargame version, they are the most badass foot
troopers you can place on the field.
Being able to play one as an starting character is like being able to
play an adult red dragon as a starting D&D character. It is just not serious.
Being able to play one as an starting character is like being able to play an adult red dragon as a starting D&D character. It is just not serious.
Well, I think that depends on the group... If all of the PC's start at a higher level or something else, and that's the game they want, then I
can see it working.
But, generally speaking, I agree with you.
Arelor wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
Here is the thing:
in earlier Warhammer versions, if you wanted to start a campaign at a superior power level, you just told the players to pick a
tier 2 profession as a starter profession. If you are not familiar with the system, that is like telling D&D people "We are
starting at level 10 instead of level 1".
My issue is that in the new system you had "Total Badass of Death and Obliteration" as a starter profession and then pretty
mundane professions as next tier professions. Which kind of breaks the immersion for me. ie. the Total Badass of Death and
Obliteration is mechanically at a lower level than a potato salesman.
Arelor wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
Here is the thing:
in earlier Warhammer versions, if you wanted to start a campaign at a superior power level, you just told the players t
pick a
tier 2 profession as a starter profession. If you are not familiar with the system, that is like telling D&D people "We
are
starting at level 10 instead of level 1".
My issue is that in the new system you had "Total Badass of Death and Obliteration" as a starter profession and then
pretty
mundane professions as next tier professions. Which kind of breaks the immersion for me. ie. the Total Badass of Death
Obliteration is mechanically at a lower level than a potato salesman.
Understood. The fact that I'm not a Warhammer fan means none of this will ever apply to me, cause I'll never play it. :-) But hopefully it feels
good to get it off your chest? :-)
... For a transcript, get pen & paper and write very fast!
It's a great place to browse and pick up good reading material! I owned Twilight:2000 back in the day, and though I don't own the books I've gone back and read some of the PDF's. Good memories, good rules reading, etc.
Replace the words 'a google' above with 'an internet search using your browser of choice and your search engine of choice.'
Is webcrawler or altavista still around? :) Pre Google, WebCrawler
was pretty good...
Spectre wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
It's a great place to browse and pick up good reading material! I owned Twilight:2000 back in the day, and though I don't own the books I've gone back and read some of the PDF's. Good memories, good rules reading, etc.
We never played tw2000 much, tended to be lots of shooting and look out for the ruskies... I seem to recall some weird abbreviations in the vehicle descriptions.... like LRT which on initial apparaisal always looked like left right turret. But was lower right or something...
It did have the HK-CAW available as a weapon though... that was fun..
Spec
Replace the words 'a google' above with 'an internet search using your browser of choice and your search engine of
choice.'
Is webcrawler or altavista still around? :) Pre Google, WebCrawler was pretty good...
Spec
*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
Spectre wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
It's a great place to browse and pick up good reading material! I owned Twilight:2000 back in the day, and though I don
own the books I've gone back and read some of the PDF's. Good memories, good rules reading, etc.
We never played tw2000 much, tended to be lots of shooting and look out for the ruskies... I seem to recall some weird
abbreviations in the vehicle descriptions.... like LRT which on initial apparaisal always looked like left right turret
But was lower right or something...
It did have the HK-CAW available as a weapon though... that was fun..
Spec
Sadly, we didn't play it much either. I drove to Memphis to pick it up
at Toys by Roy between church in the morning and evening... 80 miles
one way just to get the game. LOL
... Do mimes listen to blank tapes?
Arelor wrote to Jimmy Anderson <=-
One of my gaming groups was actually located in a different town.
I would have an RPG orgy on Frayday night (nearly until dawn) in my
own town, then sleep until noon, pick a bus to the next
town (2 hours trip), arrive to the gaming place and have another RPG
orgy until dawn. Then pick the bus back home so I could
spend my Sunday with my horses.
I would have an RPG orgy on Frayday night (nearly until
dawn) in my own town, then sleep until noon, pick a bus to
the next town (2 hours trip), arrive to the gaming place and
have another RPG orgy until dawn. Then pick the bus back
home so I could spend my Sunday with my horses.
Hello Arelor!
** On Friday 26.02.21 - 03:21, Arelor wrote to Jimmy Anderson:
I would have an RPG orgy on Frayday night (nearly until
dawn) in my own town, then sleep until noon, pick a bus to
the next town (2 hours trip), arrive to the gaming place and
have another RPG orgy until dawn. Then pick the bus back
home so I could spend my Sunday with my horses.
Who took care of your horses between frayday night and sunday
morn? :(
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