Any "Old School" gamers out there?

ericnealdavis

Some of my weight problems started back in college when we would have pizza and Mountain Dew fueled marathon games of D&D, RoleMaster, Call of Cthulhu, Shadow Run... although I guess I burned at least 5 or 10 calories a night rolling the dice! Our old gaming group has scattered to the four winds, but I really miss it. There was something really special about sitting around the table with your buddies killing monsters and solving puzzles. I guess that's why I never really got seriously into computer gaming, the social aspect of the game was integral to the experience for me. Anyway, I would love to hear from some of the "old school", dice rolling, basement dwellers living our there in the MFP nation.

soldier4242

I miss my glory days as well. I was once a part of a campaign that went on for years and we had art work and written story boards for it. Everyone in that group knew everyone else like a brother. We used to make actual maps to scale with realistic terrain features. We did research on population densities for the time periods we would be playing in.

While those days rest firmly in my memory I am currently running a monthly D&D game. I have friends come over to my house. Now that I am the one paying the mortgage we no longer have to use the basement unless we want to. We had a game just last week. The group finally solved a murder mystery and the guilty party was killed when they were attempting to arrest her.

As a result of their actions in solving this thing an evil politician is still alive now and he is more powerful than ever. So they did everything right. They behaved within their alignments but an evil person has benefited from it. As we speak they are working on how they can bring this other guy to justice as well but they did not feel right about framing him for something he didn't do just to punish him for stuff he did do.

emmymcq

Some of my weight problems started back in college when we would have pizza and Mountain Dew fueled marathon games of D&D, RoleMaster, Call of Cthulhu, Shadow Run... although I guess I burned at least 5 or 10 calories a night rolling the dice! Our old gaming group has scattered to the four winds, but I really miss it. There was something really special about sitting around the table with your buddies killing monsters and solving puzzles. I guess that's why I never really got seriously into computer gaming, the social aspect of the game was integral to the experience for me. Anyway, I would love to hear from some of the "old school", dice rolling, basement dwellers living our there in the MFP nation.

Hi there! I used to play D&D and Magic: The Gathering all through high school. Good times with great people. I miss it. :flowerforyou:

synthomarsh

I miss my glory days as well. I was once a part of a campaign that went on for years and we had art work and written story boards for it. Everyone in that group knew everyone else like a brother. We used to make actual maps to scale with realistic terrain features. We did research on population densities for the time periods we would be playing in.

I used to play d&d a lot and through junior high and highschool ......college came and I pretty much figured that those days were gone time to put the dice in the bag and hang the old wizard hat on the shelf much like you said my gamers scattered about. however I am super pleased to say about a year ago one of my friends who is heavy into comics older cousin was huge into larping and role playing so we decided to start a gurps (just like d&d just less limitations) and we started talking and created a world much like the one described above. We have art work for chars all drawn by me lol, and a huge intergrated epic story plot infact we just met up with fzoul chembryl who some how managed to manipulate a paladin of helm into making a deal with him (my char is a half-drow Ninja so he is very go with either side good or evil but I was mind blown when the guy made the deal... but its his first time ever playing probably doesn't truly understand a paladin roll) Anyway the point is within the last year me and this "old school" guy we have taken 4 of our other friends of first time RPGers and created something really magical now we are on a set every other saturday and we have all shirked some social duties like weddings and ufc fights and stuff in the name of the game.... yea thats right if youve been in a game like this you understand if not you have no idea lol.

anyway with the way the internet is now a days and skype and other programs made for it I dont think complete internet gaming is unrealistic maybe we need to start up a MFP campaign lol

ericnealdavis

anyway with the way the internet is now a days and skype and other programs made for it I dont think complete internet gaming is unrealistic maybe we need to start up a MFP campaign lol

ericnealdavis

anyway with the way the internet is now a days and skype and other programs made for it I dont think complete internet gaming is unrealistic maybe we need to start up a MFP campaign lol

Hmmmm.... That is something to think about!

synthomarsh

we could keep it fit n friendly i could see it now "youve been hit with a lighting bolt you must do 2d6 of pushups or you will fail your health check and be stunned"

ericnealdavis

we could keep it fit n friendly i could see it now "youve been hit with a lighting bolt you must do 2d6 of pushups or you will fail your health check and be stunned"

LMAO!!!!

grimendale

I miss running D&D games. I tried starting up a campaign a few times since college, but it's hard to get a time that everyone can live with now that we all have big people jobs.

synthomarsh

I miss running D&D games. I tried starting up a campaign a few times since college, but it's hard to get a time that everyone can live with now that we all have big people jobs.

totally agree we fight with it almost every time we play.... usually never start on time almost always 3 or 4 hours later one of the party members has kids every other weekend and like I said we totally have to miss out on stuff like parties drives our other friends crazy they dont understand why every other saturday 6 of us are in hiatus but its worth it for the most part haha. plus the game master is super flexible if you miss a session he will give you a solo mission and explain why your char wasn't there.

soldier4242

I used to play d&d a lot and through junior high and highschool ......college came and I pretty much figured that those days were gone time to put the dice in the bag and hang the old wizard hat on the shelf much like you said my gamers scattered about. however I am super pleased to say about a year ago one of my friends who is heavy into comics older cousin was huge into larping and role playing so we decided to start a gurps (just like d&d just less limitations) and we started talking and created a world much like the one described above. We have art work for chars all drawn by me lol, and a huge intergrated epic story plot infact we just met up with fzoul chembryl who some how managed to manipulate a paladin of helm into making a deal with him (my char is a half-drow Ninja so he is very go with either side good or evil but I was mind blown when the guy made the deal... but its his first time ever playing probably doesn't truly understand a paladin roll) Anyway the point is within the last year me and this "old school" guy we have taken 4 of our other friends of first time RPGers and created something really magical now we are on a set every other saturday and we have all shirked some social duties like weddings and ufc fights and stuff in the name of the game.... yea thats right if youve been in a game like this you understand if not you have no idea lol.

anyway with the way the internet is now a days and skype and other programs made for it I dont think complete internet gaming is unrealistic maybe we need to start up a MFP campaign lol

I am glad that you were able to get a group going again. I have skipped out on things other people would claim to be more important in favor of a really great game. I have sat in a church full of people I did not care to listen to and thought about how cool it would be to get out of there as well. I think you are correct that there are people in the world that will simply never understand. I would not be interested in a baby shower even if something as awesome as D&D didn't exist and we live in a universe where both exist and you think I would have any difficulty choosing between the two?

In my experience very few people in the world actually know how to play a paladin. For the most part I don't even allow them to be in my campaigns at all. If I do allow them to be in the campaign I am always sure to explain to them that there is a code of behavior that you must follow and if you break that code I will take your paladinhood. Yet every time I have ever had to do it people have always gotten mad at me so my solution is just no paladins. Interestingly enough I don't really allow drow either. The reason for this one is I have read Salvator's work and drow are evil with a capital E. There were only two exceptions to this and they were so unique they were the central focus point of his story and one of them died.

I have had countless players screw me over by playing as a drow or halfdrow and they keep screwing over the party or worse killing the other members all in the name of being evil. Then you take a paladin who has this code he has to follow and it makes him very uncompromising odds are the paladin will end up attacking the halfdrow and then the game spirals in to a blood bath. I am not sure how you guys managed to rationalize a paladin hanging out with a halfdrow but I do know this.

If a paladin made a deal with fzoul chembryl he should lose his paladinhood right there. He has basically just made a deal with the devil. I don't think I can come up with a more blatant violation of the paladinic code. That said I am not running the game so I don't know all the particulars. Perhaps in this game world paladins don't have to follow any sort of code. Perhaps Helm does not revoke his gifts from his paladins when they make deals with fzoul chembryl in that game world but I will say that if that is in fact the case paladins in that world are just something else entirely.

synthomarsh

Hahaha yes you said it man I completely agree in the case of our paladin the guy is 30 and his first go at role playing, we are all good friends first so it makes it hard for our game master to really throw the book at him when he doesnt live up how the char should be.
now as for the half drow and how he is able to deal with it.... his back story is he was with the drow first kinda shunned for being half human and ended up on a mystical eastern island with basically a yoda as a master (master tsu who in our story line actually has given spirtual guidance to all the big players in the realm kehlbin alzune even elmenster) so he is trained in ninja/monastary its actually a real fun char to play because he is all about the yin yang trying to bring balance between good and evil but I have to make bloodlust rolls and what not constantly to see if I will freak out and torture people or if my mediation and one with the universeness from being partially raised in a monostary wins. As far as how the party stays together it was actually clever of the game master he made me take some disadvantages in loyalty to my master and as the game set up my master told me to protect one of the party members and dont let him fall to the path of darkness. so while my char always has an inclination to be pure evil he has all this mystic training that can keep it in check most of the time and he actually is more or less obligated to keep peace within the party due to his oath to his master.........

of course my char and the paly but heads constantly i have considered killing him in his sleep many times lol so i totally feel you for banning those types of chars because they can totally ruin a game and friendship hahaha

soldier4242

At least you all are making an effort to justify stuff like that I have seen some players just basically have their characters made out of paper. They have no concern with storyline at all. They just pick the race that gives them the stats that they want. I would say that based on the description of your story line. If you were able to stop this paladin from making this deal you should have. If he made it without your knowledge then should be trying to help him undo the damage. I would see it as a violation of your oath to you master if you knowingly let this paladin commit such a gross violation of the principles that he is sworn to uphold.

To the truth is I am a bit of a softy in my old age anyways as I probably should have revoked the paladinhood from a member of my own game:

The group ended up with a bunch of zero level NPC's that were evacuated from a town that was attacked by an army of mages. The mages were retaliating for what they have deemed as crimes against humanity that the church has committed in the name of an inquisition they have called.

In my game the church has basically decreed that all arcane magic is illegal and the use of it is a crime punishable by death. The church is not above torturing anyone that they suspect to be a mage or mage sympathizer. They see saving your eternal soul as having higher importance than worrying about your body. If they have to torture you here in this world but they save you from an eternity in hell then they are really serving the greater good.

Some of the zero level NPC's wanted to go back to the church and report what had happened. The players in the game including the paladin had decided that even though the church claims to follow Pelor they are committing actions that Pelor would not approve of and they have decided that the church is in fact actually evil. The spells detect evil and know alignment are broken in my game at this time due to things that have happened in the story. Teleport resurrect and reincarnate are also broken. They did not want these 13 NPC's telling the church what had happened. The debate began.

Some members of the group wanted to kill them. Others wanted to take them with them. The paladin of the group was against killing them but he did not take a hardline stance against it. He just basically said "I vote no" but a paladin should have said "If you want to kill these innocent people you will have to kill me first." I did not take his paladinhood for a couple of reason.

First, it is his first paladin and he is getting better at is so I chose to use the opportunity to teach him about being a paladin rather than just punish him outright. Secondly, when I wrote this story (and the players don't actually know this) I wrote it with one thing being true before game session one. The gods do not exist. None of them do. Not the god of the undead that the lich worships not Pelor none of them. In the game world the atheist actually has it right but none of the players are ever told that. So for this particular story the paladin did not lose his powers because they never came from Pelor in the first place and there is no Pelor to revoke them. Instead a paladin will lose his paladinhood when he loses his conviction.

I really like this particular story because when I first started writing it I wanted to be as original as I could. I still have yet to play a game run by any other DM that actually does not have any gods at all. It is always an intrinsic assumption that the gods do exist. One day I asked myself what would be different about a world that had magic but no gods. I started from there and then the entire campaign basically started to write itself. It is my single greatest achievement. I have considered trying to adapt it in to a book but I don't know if I am good enough of a writer to actually get published.

ericnealdavis

:bigsmile: God, how I miss the good old days when we would have these geeky philosophical debates about paladins, drow, and pantheons. I'm itchin' to go dig the dice bag out of the closet!

soldier4242

:bigsmile: God, how I miss the good old days when we would have these geeky philosophical debates about paladins, drow, and pantheons. I'm itchin' to go dig the dice bag out of the closet!

I absolutely could not get interested in a game that was nothing more than going in to a cave and killing monsters. I think that is all well and good but you also have to have the debates. You have to have to conversations about "why" we are in the cave. Why are we killing the monsters and saying "we are adventurers" doesn't cut it for me. In my games the most common enemies are other humans and elves and dwarves and the like. The simple races and classes from the player's handbook is enough to build an exciting and compelling story.

You could have one lawful good character fighting to defend his family and another lawful good character on a mission to bring one of his sons to see the king for what is obviously a suicide mission. Right there you have all fodder you need for a turbulent debate about the fathers duty to his son, the son's duty to his king and the king's agent obligated to complete his mission. I feel that all too often people get hung up on all the magical creature and as a result they become over used and the worst possibility is that they become common and expected.

The last thing a DM wants to hear is something like "Oh (yawn) its just another Beholder." if you have gotten to that point you have done something wrong. One of my favorite things I have going right now is I have the group terrified of a level 5 half elven female because they don't know who she is or what she is doing. All they know is that she has been seen in a few places that make her suspicious. You show the group situations and let them fill in the blanks with their assumptions.

Shikonneko

I feel kind of bad looking at my nerd card some days; my dad tried to convince me that D&D was the debil (even though he played it earlier) 'cause of my stepmom. I play Final Fantasy XI for that same sort of social aspect, even though I realize it's not entirely the same. Was a pretty sweet moment around the third year of my tenure or so when she said, "I think I get it. I used to go to the bar to talk to people... and you play this game online with a bunch of people. That makes more sense now." Probably why I've played the game for ten years.

Pen and paper wise I'm quite lucky! After flailing around with living campaigns of Legend of the Five Rings and Pathfinder I kind of gave up on that game style... it seems like if you don't get in on the ground floor everyone's too clique-y and won't really be that friendly. However, my roommate's running a Warhammer (I think is the right name; the D&D version of the minis type game) campaign at his friend's house and I get to play! We went to Lowe's and got whiteboard bits cut up so there's a big piece to be the map and everyone else has a little piece for notes for the session and stuff. Scary thing about the campaign's going to be that we have two people who've never done anything like this before (not even really "gamers" in any sense), two people who are old guard D&D roll (not role) players... and me. I'm nervous for my first session but I already got 12 gold for reading the game book! XD I can only hope it ends up like one of the legendary 10 year campaigns.

ericnealdavis

:bigsmile: God, how I miss the good old days when we would have these geeky philosophical debates about paladins, drow, and pantheons. I'm itchin' to go dig the dice bag out of the closet!

I absolutely could not get interested in a game that was nothing more than going in to a cave and killing monsters. I think that is all well and good but you also have to have the debates. You have to have to conversations about "why" we are in the cave. Why are we killing the monsters and saying "we are adventurers" doesn't cut it for me. In my games the most common enemies are other humans and elves and dwarves and the like. The simple races and classes from the player's handbook is enough to build an exciting and compelling story.

You could have one lawful good character fighting to defend his family and another lawful good character on a mission to bring one of his sons to see the king for what is obviously a suicide mission. Right there you have all fodder you need for a turbulent debate about the fathers duty to his son, the son's duty to his king and the king's agent obligated to complete his mission. I feel that all too often people get hung up on all the magical creature and as a result they become over used and the worst possibility is that they become common and expected.

The last thing a DM wants to hear is something like "Oh (yawn) its just another Beholder." if you have gotten to that point you have done something wrong. One of my favorite things I have going right now is I have the group terrified of a level 5 half elven female because they don't know who she is or what she is doing. All they know is that she has been seen in a few places that make her suspicious. You show the group situations and let them fill in the blanks with their assumptions.

I completely agree. The best campaigns were the ones where we had a real purpose and we had to THINK! The best one we ever ran the group ran a crime syndicate (needless to say we were not paladins). We kept records, ran all sorts of illegal enterprises and had to stay ahead of the guard. When we finally finished I had at leat a dozen notebooks and ledgers. It was so intense. That's the kind of adventure I really miss.

synthomarsh

that is the difference between a game that is so memorable that I am ok missing certain social functions. Its all about a group of people writing an awesome story line more or less. I think the kind of people that are it in for stats and monster slaying just to build a char. miss the whole point. our last campaign when we ran across fzoul we ran across our first beholder and needless to say we are all high level to be in that situation but if you looked at the players faces it looked like they all crapped themselves in real life lol. the deal our pally made wasn't that bad it was basically fzoul would give us passage through waterdeep which was overran with undead in exchange we just get what we wanted from waterdeep and left so I don't think my char really felt like the deal was endangering the other party member he was sworn to protect. but still a pally of helm should really never make a deal with pure evil, any way you look at it but like i said he is new and he makes a lot of choices that get us into the crap... which actually just builds problems and plots and more storyline to deal with.

we have many games that will be hours long and not a single dice roll. Honestly those are some of the most most epic games that we have had too.

A world with magic but no gods that is actually super original man your right I have never played in a game where the gods werent there that is a really cool twist... treasure the oh **** moment when your players figure it out I bet the looks on their faces will be priceless.

Shikonneko: Dood I loved ffX1 I had a taru samurai people kinda hated me hahaha. anyway thats awesome for you I have never played warhammer before but sounds pretty awesome. my advice to you don't be afraid to make poor choices in the game just try to play it like you are your char. The more you can get into a game and actually think about stuff from your chars. perspective instead of yours. Like for my GM I wrote a few pages on my dojo philosophy and steps to a good assassination and different levels of training for the member and he gave me extra exp cause he was so excited to see me go out of my way and make my char that much more real by defining where I come from. Honestly the more you can geek out and get into a game the more real and better it is for everyone. but your right just hoping into a groups game is almost impossible. Especially if they have been doing it a while I know we will let just about anyone play a side char for a game or two but they all know they are disposable we still only have one core group.

eric thanks for this thread its been fun to hear about other games and good to know there are some people as into as me still hahaha

soldier4242

the deal our pally made wasn't that bad it was basically fzoul would give us passage through waterdeep which was overran with undead in exchange we just get what we wanted from waterdeep and left so I don't think my char really felt like the deal was endangering the other party member he was sworn to protect. but still a pally of helm should really never make a deal with pure evil, any way you look at it but like i said he is new and he makes a lot of choices that get us into the crap... which actually just builds problems and plots and more storyline to deal with.

we have many games that will be hours long and not a single dice roll. Honestly those are some of the most most epic games that we have had too.

A world with magic but no gods that is actually super original man your right I have never played in a game where the gods werent there that is a really cool twist... treasure the oh **** moment when your players figure it out I bet the looks on their faces will be priceless.

I can see why you would think that the deal wasn't so bad since on the surface it sounds sort of like a nonaggression pact. I would still have been against the deal because first of all you are talking to fzoul chembryl. I don't know how he is running his campaign but he could have just killed you all if he wanted to but he didn't. He chose instead to make a deal with mere mortals. He would only do that if it benefited him. Trust me if he is anything like how I remember him he does have the upper hand. You can't kill him and he does not care for your safety at all. If your DM is any good at all then this paladin is playing right in to his hands.

It could be that he has some sort of deal with another god that forbids him from going in there and killing something and he knows that if you go there you'll kill it for him. I have no idea what the actual deal is but I do know that no matter what it is that deal is going to help fzoul chembryl. He is a cold heartless and bitter scourge. He cares only for himself and he sees anything that is not him as ripe for the taking or destroying. Had I been a character in the game I would have debated against making any deals with him. It may have been your only option but I would have to know more about the game. All I can say is if there was any other choice I would have said lets do that.

As a rule when I run a game I never have the actual group members meet a god even in games where they exist. I feel that an actual god would not concern itself with a face to face meeting of a bunch of mortals regardless of how powerful they have become. The most powerful and heroic of ants will never impress me and I am just a human. The distance between god and human is greater than that of human and ant.

synthomarsh

hahaha wow were you spying on our game?

it was a situation very similar were the main antagonist was an Illithid that had been consuming the world into madness and raising all the undead hence why waterdeep was over run we went there looking for kehlbin to get some Illithid answers and found fzoul instead. by the end of that I guess chapter fzoul ended up tricking us into getting an item that allows him to teleport armies at a time and he used it to teleport the Illithid to us which we were able to beat because we had it caught off guard. so the deal ended up we traded main antagonist from the Illithid to fzoul.... probably not the best move but we had to stop the undead somehow they were starting to overrun the realm. I agree looking back on it I knew while our pally was forming this deal that it was dirty and wrong but at the same time I was so shocked that it was happening I kinda wanted to see how it would play out lol. your right there were probably other ways to go about it, never made the deal but like i said early making mistakes and getting yourself into worse situations makes the game interesting. Our DM is very good and plays Fzoul just like you know him to be, so more or less because of the deal we killed the Illithid for him and helped him to get the orb from kehlbins tower (who is missing)..... can I start asking you advice about how to play during the game lol you obviously think like our DM does

soldier4242

hahaha wow were you spying on our game?

it was a situation very similar were the main antagonist was an Illithid that had been consuming the world into madness and raising all the undead hence why waterdeep was over run we went there looking for kehlbin to get some Illithid answers and found fzoul instead. by the end of that I guess chapter fzoul ended up tricking us into getting an item that allows him to teleport armies at a time and he used it to teleport the Illithid to us which we were able to beat because we had it caught off guard. so the deal ended up we traded main antagonist from the Illithid to fzoul.... probably not the best move but we had to stop the undead somehow they were starting to overrun the realm. I agree looking back on it I knew while our pally was forming this deal that it was dirty and wrong but at the same time I was so shocked that it was happening I kinda wanted to see how it would play out lol. your right there were probably other ways to go about it, never made the deal but like i said early making mistakes and getting yourself into worse situations makes the game interesting. Our DM is very good and plays Fzoul just like you know him to be, so more or less because of the deal we killed the Illithid for him and helped him to get the orb from kehlbins tower (who is missing)..... can I start asking you advice about how to play during the game lol you obviously think like our DM does

Well I can't exactly say I told you since I did not actually tell you until after the fact. Fzoul is insanely powerful but he is also rather predictable because he is so self interested. At least that is how he is supposed to be and it does sound like your DM did just use him properly since he got a Paladin of Helm to help him out.

I would be willing to give you advise about how to proceed in future situations. I would need to know as much back story as you can give me about your specific group and the story that you are in. I would have to know what the group is capable of what your specific limitations are. I know it would be a lot to type but it will also be a lot to read and I will need this information in order to make informed choice for your party. In this situation the damage is done. You can't unhelp him anymore than you could unscramble scrambled eggs. The best you can do now is try to minimize the resulting backlash and regroup so that you can try to strike back against him. I would normally not think of doing that but since you have a paladin of helm you are sworn to protect I have to assume your course is basically set.