Roleplaying Games & Nerdy Stuff

[LeeRevell]

Rugster, many thanks for that site! Found "Pool of Radiance" listed. I'll be reading more on this site for sure.

 

[AimlessWanderLust]

It's good to know there are gamer van dwellers out there. We don't want our recreational activities to be limited to horseshoes and shuffleboard
My MMORPG experience is limited to City of Heroes and a short venture into WoW which I lost interest in. I've played Diablo on and off. Janet sticks to Facebook games.

How hard is it to find Wifi good enough to support online play? I hear it can be pretty sketchy out there.

I'm not quite sure what qualifies as "out there," but internet from our cell-phones (3G/4G) is plenty good enough to support any of these games. So, anywhere we have good cell-service we can play. 

 

[mockturtle]

With no shore power and limited minutes/data, I don't play now.  When I lived in a 'stick & brick' I enjoyed games.  My all time favorite was Wild Metal Country, which I played over 100 times all the way through, keeping track of my times, etc.  It was just a little tank warfare game, quite tense but very satisfying.   My brother gave me the Call of Duty series which I played for a while but didn't enjoy it as much.   Played a bunch of adventure games that I can't even remember the titles of and enjoyed all of them.  Reading now keeps me pleasantly occupied. 

 

[Matt71]

I was looking online and found some posts on another forum about online gaming and data usage and it turns out the online games don't use all that much data as long as you are not downloading patches. You can get about 20 hours of play time in with a 2GB plan. Not enough for "serious" play, but you can get some casual play in once or twice a week. More cost effective than streaming movies. Might get back into playing Diablo.

 

[mockturtle]

I subscribe to MLB baseball audio [also NFL audio] and though audio doesn't use a lot of data, I do spend a fair amount of time on the internet. I only have 4GB/month so I have to prioritize. I don't look at videos or movies.

 

[Rugster]

Lee, if you loved the 'gold box' games, look for Phantasie. That was my first party based CRPG and it still plays really well. Graphics are adequate but the story is really pretty neat, considering how small the game is. You will need to print a copy of the spells, though, as you cast by spell number.

As a matter of fact, I may go download it again. Something cool about having a Lizardman Fighter and a Sprite thief

 

[sephson]

I've been playing Role-Playing Games since I was 14, so 26 years now. My early RPG experiences were with the various, Palladium Books titles, Robotech, Rifts, Beyond the Supernatural, Heroes Unlimited, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness, Palladium Fantasy, Etc. While the game system is a bit cumbersome, they used to be the best in the business when it came to creating the world which the Player Characters inhabited. The downward spiral that company has gone through in recent years is quite a shame. I've also played D&D 3.5, 4.0, 5.0, D20: Modern, and Pathfinder. G.U.R.P.S. is also a fun gaming system. I really enjoy playing a magic user in that system. Star Wars: Saga Edition is fun too. Other games, such as Traveler, Gamma World, Shadowrun, Bubblegum Crisis and Mutants & Masterminds, I use as inspiration for creating adventures when I Game Master.

My group just finished up a short D&D 3.5 campaign, which we may pick up again later. My character was a Tibit, a halfling sized race that transforms into a common house cat. My class was Dragonfire Adept, a class with fire breath as it's primary, offensive weapon. In short I was playing a fire breathing kitty cat.  

For the time being, we're going to move on to a low level D&D 5.0 campaign in which I'm playing a Human Wizard. I haven't decided yet whether or not I like the 5.0 system (Couldn't stand 4.0), but the game is more about having some fun with my friends than about the mechanics of the game system.

When time permits, I'm also working on a couple campaigns where I'll act as the Game Master. One is a Star Wars: Saga Edition campaign. The other is D20: Modern.

 

[LeeRevell]

A couple RPGs we Squids on my Navy ship liked, were Runequest and Space Opera. Runequest's dice rolling was the reverse of AD&D, so I had to really keep in mind which 'world' I was in when playing.
Space Opera was of course set in outer space. You'd have a ship with the other PCs as crew. Kind of like Firefly in game form. Great fun. My human character ended up married to another PC of a feline race. Made things.... interesting!

 

[Matt71]

Hmm, getting a desire to do an RPG RV gathering.
Do you guys go to any gaming conventions while you're on the road? I might compile a list of cons that are join on in the states I will be in so I can periodically get some gaming in.

 

[LeeRevell]

None locally I am aware of. We used to have a fairly decent SciFi convention, that also included comics, anime and RPG subjects, kindof an All-In-One event. But that seems to have folded some years back. I got to see and photograph Mark Leonard (Sarek of Vulcan) shortly before he passed away. James Doohan too.

At one time FSU had a little informal RPG group, but I just didn't gel with them. I was much older with different interests.

 

[LeeRevell]

Yes. It's on the conservative radio news too. RIP Mr. Nimoy.
On Youtube they have some early videos of him singing. He actually had some records out. Better voice than you'd expect.

 

[cdiggy]

Yes. It's on the conservative radio news too. RIP Mr. Nimoy.
On Youtube they have some early videos of him singing. He actually had some records out. Better voice than you'd expect.

Ha! Better then the shatter stuff, that's for sure. Some of these actors you hear and say 'man, what where you thinking?'

 

[Wabbit]

I will be picking up a PSone along with a decent library of games for evenings/downtime. I ran the numbers(can't find them ATM), and I think the PSone paired with a 32" TV drew less than 5 amps. That system has quite a few decent RPGs, and talking smack with the fighting games(2 player) is a blast for me after a few beers!

 

[Matt71]

His Bilbo Baggins song is great

 

[stormcrow]

I play pen and paper RPGs every chance I get. I've long held that the two worst parts about traveling is that I can't have a piano and that I can't get an RPG game together.

I really like the idea of dropping in at game stores as I travel, I'm going to look into that. Sometimes, when I travel, I force whoever I'm staying with to play whatever homebrew RPG system I'm working on at the time, under the guise of playtesting. Had pretty good success with running one-offs. I dream of traveling with 4 or so other folks in my van and making one of them run a game while I drive.

Also, geek conventions are great. And I've never had a problem sleeping in my van outside a hotel while there's a convention going on. Usually I'm tabling at them, though... maybe I'll start hitting up ones I'm not tabling so I get a chance to play.

 

[Matt71]

I spent some time today looking up gaming conventions. Unfortunately there are only a couple that are happening that coincide with our travels. MACE in Charlotte and SwampCon in Gainseville. There's also TetonCon, but that cost $1000+ per person to attend.

 

[LeeRevell]

The best gaming time I had was in the Navy, at Greatlakes Navy Base in Illinois. There was a game shop just outside one of the main gates, and when I got out of school on Friday afternoon, I'd change into civvie clothes, grab my game case, and head on over. "Dale's Dungeon" was the name of the place. A bunch of us would stay the entire weekend in the basement of the store, playing games, buying and trading game stuff, eating from the gedunk machines down there, and sleeping on the floor. Fun times! Then head back to barracks on Monday morning. We were "RPG Nerds of the First Water".

 

[bwallenjr]

I know im extremely new here but I saw this thread and had to jump in! I and my.family habe beeb living out in the woods for some years I have always been an avid gamer and game designer. Our location proved to be a problem for organizing sit down rpgs. So I. Began playing forum based play by post (pbp) games and play by email (pbem) games. Their are several free sites set up for this and their great! Unfortunately traditional rpgs tend to be a little clunky. Some of the rules are meant to be handled by players talking through choices in a matter of a few minutes. That gets dragged out when people have to postback and forth repeatedly.

So I began designed simplier games to use online or at the table. One specifically for online no dice rolling involved and still random.

I think an online game of van dwellers and rvers would be awesome! [emoji1] If anyone would be interested I would be more than happy to GM it. We could run it through email. I could even possible do it by texting if data is an issue.

Feel free to email me or pm me if your interested in trying to get a game going, or if you want to see the rules, or just talk about gaming. [emoji1]

 

[AsphaltGypsy]

Not really for the role playing, but for gaming, I will admit..   *peeks around cautiously*   I have been really big into World of Warcraft for a lot of years.  Six.  No way I could ever do a set up to play that on the road.  I still have my subscription, but yeesh..  stupid xpac came out and now I'm looking at having to level 13 90's up to level 100 now.  I just don't have the energy or the want to.  So, I have been slowly leaving it.   Haven't really played any other games yet, I'm afraid to, haha.   Don't even want to look up how many hours I've played on WoW...

I am also a WOW player. I have been since if first came about. I am on the Dethecus server and have 6 Alliance toons and 2 Hordes. 3 of them are level 100's, but like yourself, not so interested in getting the rest to level 100. =) I mostly log on to do Garrison stuff and run around on my Hunter.

Kim

 

[AsphaltGypsy]

Not sure if that's a request for more information or not, but here goes.

Roleplaying is kind of like shared storytelling where each player has a "character" that has attributes, abilities and skills that are usually rated by numbers. For example you might have a Strength attribute that determines how strong your character is in relation to other characters. There are a lot of  different games with their own mechanics, but they all basically function the same.

Most games have a "Game Master" who controls the world around your characters and comes up with stories and challenges for your characters to solve. As players, you have your characters react to what the Game Master presents to you and use some mechanic (usually rolling dice combined with your traits) to determine if you are successful at what you were trying to do. Some games don't have Game Masters and players chard control of the entire world with limits set by the game's rules.

Games can go for a few hours or carry on for years over multiple session depending on your preferences. Game rules range from incredibly simple to incredibly complex. One game might allow you to just say what your character does and they just do it, while another game might make you calculate the weight and velocity of a bullet to see how much damage it does to someone. Some games are built around strategy and tactics, some around storytelling.

There are many different games that cover pretty much every genre to satisfy most interests. Genres run the whole gambit; I've played games about fantasy, the old west, teen romance, super heroes, professional wrestling, cop dramas, steampunk, science fiction, space opera, Wuthering Heights, anthropomorphic animals, vampires, werewolves, historical drama, samurai, the military, saturday morning cartoons, prime time television, cyberpunk, office romances, greek mythology, you name it, it's probably been done.

Right now I'm playing in a game about rabbits based on the Richard Adams book Watership Down, called The Warren.

Probably more information than you needed.

One of my most FAV books. Watership Down. Awesome!

Kim