So, what are you guys playing?

[John Geoffrey]

Seeing as there were a few messages around this group over the last
month... what are you guys playing?

Myself I have gone back to Basic D&D and Mongoose Traveller lately,
with some Over the Edge and Paranoia thrown in.

--
J.E.Geoffrey
Stuffed Crocodile Weblog
http://gmkeros.wordpress.com

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

John Geoffrey <gmk...@gmail.com> wrote in
news:20120727194249.1f3633c7@Pergamon:

> Seeing as there were a few messages around this group over the last
> month... what are you guys playing?
>
> Myself I have gone back to Basic D&D and Mongoose Traveller lately,
> with some Over the Edge and Paranoia thrown in.
>

Currently running Top Secret, also play Fantasy Hero.

--
Terry Austin

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

[Nicole Massey]

"John Geoffrey" <gmk...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:20120727194249.1f3633c7@Pergamon...

> Seeing as there were a few messages around this group over the last
> month... what are you guys playing?
>
> Myself I have gone back to Basic D&D and Mongoose Traveller lately,
> with some Over the Edge and Paranoia thrown in.
>
> --

Not playing anything right now, just focusing on publishing a first edition
AD&D web magazine on a quarterly basis and writing for an online modern soap
opera-ish RPG.

[Ben Finney]

John Geoffrey <gmk...@gmail.com> writes:

> Seeing as there were a few messages around this group over the last
> month... what are you guys playing?

I'm trying to assemble a group for Apocalypse World, and am at the point
where I think we're ready to meet for the first time next week.

I'm having the usual headaches of trying to get people to actually show
up to the table. We've has four postponements so far and haven't had a
first session yet.

In the meantime, several of the people were newcomers to RPGs entirely,
so I needed to introduce them a little more gently than the high-impact
in-your-face fuckage of Apocalypse World.

So I've run several sessions of Fiasco, which is a great introduction
because it encourages screwing over your own character for a compelling
story, and because it starts and ends in a single session. Not
sustainable beyond a single session, but great fun while it lasts.

--
\ “There is more to life than increasing its speed.” —Mohandas K. |
`\ Gandhi |
_o__) |
Ben Finney

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

OLD school, I see.

I'm running a Harry Potter RPG (on hiatus but about to restart soon),
in an Avatar-based RPG (about to wind down), an... unusual Vampire: The
Masquerade campaign, and a Torchwood campaign that's about to restart.

I'm also anticipating the release of my novel _Phoenix Rising_ (Baen,
coming November 6th) which is set in my fantasy RPG world of Zarathan
which I've mentioned many times here and on r.g.frp.dnd.


--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Website: http://www.grandcentralarena.com Blog:
http://seawasp.livejournal.com

[Nicole Massey]

"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote in message
news:juva3j$lt6$1...@dont-email.me...

Yes, I'm rather old school -- never saw or read anything in later versions
of most of the games that I liked enough to crack open the pocketbook and
buy. (And in some cases I've disliked it enough that there is no chance of
me buying any of it)

[Will in New Haven]

On Jul 27, 1:42 pm, John Geoffrey <gmke...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Seeing as there were a few messages around this group over the last
> month... what are you guys playing?
>
> Myself I have gone back to Basic D&D and Mongoose Traveller lately,
> with some Over the Edge and Paranoia thrown in.

Our RPG group is geographically challenged but we have my campaign,
fantasy RPG, local rules, get together every month or so. My friend
Simon's AD&D (first edition, with some original D&D and some of our
local rules) campaign gets together even less often.

--
Will in New Haven

[John Geoffrey]

Would you be interested in some things for the magazine that I already
published on my blog? I am using it mostly for some ideas I have, and
most of the time these things don't manage to get into my games
(because I am not gaming nearly often enough...)

[John Geoffrey]

On Sat, 28 Jul 2012 08:11:29 +1000
Ben Finney <bignose+h...@benfinney.id.au> wrote:

> John Geoffrey <gmk...@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > Seeing as there were a few messages around this group over the last
> > month... what are you guys playing?
>
> I'm trying to assemble a group for Apocalypse World, and am at the
> point where I think we're ready to meet for the first time next week.
>
> I'm having the usual headaches of trying to get people to actually
> show up to the table. We've has four postponements so far and haven't
> had a first session yet.
>
> In the meantime, several of the people were newcomers to RPGs
> entirely, so I needed to introduce them a little more gently than the
> high-impact in-your-face fuckage of Apocalypse World.
>
> So I've run several sessions of Fiasco, which is a great introduction
> because it encourages screwing over your own character for a
> compelling story, and because it starts and ends in a single session.
> Not sustainable beyond a single session, but great fun while it lasts.
>

What exactly is Apocalypse World? (uhm... let me guess...
postapocalyptic scifi?) What do you like about it?

How does Fiasco play? I have seen that in a few places but never looked
at it so closely. Is it good to introduce players to rpgs?

[Nicole Massey]

"John Geoffrey" <gmk...@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:20120801173...@Pergamon.lodz.pl...

Of course. We're always looking for content. Just so you know the "lay of
the land" as it were, Issue 3 is full up, (issue 2 will come out within the
week) but Issue 4 (Character classes) and Issue 5 (magic items) both could
use some material, and Issue 6 (Wilderness adventures) has very little in it
so far. We also have no problem with non-themed content -- we want our
content to be at least 60% thematic, but that leaves some room.
Send submissions to submi...@and-mag.com.

[Ben Finney]

John Geoffrey <gmk...@gmail.com> writes:

> What exactly is Apocalypse World? (uhm... let me guess...
> postapocalyptic scifi?)

Post-apocalyptic with a worldwide psychic maelstrom and fucking hot,
kick-arse PCs.

No zombies, no corporations or government or armies; your enemies are
other identifiable people acting and pursuing their own inter-tangled
but personal goals.

<URL:http://apocalypse-world.com/>

> What do you like about it?

The game is hugely opinionated: it wants you (the MC, the gamemaster) to
run the game the way Vincent Baker says you should run it. Which is
good, because Baker *really* knows his shit and has put together a
tight, volatile game that's won awards.

There's tons of implied setting, without making your world for you or
requiring players to read the book.

The PCs are larger than life and the world is fucked; but the game
pushes for realistic drives and believable reactions to the fictional
events.

The PCs are awesome. They do action-movie violence sometimes, but
they're *really* compelling when they are manipulating other people,
seducing them, getting in their face, making ugly deals.

The rules support this, very strongly: a lot of the mechanics the
players interact with are directly for the PCs doing non-violent social
stuff. Then they can keep shooting things and blowing them up, of
course; but it's not the primary thing the rules cover.

The PCs start out on top of things and then things start to go wrong;
but they have the guns or the social pull or the psychic connections to
claw back something good again.

Unlike games where you want your character to do something and you have
to go hunting for a rule that covers the situation, in this game you
push the story forward all the time and moves kick in based on what the
characters are already doing. The rules support the players in doing
their stuff, but the rules also try their damnedest to not interrupt the
story when it's flowing well.

Many things the PCs want to do, they can just do without any roll. On
the flip side, many things they do will have *consequences* even if they
succeed. This includes sex: each character type has a move that kicks in
when they have sex with another character, which makes it consequential
and meaningful. Just like real life.

The MC has carte blanche to make anything happen; the MC never rolls the
dice, only the players do. And then the game gives loads of advice and
incentive to the MC to not fight the players, but to make the PCs look
awesome by making their lives not boring. It doesn't try to mitigate the
MC's power; it gives direction and license to do cool stuff with that
power.

Most moves that give the PC a success/failure will also offer a choice
of limited but evocative options; either to the successful PC, or to
their opponent, or to the MC when deciding what goes wrong. This both
focusses the mind on a creative interpretation of the outcome, and
ensures that the moves are generally applicable without being over long.

Throughout the book is advice for the players and the MC on keeping
things moving. The MC has tools to upset the apple cart of any scene
that is stagnating, or to find out what the PCs actually care about and
shine a spotlight there.

There are no status quos in Apocalypse World. The first session is all
about finding out where the PCs are vulnerable right now, where the
society is shifting or screwing up right now, where things are slipping
away or becoming an opportunity to change the balance of power. Then the
subsequent sessions turn up the volume.

And it's all at the scale of individual people; this is a function of
the post-apocalyptic setting, but it's also throughout the flavour of
the text. The world of people is small enough that everything is
individual and personal and every NPC gets a name and a human
motivation. No faceless goons, no forgettable peasantry, no abstract
organisations. Believable, human NPCs everywhere.


We played our first session tonight, and it was great. Character
creation, which takes an hour or so, results in a bunch of impressive
people with roots in the setting and existing history with each other,
needing *zero* prep beforehand.

Once character creation was done, we already knew what was meant to
happen next in the story and hit the ground running. I implicated them
in a screwed-up deal immediately. By the end of a couple of hours:

* The gunlugger had shot dead (without needing to roll dice) two of the
hardhold's favourite drivers, including one of the hocus's cult
members. This pissed off the hardholder and the operator and the hocus
who needed what they were transporting.

* The skinner had defused a mob the hocus had gathered by using the fact
the hocus loves her, and saved the hardholder's child from being used
as part of the psychic antenna the hocus is building.

* The hocus's cult had demanded children be tortured to power their
rituals, and they convinced her to get the gunlugger into their number
by plotting to seduce the gunlugger's lover, the skinner.

* The operator had traded parts for the doomsday machine the hocus's
cult wants to build, while dealing with the gunlugger to get more loot
against the hardholder's wishes; and all of these deals went south.

Again, I repeat, that was the first session with no plot prepared; it
all emerged from setting up NPCs with simple desires, and demanding a
response from the PCs.

There's so much material here for the next session and the situation is
all going to change again. By not letting the players get comfortable in
their positions, the game rules have made a volatile situation that was
never stable to begin with.

--
\ “We used to laugh at Grandpa when he'd head off and go fishing. |
`\ But we wouldn't be laughing that evening when he'd come back |
_o__) with some whore he picked up in town.” —Jack Handey |
Ben Finney

[Ben Finney]

John Geoffrey <gmk...@gmail.com> writes:

> How does Fiasco play? I have seen that in a few places but never
> looked at it so closely. Is it good to introduce players to rpgs?

Yes, it's very good for that purpose. It has a clear and simple
structure to the game; it connects with tropes that most anybody who
enjoys movies will be very familiar with; and it goes from zero to
completed game in about three hours.

And it's riotous fun to play. Powerful ambition and poor impulse
control, indeed.

--
\ “Perchance you who pronounce my sentence are in greater fear |
`\ than I who receive it.” —Giordano Bruno, burned at the stake by |
_o__) the Catholic church for the heresy of heliocentrism, 1600-02-16 |
Ben Finney

[Warren J. Dew]

I'm still running the same homebrew campaign I started in 1978.

[John Geoffrey]

On Fri, 7 Sep 2012 13:00:22 -0700 (PDT)
"Warren J. Dew" <psych...@aol.com> wrote:

> I'm still running the same homebrew campaign I started in 1978.

Awesome. Can you tell me more about it? Do you still have the same
players?

[McWolfe]

On 2012-07-27 17:42:49 +0000, John Geoffrey said:

> Seeing as there were a few messages around this group over the last
> month... what are you guys playing?
>
> Myself I have gone back to Basic D&D and Mongoose Traveller lately,
> with some Over the Edge and Paranoia thrown in.

Two groups currently. One group is playing an ongoing campaign of
Dresden Files, the other group will start a One Ring-campaign this
wednesday

/McWolfe