RPG's (Pen and Paper)

Roleplaying Tips Weekly

I've done their blog twice, I've been published in multiple newsletters, and I was even included in an e-book they did a few weeks ago. I was actually the #2 choice for being the assistant editor there at one point,

It's only semi-professional, but it counts for cred and is helping to pad my portfolio.

Although I've been submitting items to them for a few years now, this blog post here appears to have been what put me over the top with not only head editor Johnn Four but also the general readership. It's got my real name attached to it, so doing a search for "Roleplaying Tips Weekly" with my real name in the string should show you everything I've done that they've posted online to date.

I played relatively heavily from 84 -92... a little bit around 98-99... so I probably haven't seen anything you've written.

I've been playing Champions/Hero System since the blue box (either first or second printing, I can never remember the way to tell them apart). I write off-and-on for a Hero System APA, and have proofreading credits in some of the books.

I'm running a fantasy game using Hero every other Thursday evening. I'm one of the three GMs who rotate the duty in a group that meets Sunday afternoons. The rotation is made easier by that group's habit of running miniseries instead of campaigns -- we play superheroes for a while, then pulp, then steampunk, or whatever one of the GMs feels like running. Regardless of genre, that group sticks with 5th edition Hero.

I haven't played D&D since the days of 3.5, that game self-destructed when the DM walked out on his wife (whose character the game was built around).

I've tried everything from Paranoia to Gamma World to Teenagers From Outer Space at conventions.

I haven't played PnP for many years but I was very keen back in the early 80's (back when D&D was different to AD&D and when people still played Tunnels & Trolls).

I usually GM'd because I wasn't much of an actor and my inner megalomaniac loved the power. The ticky part was (and, I assume for those still playing, is) stopping the game becoming simply a set of rules. I always hated describing the start of a battle and then watching the players all flicking through the manuals to find out how many hit-dice the enemy had or which spells they were immune to. My experience was that the best sessions happened when people stopped playing it as a game (to be won) and started simply role-playing.

My favourite PnP RPG was probably Traveller, partly because I'm a SF fan and also because I found it easier to concentrate on the player interaction and the storytelling in that environment. However, due to its popularity I probably spent most time running (A)D&D campaigns.

THat reminds me of a time when at University our RPG group had booked a room on a Sunday night for a game, and due to a double booking a Christian group was there too, we were in the middle of Cthulus Mask of Nyalatathep (sp?) so we were trying to stop a Cult of the Bloody tongue sacrifice in the game. I am afraid we sorta confirmed all their prejudices about us.

I have one of the original Dungeon Master handbooks from the first incarnation of D&D, Dungeons and Dragons.

Small bit of "Useless" information... D&D, Dungeons and Dragons, was a text based adventure game, invented by IBM.(Other people have invented other variants)

They used it to test simple decision making paths in the original IBM System 32 and 34.

I have family who were part of that group of test engineers/programmers.....

The "Game" became popular.... it is considered the Grandfather of all home computing text based Adventure games....

I was part of the team of programmers who "Converted" it to Basic to run on the BBC B home computer.

As for the pen and paper version?... "Some say" it owes its routes to that IBM program....

But I was in at the beginning, and have my own set of die, all the multi-sided ones, back from 1980's, sat in their original canister (cant find anything better?..) on the shelf in front of me....
My Sons have tried to borrow them... aint happening.....

It is many years since I played the game.

I do however remember one memorable car journey home from a game at someone elses place....
Adam was the nominated driver that night, and quite sober... the rest of us?... well two pints over legally drunk is an under -estimate.... it had been a good night, we were in high spirits....
And got pulled by the police, inquisitive as to why we were "Out" at 3 am in the morning... this was late 80's early 90's....

Officer:- Where have you been till this hour?...
Bite tongue... not working... Me:- Fighting daemons in the ninth dimension.......

Generally speaking, it's been several years since I've been in a campaign that didn't ultimately go off the rails.

However, we've at least had the common sense to keep things to the point that the police didn't have to get involved.


If anything, the last campaign I was in was basically "us playing chicken with each other to see who could create the weirdest / most disturbing character / cohort combo".

I thought Minds Eye was a LARP ruleset?

That's one type of gaming I've never gotten into. Mostly, it's because the regional LARP group (custom ruleset, but based off World of Darkness) is ... well, the kindest description is "insular".

I picked up a rulebook for superhero LARPing a few months ago, I knew the guy running the Kickstarter for it so I threw in for the printed book reward level. I don't know if I'll ever run/play it, though.

Yes mindseye is a LARP rules set, I guess it's redundant to say both, but I wasn't sure if people knew of both.

I have LARPed myself, but either playing Fantasy games in the Chiselhurst caves Labyrinthe, a place set up for it, or woods used for paintball that had been sub hired to us.

Silverdragon, that sounds a lot like some of the characters that some of the players I have know in the past played, need to destroy an Inn used as a Thieves Guild, 4 Mount Spells of a high level,creates 4 Elephants, one on each wall and push, no need to worry about all those death traps inside.