The Roleplaying Thread

[michaelpaciocco]

I remember this from when Gary Gygax passed away earlier this year, but I figure, hey, new place, time for a thread!

Myself, I'm probably not a typical roleplayer: I have never:
-played any sword & sworcery type games
-played any system specifically for a licensed property (Star Trek/Wars, Buffy, etc)
-played a MMORPG
-played a popular system.
-really taken an interest in the various system elitism/wars/rivalry or the edition craze.

See, I was drawn in by my friends who played Rifts (yes, from Palladium. Don't worry, I'm used to the snickering by now), and for the last little while, I've been both a GM and a player in the Heroes Unlimited franchise (because, hey, there Heroes get to be ...what's that thing...HEROIC!) via chatrooms and Play-by-Post on a few friendly boards (which, if you're interested, are always looking for new people. PM me if you want more info). I don't have a lot of time, what with RL and all, to devote to changing systems or discussing merits and flaws and all that (and yes, I'm quite cognizant of Palladiums many flaws and low standing. I don't care. I have fun. THE END.), so I just go along and hey, it's fun.

Anyway, what's your experience? If you're into this hobby, what's your muse? Your interest? Your geekdom?

Let your nerd banner fly high!

Michael

[Mario Di Giacomo]

I played (A)D&D fairly regularly from '81-'91, although not in a stable campaign. Along the way, I also played Star Frontiers, Traveller, GURPS Star Trek, and a particularly amusing Paranoia session (as I recall, I executed half the team for treason DURING THE BRIEFING), among others, but we always went back to D&D. Fell out of the habit after college, as I didn't have an active group, nor the extroversion necessary to find a new one.

I've never played an MMORPG, but I did try various MUDs, MUSHs, and MUSEs during college. They didn't appeal, as I never found an online party that a) shared my online schedule, or b) actively welcomed new players.

I left gaming before 3.0 came out, but I'll admit to being somewhat curious about 4th edition.

[lostphrack]

I used to play RPG's by the bucket load. D&D, AD&D, various Palladium games including Rifts, Robotech, Heroes Unlimited and more. Other random TSR things like Gamma World, and a few aborted attempts to get into the World of Darkness stuff too.

I was really found of Rifts, AD&D and Heroes Unlimited for a loooong time. Played AD&D pretty regularly with my cousin and his friends throughout my teen years, while I played different Palladium games mostly with my friends from school. I used to moosh all the contemporary Palladium settings into one mess. Heroes, Ninja and Super Spies, TMNT, Beyond the Supernatural, Nightspawn/Bane. Fun stuff.

That said.. it's been over a decade since I last played a table top RPG. I've poked around with the various MU* stuff but never really got into them.

[Johann Chua]

Never played any pen & paper RPGs, though I did devour the Robotech sourcebook Palladium put out.

[jkcarrier]

I still regularly game with some friends from high school. We play a heavily-modified 1st edition AD&D, with bits borrowed from other games (our current campaign has the characters dimension-hopping back and forth between D&D land and Gamma World).

In our younger days, when our main DM needed a break, I would run a superhero campaign with the Villains & Vigilantes rules. That was mostly the other players humoring me, though... they much prefer fantasy games where they can loot and pillage.

We've dabbled in other systems, like Star Frontiers and Palladium and who knows what else, but we always gravitate back to D&D.

[Anders]

Man, where to start?

I've played roleplaying games since before I knew what they were - me and one of my childhood friends would make up improvised open-ended boardgame adventures that were more roleplaying games than anything else, originally based on comics or movies or computer text adventures, but mostly made up of whole cloth.

Then we got into real roleplaying games with the first Swedish game, Drakar och Demoner, a translation of the fantasy bits from Basic Roleplay. We were about 10, 12 I think.

After that there were all kinds of games: more Swedish ones, GURPS, Villains & Vigilantes, Marvel Super Heroes, Judge Dredd, a couple of the Palladium games, Star Frontiers - we'd play pretty much anything we could get our hands on at least once.

Now I've got a whole bookcase full of RPG books. Lots of D&D 3.5, White Wolf and GURPS but dozens of other games as well, many of them never played. The only game I'm actively playing at the moment is D&D 4 which is just right for me, both as a player and as a GM. We recently finished a short campaign in the Resident Evil world using the Buffy rules (with a sprinkling of All Flesh Must Be Eaten).

I'm lucky to have a big circle of gamers to play with, with around half of them leading games at least occasionally.