Gaming Geeks & Roleplayers

[samwise7]

I'm curious if there are other people out there that chuck the bones and talk in funny voices, while getting "pizza damage" on your character sheet.

If you are a roleplayer, do you play in any RPGs using Middle-earth as a setting, or do you prefer other world settings?

Plus all you CCG addicts, boardgamers, online gamers, and miniatures players are welcome to chime in as well.

Gamers are like the military, in that we have various branches that like different games, but we are all still brothers and sisters.

[Thinlómien]

One M-E roleplayer here.

I've been playing tabletop M-E RPGs since I was something like eight (or nine) years old, so for about ten years. It's one of my dearest hobbies.

I've played in various games during these ten or so years - though in less than one could expect, it seems like I have a habit of engaging in never-ending campaigns that go on for years - and most of them have been set in Middle-Earth. Middle-Earth is quite perfect for a roleplaying setting for me: it's an intriguing and somewhat magical world which I know a lot about. I feel that in ME there's just the right amount of given information and open questions for a game master. Besides, random sentences or minor facts in Tolkien's work tend to inspire me.

As to other than tabletop RPGs, I've been playing in storytelling/written RPGs here in the 'downs for a couple of years now and I've always wanted to try larping. I used to play a computer RPG (Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn) occasionally, but I never played it online with anyone, nor did I ever get very far in it.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

I can second some of what Lommy said here. I have been RPGing since my eight years or so, from the moment my older cousin persuaded most of our family to play an RPG with him on the holidays (oh, had it not been for him, I would not even have read LotR - at least not the way I did - and would probably not have joined the Downs at all!). Almost from the very beginning, I became a Dungeon Master (or how is it called in each game) and was a DM in most of the games I ever played. I enjoy the stuff greatly, preparing all the stories, very detailed settings, own worlds and everything. Middle-Earth has always been my beloved world, but this is also maybe why I did not dare to step on its ground too often and preferred to create worlds to play in on my own, so that the players - unworthy barbarians - do not violate the precious world. And I am very grateful for it, for at last, a year and something ago, my players (of my current group; the basic players of my group have remained more or less the same through the time, some left and some came, but the current one was in fact created by a synthesis of our high school roleplaying group with our camp roleplaying group, when the high school ended and part of the campers moved away or became working people with less interest in RPGing) reached the state when we agreed on starting a roleplaying setting in Middle-Earth. I have written about that somewhere, if anyone is interested more on what we are doing, in this thread I wrote something more about it.

Otherwise, I have played several computer RPGs - Baldur's Gate I&II, Icewind Dale I&II (though I didn't finish either of them) and also others of non-fantasy genre (namely Knights of the Old Republic I and II, which were one of the few computer games I ever completed); but let's face it: these lack the very important aspects of RPGing like interaction with other players, using your own imagination and mainly, mainly, the thing I value above all: freedom of choices. In a computer game, you cannot decide to climb up a tree if the game does not allow you to do so, nor talk to the NPCs using your own words (one of my friends once kept arguing with me that in some Neverwinter Nights with the DM supervisor, one is capable to do almost anything. Bah, don't be silly).

And concerning other ways of RPGing, the Barrow-Downs are the only place where I tried it and I must say it looks very good here overall, though mostly I have been only reading to this point

As to LARPs, I could recount a funny story about myself that is classic among my friends, but I have already written a long post, so let me just say that I never LARPed though especially in my mid-teens I really wanted to try that. But, bah, nowadays I'm feeling I am just too old for it or what

[Nogrod]

It was something like year '84 or something when a few guys of my high-school had been exchange-students in the U.S. and told me about roleplaying. I wasn't that good friend with them to join a game but the idea felt great.

Well, it laid dormant the next 10+ years until Lommy & A Little Green were old enough and fallen to Tolkien...

We played the MERP to begin with and then moved on to our own games (using the Rolemaster rules). Nowadays I think Lommy at least is a much more experienced gamemaster than I am but we are planning games still even if it's been a long time we've actually played them together...

The planning of them is almost as interesting than the actual playing.

But it's a lot of fun indeed whichever way.

[samwise7]

My memory is pretty horrible (swiss cheese between my ears) but I think I was 10 when I started roleplaying. My mother bought me a D&D boxed game. I think Hero Quest was somewhere in there too. Then we bought the I.C.E. Lord of the Rings RPG box set, and got the 2 expansions for it and played those.

From there we bought the Rolemaster Standard System and although we butchered the rules horribly we had a lot of fun, which is all they should be about anyway. My brother and I were always the guys that knew the rules and ran the games, but I was always better at it. I prefer playing to running games, but I normally get to wear the GM/DM hat.

The group fell apart (people "grew up" and moved on) and I was without a group for awhile. There were some 1-shots of Rolemaster, but nothing stable.

Then I got the Magic The Gathering virus for awhile, and many of my McDonald's paychecks went to buying collectible crack in the form of cards... I still have them all and play from time to time. Mainly it was hanging out with the other people that played that was fun, but I still enjoy building deck strategies when I am not glued to my computer, hehe.

In college I had hoped to find a gaming group, and the only one I found was a group that played Vampire: the Masquerade. Now I am normally good at ignoring how people look and try to get to know them underneath, but even for me these people were downright creepy... So after playing once, I never returned. So college was without games, which was a surprise for me. I played a few games of Magic the Gathering, but nothing consistent.

I got married, and found a gaming group in Pittsburgh www.gaspgamer.com

GASP (Gaming Association of Southwestern Pennsylvania) was a real beacon for gamers, and it became my once a month gaming fix, and still is. For anyone near Pittsburgh we have a yearly convention in Nov that is small, but great, as it is made for gamers by gamers.

Anyway, GASP exposed me to D&D 3rd edition, and then later D&D 3.5. I played lots of D&D games in various worlds over the years and had some very consistent players.

Recently I've am very disillusioned with D&D and with WOTC (Wizards of the Coast). I've been looking at a lot of free RPGs, and have been using them, plus a rules lite version of the D10 dice pool White Wolf game engine for fantasy 1-shots. I've also fallen in love with HARP (High Adventure Role Playing) which is I.C.E.'s new game (which is like a lite version of Rolemaster influenced by D&D).

The group I was a part of was a D&D only group, and it got too me, so it was funny when I was the one bailing from a gaming group, when it had been me for soooo many years that worked so hard to keep so many failed groups together.

So all that being said, I'm a gamer through and through, and it is really my main hobby. I've only ever played in Middle-earth using the Lord of the Rings rules when I was a kid, and have never returned to the lands of Tolkien. Maybe I will run a game in the future set in Middle-earth set in the 4th age, who knows.

Anyway, thanks fellow gamers for the replies. Being a gamer is sometimes like having a rare disease, in that you try to keep it in the closet for fear of being labeled "weird."

I take pride in my Geekdom.

[Aganzir]

I think I was 12 when I started roleplaying, and despite some other, shorter campaigns we've played recently, the first campaign is still running.

First, it was just a let's-have-some-fun (with character sheets and dice, of course) thing. The characters resembled us quite much, in other forms and another world, though. I admit giving little thought to my character until I grew older, and those things have caused some difficulties now that we should at last be able to think that our characters make even some sense as persons and are credible. For example, what was the point in my character cooking his fellows some disgusting organs for lunch, wanting to eat this innocent little kitten, committing crimes without a reason...?
Reading through my old roleplaying-related notebooks, also my own growth can be quite clearly seen. The character is still stupid, childish, ridiculous &c., but maybe it's just a part of his personality.

Our group has remained the same for all these years, but it was actually by chance that it ended up consisting just us four. If I remember correctly, Lommy had tried to recruit some others from our primary school class as well, but we were the only ones to show enough interest & find the time needed... And I doubt we would now be this good friends if not for the roleplaying. Despite all the quarrels we've had, no one has had the gut to quit playing. And spending much time together has brought us quite close to one another.

Our long-term campaign is set in Middle-earth, but it's the only one. The others we've played together have taken place in various other fantasy worlds or a world invented by the GM herself. I admit I like Middle-earth the most. It has always fascinated me more than the stories themselves, and it's just wonderful to actually get there, despite it being a version slightly perverted by the GM's evil mind.
Other fantasy worlds work as well (although I always face the problem of not knowing as much about the place as my character should), to some extent, but I've found that games set in the GM's imaginary world are not quite my cup of tea. Because of the lack of information. Because I have no clue about what my character could be like if I don't know about the world first. And a world created by an average 17-year-old doesn't match the world creating of which Tolkien spent all his life.

I've never been much into computer roleplaying nor CCGs, but in my early teens I had a short craze for Middle-earth: the Wizards. I knew the rules but usually we just played a very idiotic variation with our own rules. Now I've happily forgot them both. Larping is not something I've tried, either. I've never been that interested in it, and because of my natural laziness I find it unlikely that I can ever make myself sign up for some larp.

[Groin Redbeard]

The only RPG games that I have ever played were right here on the Downs, The Golden Perch Inn. Whoever came up with the idea to have RPG's was brilliant! I love writing small stories and when I discovered the RPG's it was like a dream come true.

[McCaber]

I started my first RPG system early last year. I play Warhammer tabletop, so it was an easy step into Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Easily one of the darkest worlds I've ever had a chance to enter.

I just got Call of Cthulhu, but I haven't had time to run a game yet. It sounds fun, though.

On the computer front: I got Bioshock, but my system can't run it yet. I am looking forward to Warhammer Online, though.

[samwise7]

Roleplaying and gaming are really my only hobbies, unless you consider posting on forums a hobby. I need to be someone else from time to time. It's like taking a mental vacation from all the crap I have to deal with in real life.



I started a world building project that I've been trying to find members for. We started out with some guys and gals, but many of them bailed on me and one other guy that is still helping me out some. It is a system-less world, but we've been trying to translate most of it to D20/D&D stats on the wiki.

Here is what the project is about:


Gasp World Building Forum (The realms we worked on are now on the wiki, but new ones go here)
http://www.eonsreach.com/worldforum/index.php?www

Gasp World Building Wiki (older realms are here, but they still need a lot of work)
http://www.eonsreach.com/worldwiki/i...itle=Main_Page


The idea is to make a flat world made entirely out of 200 mile Hexes that were isolated from each other for 5,000 since the creation. The setting is "finished" during the 5,001st year. It is up to the GM to figure out how the chaos unfolds after the Great Uniting, when each Realm realizes that the "End of the World" is now a new land.

Each designer represents a God that is given free reign (with some limitations) to design the hex as they see fit. The Uber-God reigns over all the United Realms (I'm that guy, since I came up with the idea and do the work no one else wants to do...)

What this isolation of hexes does, is allow new hexes to be added whenever, because of the isolation, world builders don't have to worry about their neighbors.

When the designer is "finished" with their hex, it is added randomly with the help of dice to the map that is already made of the previous hexes.

For a better outline, check out the Laws of Creation.
http://www.eonsreach.com/worldforum/index.php?topic=6.0

I'm the Knight of Frost on those forums.

The first group of guys bailed on me at the end (it takes a lot of work to build a world).

This is my attempt to get new blood to make new hexes, and to help finish the previous ones that were dumped in my lap to finish.

Any takers?

If so, feel free to sign up on the world building forum with a forum name.