Tabletop RPGs, the old pen & paper thing

[IsabellaRose]

I know I'm not the only one here who loves TTRPGs. Who else enjoys sitting around a table rolling dice and telling stories? What do you play? Have you ever tried forum play for TTRPGs? Have you tried solo TTRPGs? I am full of questions, and I demand answers! Well, not really... but I'd love to chat with other people who play the things I play.

I love TTRPGs and have since I was a wee girl. It's my older brothers' fault. When he had to watch me and my sister he made playing with our stuffed animals into a RPG and we got to roll his crazy dice that he kept locked in his room and forbade us from using otherwise.

We started with D&D, moved to other games he had from the old days like Star Frontiers, Marvel, Paranoia, Traveler, and Call of Cthulhu to name a few. I was running games as the DM at an early age, and just kept exploring games and discovering more and more systems. I've settled into games where the system is more of a narrative engine than a physics engine, stuff where I can play without worrying about levels, classes, and starting out as weakling then becoming a god. 

Tell me all about your gaming experiences!

[severianwolf]

I've played and run D&D since middle school, which is... longer than I'd like to admit.

I've got a couple of solo RPGs, like Lighthouse at the End of the World, but never found time to really do more than browse them, though someday maybe I'll play through one someday.

Some favorites have been Vampire the Masquerade, Apocalypse World, Shadow of the Demon Lord and Ultraviolet Grasslands and the Black City.

A few times I've tried forum play, but it's hard to handle lots of the mechanics which leaves things mostly as narrative RP, which is fun, but also many times I've had forum or online games fall apart as players get busy and don't respond within the allotted turn time. 

[WritesNaughtyStories]

I'm a D&D guy going back to the age of Blackmoor, Arduin and Eldritch Wizardy. In the intervening years I have played a ton of RPGs. Champions, the first edition of Gamma World, V&V, Metamorphosis Alpha, Runequest, the ICE "Law" series of supplements.... In modern times I'm a huge fan of Apocalypse World, FFG's 40k games and indie games like Microscope, Ganymede Outriders, Trophy and Salvage Union.

I've run Deathwatch on a dedicated play-by-post site and it's CRUNCHY. It's possible to run a game like that, but it requires a die roller - something we don't have at ED. Here, a narrative system like Amber Diceless, is a better fit, but almost anything can be pared down to be usable here. All that's really changes is how much "game" is left in the roleplay.

Turns are a wonky thing. Around a table they're easy to enforce, but PBP works exceedingly poorly with hard turn sequences and initiative. There's no way to account for who's going to post when. Far better to push the narrative to the front and accept that not everyone will get to shine in each scene. Some people may not want to.

I'd love to get something going that leans into mechanical character generation but then kind of lets go of hard mechanics. It seems counterintuitive, but I think if you have a clear idea of what someone is good at and how good they are compared to the other characters, it's pretty easy to adjudicate success and failure without a ton of mechanics.

I've kicked around a few ideas, and there was a Microscope game an age ago, but ED seems to require a certain amount of sex to get behind a "game". Could be that whole "ecchi" thing.

[IsabellaRose]

On 03/09/2024 at 20:33, severianwolf said:

I've played and run D&D since middle school, which is... longer than I'd like to admit.

I've got a couple of solo RPGs, like Lighthouse at the End of the World, but never found time to really do more than browse them, though someday maybe I'll play through one someday.

Some favorites have been Vampire the Masquerade, Apocalypse World, Shadow of the Demon Lord and Ultraviolet Grasslands and the Black City.

A few times I've tried forum play, but it's hard to handle lots of the mechanics which leaves things mostly as narrative RP, which is fun, but also many times I've had forum or online games fall apart as players get busy and don't respond within the allotted turn time. 

I play on a site dedicated to forum games. It's a lot easier to roll inline, but yeah. It's hard to keep a group together. It's a lot easier with a narrative based game that doesn't require initiative or strict turn order.

[Balthier]

I started with AD&D. From there I discovered Palladium Books, and ran a Palladium Fantasy 2nd edition (the first and real PF2E) for my friends through high school and up to college. Ah Palladiun, what a great setting.

We also played Rifts and Robotech, using Palldium's system. Ah the fun times of youth. Was such a good time.

I still see some of my old friends, we played DnD 5E for a time. Yet still, I yearn to return to Rifts.

Edited September 8 by Balthier

[WritesNaughtyStories]

2 hours ago, Balthier said:

I still see some of my old friends, we played DnD 5E for a time. Yet still, I yearn to return to Rifts

Rifts is still ridiculously fun. Mechanically it's much more elegant than it gets credit for - although the power creep across the series is very real and STEEP.

Macross wasn't really my thing, but Dead Reign and Nightbane were also extremely cool.

Hmmm.... PbP Rifts on EcchiDreams? Couldn't really port the mechanics over, but there's some big, fun and potentially very ECCHI stories to tell. Blind Altaran Warrior Women and Dead Boys and BL Glitter boys.

There's something there.

[IsabellaRose]

2 hours ago, Balthier said:

I started with AD&D. From there I discovered Palladium Books, and ran a Palladium Fantasy 2nd edition (the first and real PF2E) for my friends through high school and I to college. Ah Palladiun, what a great setting.

We also played Rifts and Robotech, using Palldium's system. Ah the fun times of youth. Was such a good time.

My brother had Palladium's Beyond the Supernatural and Transdimensional Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles which I used to run a crazy multiverse game before everything was a multiverse. It was my favorite homebrewed setting for years.

[Balthier]

1 hour ago, WritesNaughtyStories said:

Rifts is still ridiculously fun. Mechanically it's much more elegant than it gets credit for - although the power creep across the series is very real and STEEP.

Macross wasn't really my thing, but Dead Reign and Nightbane were also extremely cool.

Hmmm.... PbP Rifts on EcchiDreams? Couldn't really port the mechanics over, but there's some big, fun and potentially very ECCHI stories to tell. Blind Altaran Warrior Women and Dead Boys and BL Glitter boys.

There's something there.

Nightbane! I had forgotten that one. My friend, and my sister both ran campaigns for Nightbane, that was a ton of fun. I remember I had a character with a Shelby Cobra GT500 and a Tommy gun at one point. Those were the days.

The character I'm running now over in the World of Magic(al girls) is heavily based of the Nexus Deevil from Rifts. With that inspiration, I've had a blast running her over there.

And yeah, ecchi stories for sure. Atlantian slavers, Altara... so many other options. I loved the Lemurian books too, such a great setting for Rifts. And the Demon vs. Deevil wars!

[Balthier]

1 hour ago, IsabellaRose said:

My brother had Palladium's Beyond the Supernatural and Transdimensional Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles which I used to run a crazy multiverse game before everything was a multiverse. It was my favorite homebrewed setting for years.

Beyond the supernatural was fun, my group once tried to run characters of ourselves back in the day. we eneded ditching that and switching to Nightbane when that came out.

[onearmeddruid]

back in high school my cousin's ex shrank my high elf druid on pathfinder, fpr cpntext  my uncle got what we dubbed thye "you die now" poison i got drugs my cousin got drugs and my other cousin got drugs, so i shtrank to about 2 feet tall and later got shoved iun a bag with my cousins dwarf paladin got arrested we both have shock collars so im high as hell so my character randomly pees himself in the bag and starts screaming getting shocked each time. i believe this is also the one where my cousin  paladin ran into a shower room screwed his roll but got a critical and started helicoptering his dick of which the guards now join in of which my cousin discovers flight with his dick. next adventure i shrank a further 1 foot so now im a high elf the isze of a new born. we got free wishes after this, we had this big jaguar statue that we use for a manticore, my wish was getting my height back, i did get a good roll with a lightning strike and took out the big bad running from us while riding on my other cousin's *insert magic user* shoulder

i have alot of cousins

[Rexyon]

I've been playing D&D fifth ed now for about 2 years or so, before then I played a lot of Warhammer based systems, Warhammer Fantasy, Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, Only War and Wrath and Glory for several years. And by several years, I mean all of them, since the DM regularly got bored of what we were playing and started a new campaign with a slightly different ruleset and setting. Many a character were left at the wayside because Mr Game Master didn't feel like writing us out of an interplanetary ambush.

Sadly a lot of my stories are fairly bland, my experiences with TTRPG is one where I know I would love it far more than I do currently, but it requires the right people. I didn't really grow up around many people who shared my interests, family was quite far away, recently I've been able to do it more, but you find the worst possible people when trying to play a game either online or IRL, I probably have just terrible luck, but I love everything to do with TTRPGs, I love that you can make a character who is legendary for never missing a shot, only to go 8 sessions in missing every attack roll because you get unlucky, or the joke of the group rolls 2 criticals in a row and is somehow treated like the second coming of a deity and spawn a local power faction. Both of these things happened in campaigns I have been in and yet were delivered in the driest manner possible.

I would love to run my own campaigns and such, but the interest around just isn't there, I like D&D but it is sadly the only game in town for every town. And most shops don't accept me wanting to DM because of a lack of experience. But the love always remains. I instead live the tabletop experience through the video games that embrace such systems, the original Fallout Series, Baldurs Gate, Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines and Pillars of Eternity to name a few.

My username is the name of the half elf ranger who was well known for hitting the bullseye with every arrow. We attributed his run of bad luck in the beginning to the anxiety of joining a new party and lacking in true combat experience, allowing him to save face. No one complained when he somehow always pulled off a killing blow crit when some of the battles got extremely ugly, he arguably saved more lives than the Cleric.

[WritesNaughtyStories]

14 minutes ago, Rexyon said:

And most shops don't accept me wanting to DM because of a lack of experience.

That kind of crap annoys me. Any decent shop should let you run a game, struggle a bit, get some sea legs and develop into a real draw for the store. Most players aren't going to complain that you're new - they're just thrilled to play.

It's a very different experience, but solo roleplaying is worth looking into. Take a look at Bucket of Bolts/Artefact or This Body of Mine, I Will Make it a Temple. I really enjoy Inscrutable Cities and The Empress and Her Seer. Empress can have a really delicious sexual tension that fits the Ecchi vibe.

[Rexyon]

3 minutes ago, WritesNaughtyStories said:

That kind of crap annoys me. Any decent shop should let you run a game, struggle a bit, get some sea legs and develop into a real draw for the store. Most players aren't going to complain that you're new - they're just thrilled to play.

Well I chalk it up to the shop having a bunch of new DMs who were so bad in the end that the games just ended. Considering I paid a fee each week for the table and room (It was very low) I can see why the owner for a business reason wanted to ensure that games make it off the ground, but its very frustrating. I don't have a great many friends to round up and those I can, we don't have a place to really set up for either space concerns or background issues, I am also rather description heavy at times so any sessions need thorough planning out to fire or a lot of my less patient friends will lose said patience.

9 minutes ago, WritesNaughtyStories said:

It's a very different experience, but solo roleplaying is worth looking into. Take a look at Bucket of Bolts/Artefact or This Body of Mine, I Will Make it a Temple. I really enjoy Inscrutable Cities and The Empress and Her Seer. Empress can have a really delicious sexual tension that fits the Ecchi vibe.

I have never heard of those before. How do they work exactly and where would I find them? I am always interested in trying something new.

[WritesNaughtyStories]

All of those are available at itch.io Solo RPGs tend to be similar to guided journaling but there's a real sense of emergent story as outcomes or encounters are randomized.

You don't have to journal any of if you don't want to, you can just describe your character, run through the randomization and see what happens.

[Rexyon]

4 minutes ago, WritesNaughtyStories said:

All of those are available at itch.io Solo RPGs tend to be similar to guided journaling but there's a real sense of emergent story as outcomes or encounters are randomized.

You don't have to journal any of if you don't want to, you can just describe your character, run through the randomization and see what happens.

Excellent, I will give a few a shot in the coming days. Thank you for the recommendation.

[WritesNaughtyStories]

Just search for solo RPG. There are a huge variety. Thousand Year Old Vampire is extremely well regarded, but there are solo RPGs for every genre and style. Hopefully you'll find something and suggest it to me.