Tabletop gaming

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Leader Bee
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Tabletop gaming

Post by Leader Bee »

I've recently gathered (made?) enough friends to be able to play something a bit different to Magic: The gathering which, in all honesty, isn't especially my cup of tea.

I've always wanted to get my mates into something a bit more dungeon crawler-y than a collectible card game but without having to learn the extensive rules of D&D. I think it's probably a bit much to ask when it's something you're just trying out to see if you like it.

I settled on Heroquest, which I remember having in my household as a child but never had the opportunity to play before we got rid of it. It has been out of print for years but I managed to secure a copy for about £65 - complete with a few broken figures of course (a complete copy goes well above £200 in some places) After looking into it a bit more I noticed there was a kickstarter for the 25th anniversary edition which has loads of new features and looks really cool, but after more reading I think that this project was actually cancelled? does anyone know?

http://www.heroquestclassic.com/en/

I'd love to get this copy if there is a chance it will still be produced.
Even though Advanced heroquest shares the name, I don't think it's actually related.

Anyway... other than that, what is there that has the same gameplay features as Heroquest?
Castle ravenloft, Legend of drizzt and some other one look like they do but don't have the same level of minatures detail I would like and so I am coming to you guys for any suggestions?
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BryanM
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Re: Tabletop gaming

Post by BryanM »

There's like a bajillion dungeon crawlers made a second, which you can see community reviews of at Board Game Geek.

All I can really offer is awareness of the popular ones everyone knows about. Warhammer Quest, a spirtual successor of sorts to HeroQuest that goes for a $billion these days.

Image

Talisman is a bit more of a typical board game, but has more cuttthroat pvp options.
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Sly Cherry Chunks
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Re: Tabletop gaming

Post by Sly Cherry Chunks »

Fricken sweet. This, Combat Cards and Space Crusade were mainstays of my childhood. Of course, the Bloodthirster miniature they have now is over $100 and twice the size of the board.

I tried to get into Warhammer Quest which had a pretty cool system that encoraged homebrew stuff but it never really went anywhere. I find that if you chose tabletop gaming as a hobby then you don't really get the time or money to have any other hobbies.
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Obiwanshinobi
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Re: Tabletop gaming

Post by Obiwanshinobi »

The rear gate is closed down
The way out is cut off

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BryanM
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Re: Tabletop gaming

Post by BryanM »

I did enjoy this retrospective of Heroquest. Especially the insight into the quality of the gargoyle.

"THIS IS A GARGOYLE!"
"YOU CAN'T EVEN TELL WHAT THIS IS!"
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Squire Grooktook
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Re: Tabletop gaming

Post by Squire Grooktook »

Tabletop gaming? Currently on session 8 in a friends rpg.

We're playing a Japanese Table Top RPG called Nechronica.

Basically, you play as undead/cyborg/bioweapon maidens resurrected in nuclear post-apocalyptic hell to duke it out for the amusement of their bored/insane demiurgic creators.

Has an interesting battle and leveling system based on strategic dismemberment (for both players and enemies, lost body parts are also regained by devouring fallen foes) and mutation (you pick new "parts" -which function as both abilities and hp- to grow every 4 battles). Honestly one of the most fun rpg battle systems I've seen anywhere (that includes video games).

I would describe our game as Hokuto No Ken meets H.R Giger meets Dark Souls meets Guyver. With anime lesbians.
RegalSin wrote:Japan an almost perfect society always threatened by outsiders....................

Instead I am stuck in the America's where women rule with an iron crotch, and a man could get arrested for sitting behind a computer too long.
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MintyTheCat
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Re: Tabletop gaming

Post by MintyTheCat »

Hi,
I actually prefer playing a boardgame these days than a computer game. We play Space-Hulk and Level 7 : Omega Protocol as dungeon crawlers but I am also putting together the pieces to play the scifi wargame OGRE. It takes some time to get the pieces painted as a friend does that for us - I cannot paint this sort of thing myself.

I had Hero Quest eons ago but cannot find it now. I still have a copy of Space-Crusade and Advanced Space-Crusade but I would simply use the SC board sections for Space-Hulk as SC's rules are a bit too simplistic compared to SH's.

I also play go which is very interesting and also rather humbling to play :)

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/165 ... th-edition
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/137 ... a-protocol
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5206/ogre
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Sly Cherry Chunks
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Re: Tabletop gaming

Post by Sly Cherry Chunks »

Sly Cherry Chunks wrote:Fricken sweet. This, Combat Cards and Space Crusade were mainstays of my childhood. Of course, the Bloodthirster miniature they have now is over $100 and twice the size of the board.

I tried to get into Warhammer Quest which had a pretty cool system that encoraged homebrew stuff but it never really went anywhere. I find that if you chose tabletop gaming as a hobby then you don't really get the time or money to have any other hobbies.
lol, a two year old post and now the Lord of Change is over $150 and is three times the size of the board.
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BryanM
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Re: Tabletop gaming

Post by BryanM »

Sly Cherry Chunks wrote:lol, a two year old post and now the Lord of Change is over $150 and is three times the size of the board.
While re-watching this fellow's overview of the (second to) latest version of Warhammer Quest, I looked up the prices.

Warhammer Quest: Shadows Over Hammerhal is sold for $300 on their website. On Amazon, it sells for a slightly more sane $130.

What's in the box? An absolutely pathetic 31 miniatures. Plastic, mind you.

What did we get back with the very first Warhammer Quest? 91 miniatures. And a 2 hundred page roleplay book that turned the thing into an RPG if you wanted to play it that way. For $80.

The only thing GW is good for these days is the entertainment we get from their madness. Isn't Age of Sigmar completely risible? Chaotic-evil murder elves were the good guys all along. Dwarves are renamed so they can be copyrighted. Space marines in ye olde medieval grimdark fantasy.

Still a little sad to remember what they used to be.
stryc9
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Re: Tabletop gaming

Post by stryc9 »

I wouldn't write off the D&D Adventure System games on account of the minis, personally. I have all 4 and overall the quality of the figures is great (not to mention great value). They are not GW level of detail but these are boardgames we're talking about anyway. The latest one, Temple of Elemental Evil has a full campaign mode finally.

The beauty of the D&D AS games is the potential for customization. They are all backwards compatible with each other so you can mix components from all of them (take Drizzt into Castle Ravenloft etc). They even come with counters for you to write your own rules to

You might like Warhammer Quest Silver Tower, Dark Souls (yep, that Dark Souls), Gloomhaven and Massive Darkness. These are all solo/coop dungeon crawlers that seem worthy of further investigation.
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MintyTheCat
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Re: Tabletop gaming

Post by MintyTheCat »

stryc9 wrote:I wouldn't write off the D&D Adventure System games on account of the minis, personally. I have all 4 and overall the quality of the figures is great (not to mention great value). They are not GW level of detail but these are boardgames we're talking about anyway. The latest one, Temple of Elemental Evil has a full campaign mode finally.

The beauty of the D&D AS games is the potential for customization. They are all backwards compatible with each other so you can mix components from all of them (take Drizzt into Castle Ravenloft etc). They even come with counters for you to write your own rules to

You might like Warhammer Quest Silver Tower, Dark Souls (yep, that Dark Souls), Gloomhaven and Massive Darkness. These are all solo/coop dungeon crawlers that seem worthy of further investigation.
I agree: a lot of it is 'in the mind' and developing a narrative. I do not play RPGs myself but I do use a handful of source books. I think it is very good and especially good for youngsters to get them into thinking about coming up with characters and worlds and such.
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stryc9
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Re: Tabletop gaming

Post by stryc9 »

Has anyone here ever played Mage Knight? As in the boardgame from 2011, not the old miniatures game.

Simple this game is not :shock:
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Squire Grooktook
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Re: Tabletop gaming

Post by Squire Grooktook »

Should this thread be distinct from Tabletop Rpg's? Rather big difference. I'd love to discuss the 'ol group storytelling games. Especially since I've been having a good time in Nechronica, and am about to join another short campaign for a jp trpg called Tokyo Nova (with another innovative, interesting combat system, this time based around playing cards).
RegalSin wrote:Japan an almost perfect society always threatened by outsiders....................

Instead I am stuck in the America's where women rule with an iron crotch, and a man could get arrested for sitting behind a computer too long.
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BryanM
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Re: Tabletop gaming

Post by BryanM »

It's a bit sad there are bootlickers fine with what's going on with Dungeons+Dragons. I guess that's capitalist realism in action, that a corporation is entitled to own even intangible things, like your imagination and soul.
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Sly Cherry Chunks
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Re: Tabletop gaming

Post by Sly Cherry Chunks »

Sly Cherry Chunks wrote:
Sly Cherry Chunks wrote:Fricken sweet. This, Combat Cards and Space Crusade were mainstays of my childhood. Of course, the Bloodthirster miniature they have now is over $100 and twice the size of the board.

I tried to get into Warhammer Quest which had a pretty cool system that encoraged homebrew stuff but it never really went anywhere. I find that if you chose tabletop gaming as a hobby then you don't really get the time or money to have any other hobbies.
lol, a two year old post and now the Lord of Change is over $150 and is three times the size of the board.
Lord of Change is now $180. Detolfs to display your minis in have gone from $69.99 to 139.99 since 2020. 5p Freddos are now a couple of quid.
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BryanM
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Re: Tabletop gaming

Post by BryanM »

It is kind of quaint to remember the days you could spend twenty or forty bux for hundreds of hours of entertainment. I remember getting a box of beak marines, maybe some tyranids, along with a thicc rulebook, no more than forty bux at Walden's Books, mighta been twenty. Now Kingdom Death asks for four hundred for its twenty pound box of madness. At that point a 3d printer seems like a steal.

Or you could take up whittling, make your own damn game, and sell it for three hundred dollars a box. ...Clay sculpting also an optional vocation path. Photogrammetry algorithms have gotten very good.

I used to love White Dwarf magazine. Tons of lore articles, spotlights on their new products, a playthrough of a game or two in the back. I got into it when they revived Blood Bowl for the second time. It's all digital now, I think? Tried checking out a newer issue a couple years back, and it was far closer to their figurine catalogs than what I remembered it being.

The bigger problem, is that I've changed but they're still stuck offering the same old, old products. That's a crippling aspect of art under a profit motive; for Wizards for example, every dollar put into a card game that isn't Magic The Gathering makes less than putting it into MTG.
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Air Master Burst
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Re: Tabletop gaming

Post by Air Master Burst »

GW prices have exploded the last few years, but if you don't mind 3rd party you can still easily field a nice-looking army for a reasonable price.

There's also Mordheim and Necromunda, both of which are better games than mainline Warhammer and also only require a handful of minis to play.
Sly Cherry Chunks wrote: Detolfs to display your minis in have gone from $69.99 to 139.99 since 2020.
As an avid miniature painter and Gundam modeller I feel this pain DEEPLY. Somehow hardcore action video games are the cheapest hobby I have, and I dropped at least 400 bucks on various controllers alone last year. I'm lucky to have built up a sizable backlog of minis and kits before brexit and the pandemic; I feel for anyone starting now.

IN OTHER MASSIVE TABLETOP NEWS, looks like Hasbro is gonna force Wizards of the Coast to try and revoke the old OGL and replace it with a hilariously scummy new corporate one. Absolute pandemonium is currently ensuing since this could essentially force a bunch of supplement makers out of business. Everyone's extremely pissed, and just when they're gearing up to release 6th edition and the new VTT nonsense. It's basically 4th Edition all over again, and we all know how THAT went!
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BryanM
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Re: Tabletop gaming

Post by BryanM »

A real sense of pride and accomplishment today:

"A couple of last thoughts. First, we won’t be able to release the new OGL today, because we need to make sure we get it right, but it is coming. Second, you’re going to hear people say that they won, and we lost because making your voices heard forced us to change our plans. Those people will only be half right. They won—and so did we."

Just... make things people actually want to buy, maybe.......

The one example nerds have been using, of like some Spelljammer book that didn't have rules for ship to ship combat in their space fantasy game? A little funny. Memey.
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Lander
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Re: Tabletop gaming

Post by Lander »

Read: You didn't win. YOU DIDN'T WIN! :x

The diversivity and inclushun excuse from profit-first corpos is really wearing thin at this point. God forbid it should be about the product they want you to buy rather than disingenuous misdirection.
Air Master Burst wrote:As an avid miniature painter and Gundam modeller I feel this pain DEEPLY. Somehow hardcore action video games are the cheapest hobby I have, and I dropped at least 400 bucks on various controllers alone last year. I'm lucky to have built up a sizable backlog of minis and kits before brexit and the pandemic; I feel for anyone starting now.
A man after my own heart :) Vlad, does the word ergonomics mean anything to you? Man? Machine?

Speaking of modeling / painting, do we have a thread for that? I've been orbiting my untouched R-9A model kit with a distinct sense of having thrown myself in the deep end out of love for R-Type. Assembly I can probably handle with an OCR translation of the manual, but painting all those fine geometric decals is looking to be quite intimidating.
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Sly Cherry Chunks
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Re: Tabletop gaming

Post by Sly Cherry Chunks »

^There is a shmup themed modelling/toy thread:

https://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=49393
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Air Master Burst
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Re: Tabletop gaming

Post by Air Master Burst »

Lander wrote:Speaking of modeling / painting, do we have a thread for that? I've been orbiting my untouched R-9A model kit with a distinct sense of having thrown myself in the deep end out of love for R-Type. Assembly I can probably handle with an OCR translation of the manual, but painting all those fine geometric decals is looking to be quite intimidating.
If it comes with decals you shouldn't need to paint the patterns, but if it requires freehand you might be able to make a stencil.
BryanM wrote:The one example nerds have been using, of like some Spelljammer book that didn't have rules for ship to ship combat in their space fantasy game? A little funny. Memey.
I really hope the rest of that monkey paw wish I made about getting Spelljammer and Dark Sun back doesn't come true.
King's Field IV is the best Souls game.
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BryanM
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Re: Tabletop gaming

Post by BryanM »

Oi, the corpo's virtual tabletop client actually looks really cool. I'm sure it runs like a hog and doesn't have a 2d low quality mode, but like a table with some photorealistic miniatures would be really cool.

What would be really super duper cool is if it supported every single official edition of DnD. And the "AI DM" was actually a single player game mode: like, they could have provided effectively a remake of Pool of Radiance or something. Basically a renaissance of the gold box engine, and it could have vastly surpassed them in number and variety of campaigns offered. Classic medieval swords n' shield, Planescape, academy mystery detective, all kinds of crazy stuff. Could have been a new golden age.

Coulda.
After looking into it a bit more I noticed there was a kickstarter for the 25th anniversary edition which has loads of new features and looks really cool, but after more reading I think that this project was actually cancelled? does anyone know?
I'm as slowbro as they come, but Heroquest 25th anni was a legendary fraud. The people behind it supposedly had the rights to use the HeroQuest name. Exclusively in parts of Europe. Maybe only one country. And no rights to the old rules or content.

They had some nice looking boards (a board that flipped between indoor and outdoor maps) and some minis and never shipped anything to anyone. They renamed it to Tseu Quest last year or so.

You can follow the debacle on the BoardGameGeek forums. The joke in the early days was it's called 25th anniversary edition, because it'll ship on the 25th anniversary of its announcement. They're not quite halfway there yet, but in a few years they will be!

It really shouldn't have taken this long, if it wasn't a scam. It's completely expected and funny that Hasbro announced and released a Heroquest remake, meanwhile.
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Air Master Burst
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Re: Tabletop gaming

Post by Air Master Burst »

BryanM wrote:Oi, the corpo's virtual tabletop client actually looks really cool. I'm sure it runs like a hog and doesn't have a 2d low quality mode, but like a table with some photorealistic miniatures would be really cool.
As long as they don't add animations! Speaking as a player, DMs that force you to play with minis are bad enough; turning it into a video game would take all the appeal out of the hobby for me. Speaking as longtime DM, the only thing I need from a VTT is a quick and easy way to sketch rough maps; and screen sharing on Discord works just fine for that too.

Whenever people talk about using miniatures for RPGs I always think of that Laurence Olivier quote to Dustin Hoffman about method acting.

That said, give me a proper VTT for an actual good miniatures game like Necromunda or Bolt Action and we'll talk; although custom conversions and paint jobs are a big part of the hobby for a lot of us.
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BryanM
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Re: Tabletop gaming

Post by BryanM »

The idea they can generate $1 billion annual revenue from DnD digital is such a pipe dream. For context, one of the biggest video games, Genshin Impact, pulls in only around 2 billion-roos and it.... it isn't single player Dungeons n' Dragons.

And I really can't see groups of friends wanting to play digital as their first choice, nor being constrained in what they're able to play in any way. I somehow doubt Wizards will support Jenny's desire to play a war campaign about the lesbian swamp elves versus the space lizards, or whatever.

If they supported a ton of themes and different games, not just DnD, it could be a pretty good platform. Hasbro Games, a place to play a ton of different games. From Monopoly to DnD+Heroquest to blatant Necromunda/Blood Bowl ripoffs and the like. If it were something you could pull up and play for free in a web browser on any device.

This is a place where consolidating their investments into a few games is a terrible idea. DnD isn't a gacha card game, where people are incentivized to silo off into a monopolized ecosystem just to have other people to play with/have their cards be worth something in a few years. RPGs are a bastard to monetize.
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Air Master Burst
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Re: Tabletop gaming

Post by Air Master Burst »

I also don't think Hasbro's realized that Wizards doesn't put out nearly enough first-party material to maintain their stranglehold on the market. A huge chunk of PHB sales are to people playing in games that don't even use any other first-party D&D products.
BryanM wrote:I somehow doubt Wizards will support Jenny's desire to play a war campaign about the lesbian swamp elves versus the space lizards, or whatever.
Jenny has good taste; I too have run a Lustria campaign in WFRP.
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BryanM
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Re: Tabletop gaming

Post by BryanM »

Argh, and today I learned the first time they tried to make a virtual tabletop back in the MMO 4th edition days, the lead manager murdered his estranged wife. There's layers to this thing.

It is a little interesting how some of the early ways of looking at the game, was like a virtual simulated world long before online games were a thing. Where a play group could be up to like fifty people who drop in and out for a session. Where owning a keep wasn't a hollow status symbol, but as a weak precaution against Jim stealing all your shit when you feel like taking a break for a bit.
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Leader Bee
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Re: Tabletop gaming

Post by Leader Bee »


It really shouldn't have taken this long, if it wasn't a scam. It's completely expected and funny that Hasbro announced and released a Heroquest remake, meanwhile.
Haha,

I actually picked up the re-release a couple of years ago now, and we are still waiting for the "25th anniversay edition", which, truthfully, does look like it hasd more content.
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Even without my umbillical cable attached I still have over 12,000 plates of fortified armour AND I have my AT Field! There's NO WAY I can lose!!
Randorama
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Re: Tabletop gaming

Post by Randorama »

...is this the (un)official thread for dice-and-pencil/tabletop RPG's?
Chomsky, Buckminster Fuller, Yunus and Glass would have played Battle Garegga, for sure.
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BryanM
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Re: Tabletop gaming

Post by BryanM »

It's as good as any, at least it spans a few years even if half of them are me dunking on things : (

We don't really have critical mass to keep these things alive, not even God's thread lasted long.

Definitely not remotely as good as Something Awful's FATAL and Friends game system overviews.
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Re: Tabletop gaming

Post by Randorama »

...maybe I could just spam write-ups of my experiences as teen/young adult, playing RPG's of yesteryear.

I read Kieron Gillen's die, a comic on adults getting stuck in a fantasy RPG world (i.e. Isekai/MMORPG stuff without the author acknowledging it), and read a fancy comment by Gillien that was roughly: "I always wanted to play an RPG called Pendragon as a teen". Been there & done that when I was 14, and I could write a few pages on the topic, I guess. Well, I could do that on a good 20+ RPG's, and possibly write a novella on how Call of Cthulhu adventures up to the 5th edition were fun if you always had a spare character ready for when your current character would fail a sanity roll and go insane.

At no cost for the taxpayer and, honestly, if Gillien can milk a whole comic series out of his staggeringly bad taste and poor knowledge of the hobby, I am fully authorized to hijack this thread for my own ruminations, I guess.

No D&D, of course: we start with the WarHammer RPG's, then dive into Chaosium and FASA games (I *loved* Earth Dawn), and discuss for a few instalments Ars Magica, of course :wink:
Chomsky, Buckminster Fuller, Yunus and Glass would have played Battle Garegga, for sure.
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