The last few games of D&D I’ve played (as opposed to being DM) I’ve been specializing in ranger and paladin characters, but my old favorite is a multiclass from 1st edition.
The groups I have been playing with have changed over the years; people try a class for a while then make a totally different character for the sake of change.
I’ve always wanted to play Paranoia. I haven’t found anyone with the game to teach me.
My son dropped off a borrowed 3rd edition PHB. I’ve been leafing through it today, comparing my house rules with the way the rules changed from 2nd to 3rd, and the game makes sense. But it seems to be packaged for someone just starting out. I rely on my library of background material to make a complete world for the players, and it would be expensive to buy and/or time consuming to convert everything at this point; I would lose momentum in the story.
Starting in a new game, however, is an option I have. Where are the online games?
D_Odds, you can still game you know. Teach your kids. Tell them it’s like playing cops and robbers, but better. (Or whatever is appropriate for their age.)
I have a project I’m working on kind of off and on. It’s a homebrew system set in sort of a Stand-like world, where there was a plague and most of the population died. The PCs have psychic powers, but they aren’t very common, so people have varying reactions to them.
I played paranoia once. My character was given these cheeto like snacks that were really bombs, so naturally I planted them everywhere so the entire mission things were exploding. Then I discovered that all my fellow party members were mutant spies! So I tricked them into entering a force field and set off a pocket nuke within the field. Great fun!
We never played again. I wonder why?
(Actually, despite my killing off the whole party, and it turned out those were just clones anyway) everyone had a good time. We just got sidetracked by the many many other games we play.)
I’ve always been fond of rogues, because they never run out of “tricks”, and clerics, because even when they do run out of spells, they’re not totally incompetent (unlike mages). One of my favorite 2nd Edition characters was a multi cleric-thief, but unfortunately that combination doesn’t really work in 3rd. Occasionally, I’ll play a ranger, to use some of my Boy Scout experience, but I generally get bored of warriors pretty quickly.
TFFV is a great game. Every character had what was called a schtick that made them uniqe. For example the Trench Coat schtick allows you find almost any useful piece of equipment in your pocket. The Errol Flynn schtick meant that no matter where you were there was a way to swing into any scene. ANd of course the Rogers and Hammerstein schtick where you always had a theme song following you.
Of course I loved the organization of bikini clad women who had the trenchcoat schtick. Where did they find room to hide all that stuff?
I’m one of the folks still stuck in 2nd edition. I know the 3rd edition rules are much better, but I have my reasons:
[ul]
[li]Started a long-term campaign about a year before the 3rd edition came out. Only about ten years to go in it, I reckon.[/li][li]I’ve got tons of 2nd edition tools. A database with over 2000 monsters, ready to team up and print. An NPC generator, with descriptions. Treasure, spellbook generators, etcetera.[/li][li]All the resources online. Everything from sex to herbs is covered by years of research by gamers, and little of it translates over well.[/li][li]I just don’t want to have to explain two years of game play in the context of the new rules, classes, etc. “But, he couldn’t have done that!”[/li][/ul]
I know that 3rd will eventually catch up to second, but what’s important to me in my campaign is backgroud detail, complex settings, and interesting minutiae, which 2nd currently has in abundance.
So, I’m happy staying with second. I wish one of my players would start up a 3rd edition campaign, though. It looks like a good set of rules.
My personal favorite was “inadvertently” firing a weapon during a “weapons check”, and then declaring the unfortunate smoking heap at the end of my muzzle to be a “commie traitor”, 'cause only a commie would block my line of sight. We had lots of “Weapons Checks” after that, and I used-up an entire clone family before we were half-way done the first adventure.
In D&D I like to play clerics and mages, or muticlass characters that combine them with fighters. One of my favorite characters was essentially crippled, a cleric without magical ability - a priestess of Cyric who had a lapse of faith early in her career when confronted with a rather powerful demon. Nobody in the (mostly good) knew she was an evil priestess until the confrontation with the demon, as I claimed to be a thief (specialty priests of Cyric may wield a long sword). After a few nights of praying she was told she had to betray her companions after they stole some griffin eggs they were hired to get, and she started getting really protective of the party and tried to keep them on track because they were really disorganized and I was afraid we’d never get around to the griffin eggs. Ended up eaten by ju ju zombies long before we got the eggs.
Back when I played Shadowrun I had a ridiculously lucky and seemingly overpowered physical adept character. He basically used up all his points on souped-up reflexes and was specialized in a particular SMG, can’t remember which one. The GM was a bit concerned that my physical adept character wasn’t your typical mystical martial-artist as most people interpreted the rules - about all my powers were reflex and speed related, no fighting skills or magic abilities. I don’t think the character ever missed a reaction role, and usually got to act twice in a combat round before anyone else. The GM started throwing tougher and tougher opponents at him, and I kept winning and getting tougher as the karma points accumulated. The party’s means of approaching any scenario was to send John Wayne in (my character’s name) and come clean up a few combat rounds later. I eventually retired him and switched to a Rigger who got killed promptly.
This is more or less in line with everything I’ve ever seen about Paranoia. It’s hugely fun for the GM and nobody else. I’ve never played in or heard anyone talk about a great Paranoia game they were in. To me, Paranoia is like a game in which all the players flip coins, and if they get heads they die - only the GM can decide that a tails is actually a heads.
Nah, Paranoia can be loads of fun for everyone – but they have to be in the right mind to enjoy it.
To wit, the point of good Paranoia playing is to throw away all your preconceived notions of good role-playing. Clever tweaking of the rules is out, as is meticulous (boring) attention to detail. Remember that the PCs are trapped in a dark, tyrannical, and hopeless environment, and the only solution (short of curling into a fetal ball and wimpering) is to “whistle in the dark.” Good [i}Paranoia* roleplaying requires (a) wildly flamboyant play, (b) not giving a damn about the consequences of your actions, and (c) hosing your fellow players. The cheesy parodies and screwball situations merely serve to pile even more lunacy on top of the players’ own lunacy.
In a way, it’s a lot like playing Nuclear War (a card game from Flying Buffalo) – everyone’s going to die in the end, but the trick is to see how many folks you can take down before you bite the big one.
Paranoia isn’t just a role-playing game, it’s a state of mind.
The whole point of Paranoia is to be under-handed, suspicious, and outrageous. That’s why “Weapons Check” whent over so well - I wasted my target in front of the whole party, and blamed the victim. Of course, after that, no one wanted to be in front of me, so I was put at the front of the party (“Promoted” for superior service to the Computer), which got me shot in the back.
It was a hoot!
We had all kinds of nefarious skulduggery, and about 3/4 of the party was destroyed before we were done (31 dead clones, to be precise).
I think the best peice of deviltry in that game was when the obnoxious yellow briefing agent (npc) got drowned in a flood of paperwork when one of my fellow players opened the wrong valve.
Yeah, once I figure out a way to keep everyone who walks in from wanting to be a mutant. The fact that everyone seems to ask this unnerves me and has made me consider not having them as PCs.
So far they can’t wear armor, most available medicines won’t work on them, and they can’t use handguns (they hands is too big). On the other hand they’re very strong and can use larger guns. I’ve got to tweak them enough that I won’t have a room full of mutants and then they’ll be in there.
I started with what I guess their now calling AD&D 1st ed, tried a few others and ended up with Champions.
Does anyone remember Morrow Project? We had a long running campaign with a rather large amount of character deaths, and just by dumb luck my Character, Kenneth Edwards always seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. “three TOW missiles are fired at your group of vehicles rolls dice one hits rolls dice who’s driving the M151? Oh, Ken E dies again,lol” That sort of thing.
It was years later that the GM (think it was PM in Morrow) calls me up to tell me about South Park and the “they killed Kenny, You bastards” thing. We laughed.
In my freshmen year of high school my King Geek friend got me to play Shadowrun.
He was a talented GM but was too easily swayed by the more obnoxious members of the gaming troupe who threatened to leave the game if they didn’t get a Panther Cannon.
But man he was brilliant at weaving real life situations we were going through in to the game.
We eventually moved up to Vampire and Werewolf. We organized large live action games taht were just a hoot. Our characters were on adventures first and supernatural second.
My favorite character was a Ravnos who slowly built a new faction that eventually took control of most of the Pacific Northwest from the Camarilla and Sabbat.
Ahhhhh, good times.
All my books are in a foot locker somewhere with my Vertigo comics… I wish I could find that thing.
For nostaglia I went to a WW page and cruised their message boards… Apparently something happened to the Ravnos as a clan? Anyone fill me in?
The Antedelluvian of their clan woke up which caused them all to go pretty nuts. A whole bunch of powerful things were thrown at him and he finally went down (direct sunlight and spirit nukes and so on were involved).
This sent the majority of the clan into a self-destructive frenzy. There are still some around and there was a revised Clanbook for them (put out post “Week of Nightmares” the section in “Time of Thin Blood” IIRC that has the events).
If you want to read the full version flip through “Time of Thin Blood” and/or “Nights of Prophesy” at your local game store. “Time of Thin Blood” is a pretty good book and addresses the really high generation vampires appearing in modern nights (14th and 15th) as well as children of those who randomly get biological function back. It is a fairly good read.
