I am reminded of the most entertaining Call of Cthulu campaign I ever played in. When we created our characters, my character’s sanity score was higher than anyone else’s (I think it was a 98). I was really thrilled by this. Until I began playing. I could not make a sanity roll to save my life, and the first one I blew, facing a mummy, sent my character off in gibbering, tweeting terror.
He was never the same. This poor boob had the worst luck where sanity was concerned. It got to the point where the other characters were inclined to tell him “Why don’t you stay in the car while we investigate the werewolf’s lair?” I was inclined to agree with them. The GM and I did get along, however, since he liked the way I portrayed my character’s headlong slide into nervous breakdown and eventual madness.
The final straw came when our group of five adventurers discovered a glowing gem in the tower of an abandoned church. One character had his head twisted off in the dark. Another dove to (relative) safety by leaping through a boarded window and breaking his leg when he struck the ground. My character, however, had the poor fortune to actually touch the gem, driving his sanity into negative numbers. The remaining party members knew they were in deep kimchee when their twitchy, nervous professor friend stopped vibrating with fear, picked up the gem, turned to them and said in a confident, calm voice: “I think I’d like to take this back to the lab for study.”
His speech began: “My fellow scientists. I am about to impart to you the secret of ERRRK!Gibber!Tweet!Honk!”
When the ambulance arrived they assumed he had had an aneurism, but his buddies knew the real story. Occasionally they would visit him at the asylum when he was well enough to get along without the straight jacket.
Joining this one more than a little late, but let’s resurrect it anyway.
Got a regular (ish) group of around 5-6 players every week. We usually end up playing Cthulu, which drives me mad let alone the characters. Find it terribly frustrating but the others seem to like it.
Also played AD&D but not for along time, then ran a Marvel campaign which was pretty damn good. Intending to do a Shadowrun soon.
About to embark on a BloodBowl tournament amongst a few peeps in Brighton. Now, this lays me quite some way away from most of you, but discussions of campaigns, rules etc. could be worth a go - or just bump to a new thread?.
Couple of questions to start:
Blood Bowl specific, so skip if you don’t care. I’m starting a team with 1 million in cash. Want a Chaos team and worked out : 3 Chaos Warriors, 8 Beastmen, 2 RR, 8 FF, which is fine for a starting team, however, the other teams will be using Star Players. My question is, a) do I stick it out in favour of maybe getting a tough team down the line or b) invest in a SP such as Grashnak or Morg in favour of a reduction in CW’s and FF? ATM I favour the first option.
More general. Anyone created their own systems of rules? For instance we have one set for a Western environment which we’re about to test. I was thinking of making a Counterstrike set of rules and printing maps out for table top play…
Missed this thread first time around, so I’ll answer in its resurrection.
I would play if I could find a good, adult group. It would be necessary to set a time, and in that time, actually play. 2+ decades ago, I could meander all night; I can’t anymore.
For all you Florida GW fans, There is a yahoo group called Alarum. It lists store locations, has a calender of events and is a general discussion group for all things GW.
I’m donw in Fort Myers and would love to have a regular D&D group, if anybody is listening.
[QUOTE=BadBadger]
Anyone created their own systems of rules?
[QUOTE]
Based on consistently bad experiences I’ve had with GMs with homegrown rules, I have adopted my own homegrown rules. And there are only two rules:
Rule 1 - Do not play in a group with homegrown rule systems.
Rule 2 - Keep house rules to published rules systems to a minimum.
Every set of homegrown rules that I have played under has turned out to be just a vehicle for little Hitlers and Napoleons to stroke their ego and carve out their little inconsequential niche of domination. Without exception the games have not only been bad, but pathetic. And it’s not just been the GMs… it’s been the players too.
I’d rather play Amber Diceless Roleplaying than play again in Cory’s Arbitrary and Inconsistent World of DM Gratification…
Nah, the BB was a specific question for just a couple of people out there.
I was interested in what experience you had when trying out your own systems, whether tabletop, RPG or Boardgame, whatever. Last time I tried for instance (wild west scenarios) it was a disaster(not my rules btw). As we were “testing” it, everyone got to say what they thought the rule should be and trying to implement it there and then. Essentially boiled down to two hours of arguing and not a helluva lot of anything else. Bit like Bughunter’s Rule 1 in fact.
Ideally I’d like to work out a set of modern day combat rules (military). There’s a book called Ice Station (don’t recommend it unless you can suspend belief for a while and like gunfights) which is a nice scenario to run over a couple of nights. The gunfights need to be realistic, none of this, lose 10hp, I want a table (which I’m messing with and is likely to be huuuuge) with armour ratings vs weapon power/range on a number of hit locations. Then a text effect e.g. Bullet passes through left thigh, -x movement, -x dex, -x cool. (Cool is like will and their ability to act under pressure, affects aim and suchlike). I may have bitten off more than I can chew.
Anyways, how did your sys work out candid’ and what was the genre?
I was trying to run a Pulp-Superhero game. My first thought was to come up with my own d20-based point-buy Superhero system, which I did. (Note this was before the release of Silver Age Sentinels and Mutants & Masterminds, and the d20 Superhero efforts available commercially sucked.) It was allright - no great shakes, but it served well for the first ‘season’ of adventures. Players seemed to like it.
Then, wanting a little more detail, we tried out GURPS Supers. We converted the existing characters for the second ‘season’. We didn’t care much for GURPS.
The two sequel campaigns to that Pulp game used Silver Age Sentinels, then Champions. Some NPCs that appeared in all three campaigns have statistics in four different systems, as a result.
My D&D 3.0 game has quite a few house rules, many of which are specific to the game world, such as new/different character classes and variant classes. It’s not that there was anything wrong with the core rules, I just wanted a different flavor of game than the “standard” setting provides.
I tend not to mess with game mehcanics too much, as that can easily spiral out of control. I also try to include my players in decisions regarding rules changes.
Just my .02 drachmas.