Good stories, to be sure, but none as great as the tale of The Mighty Honknar! Truly, a story such as Honknar’s deserves to be remembered.
You, you satanists! You’re going to lose your characters and commit suicide! The Bible says so!
ROTFLMAO 
Oh, this comes too close for words!
I got my first taste of D&D in college. A bunch of us got together and played one night, early 1985. (God, has it been that long?) Anyway, we attended a Christian college, and we were told by the administration that we weren’t allowed to play that anymore. It was totally Satanic and we would all burn in Hell and our brains would turn to Jello or something similar. Undaunted, we turned to FASA’s Star Trek. We all played that for the next two years.
I ended up in a gaming group back home. We played almost everything. Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, D&D, Cyberpunk, Cybergeneration (my fave!), Toon, Paranoia, you name it, we did it. I gotta admit, it was pretty cool.
Then I moved here. SZ is about the only one around here that games. I’ve heard of other gamers, but we can’t seem to get in. SZ loves Amber (our daughter is named Deirdre), and I would love to find a good game of anything…
the story of The Mighty Honknar nearly killed me. I haven’t laughed that hard for some time!
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Juliana *
**
If you and SZ would be interested in online Amber, drop me an email. I can probably point you in the right direction.
Arden: You should have email soon. I’m itching to get into a game.
I am yet another gamer decloaking to join this thread. I have played since the 1980’s and if it involved dice I have probably played it once, and now that I play Amber even that is not a requirement.
I could tell the the story of the many Tristams, remade every time he dies exactly the same. I could tell the many Wand of Wonder stories and explain the results of striking a white dragon with 500 superballs. I could even regale you with the tale of my White Wolf Mage affectionately nicknamed Beacon Boy and his experience with the incredible disappearing party.
But what I shall you is the story of my Mystic Mage from Rifts, Nathan, the mercenary known as Plasma Boy, and why he never ever goes first.
You see we had discovered a pre-Rifts train tunnel and lo and behold found a train in it. So we cautiously enter the caboose, Plasma Boy leading, the Mind Melter psionic second and me third.
Plasma Boy was named for his fascination with Plasma Weapons, i.e. guns that toss the stuff the sun is made of. Accordingly he leads the way carrying a plasma rifle. He discovers the trap just after it goes off and the laser beam fired neatly passes through the barrel of his gun. To emphaise that this was a bad thing, a little needle swung into the red the gun went, and I quote, “Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
Plasma Boy immediately attempts to throw the gun out a closed window, which works about as well as you think it would. The Mind Melter puts up his Psi Shield and I throw an energy barrier over the gun, and then we hold our breath as the GM rolls the damage of the full clip left in the gun. The dice roll and it is determined that Nathan is vapor. COmpletely disintigrated. The GM being a decent sort then allows some luck checks. “Maybe you were behind the Psi Shield and took less damage.” Roll. No. “Maybe you were behind the mercenary and took less damage.” Roll. No. “Maybe you were…” Roll. No.
The GM gets up from the table and looks at us. “I’m going to the bathroom. Figure out how he’s still alive.”
We eventually decided that the gun melted through the floor before exploding and so the train itself took some of the damage. We redo the math and I am left with 2 Armor Points . THe smoke clears and there is Nathan, in his underwear and a pair of armored gloves. I spent the rest of the session like a Mortal Kombat character blocking lasers with my hands.
[hijack]
Woo-hoo! More Amber players on the board! Saint Zero, Juliana, Verrain… More people to make inside jokes to! 
[/hijack]
Me, I play at least eight hours every sat. I’ve been playing since 1978, and my GM has been playing D&D since the early seventies. Current characters in GM’s game are either Narse, a female cat-taur ranger, and Meghan, a female halfelf Mage/fighter, Stephan who is retired was an elven ranger, and in the wings is Travis, a human bard (We need a reason to bring him in.) The games are fun and very detailed and that is all that need be said.
Yup. Gamer since '80, and not giving it up any time soon… despite having that half-witted “Dark Dungeons” thing thrust at me by a flatmate at one time (four people in the flat, three gamers and one fundie - interesting combination, I’d like to think he learned something).
Currently playing in a D&D 3rd Ed Dark Sun campaign, with a character who’s an ex-slave trader turned black marketeer… not actually evil, but a helpful contrast to the bright, shiny, idealistic people who comprise the rest of the party. Of course, it’s Dark Sun, isn’t it? So we get the **** kicked out of us regularly, don’t we? You know it’s Dark Sun when the major villain in the final fight does three times as much damage to you as you do to him, just by bleeding on you…
I think my all-time favourite character has to be Max, a Call of Cthulhu investigator from the 1920s. A veteran of the Great War, with a habit of boring people senseless with his war stories, and - I don’t know how, but when it really counted, I always lucked out with his POW saves, whether confronting octopoid horrors in the London sewers, or engaging in a duel of wills with a possessed Roman Catholic Cardinal underneath Mount Stromboli. We decided, in the end, that the bad guys’ Nefarious Influence, whatever it might be, simply bounced off his traditional British Stiff Upper Lip.
I’ve been RPGing since the mid-80s, when my parents bought me the old D&D Boxed Set. I switched to GURPS a few years later, and the guys and me never looked back.
I gotta say a few things:
I hate Monty Haul games.
I hate Hack n’ Slash. (aka videogames for people with slow reflexes)
I’ve always seen RPGs as acting without a script… but things have to make sense (can anyone tells me what a dragon living in the bottom of a dungeon eats?)
Anything it wants to.....
Characters that try to get its hoard?
Well, they're intelligent. Maybe one settles in an area and takes cattle from the locals as tribute/protection. You sent your characters in to stop the shakedown? OK, works better in caves, where they can get in and out easily. Otherwise, how do they get in?I’ve played AD&D for years, but it’s been some time since I have played anything more than a mini.
My HS friends and I were all home from college. We were bored as shit at being back home in the burbs, so for old times’ sake, we broke out the dice and played some pickup AD&D. Here’s the Dramatis Personae. I’ve forgotten almost all of the names.
Alethiel: willowy, amoral assassin
Marc’s Character: a good-intentioned, dumb jock of a fighter
Gonter: an extremely craven thief
Alex’s Character: halfling beast-rider, empathically bonded to a pony
Somehow the mismatched quartet had to rob a merchant compound and steal an ancient sword to be used as the guarantee for a stupendously evil deal. Lesser of two evils, as it were. Steal the sword, stop the deal.
So the party manages to case the place, and at night makes for the roof. All four of them are just about to lower themselves from the rooftops onto a top-floor windowsill…when Gonter notices some people wandering the streets below.
Whereupon he loses his nerve utterly. He tosses off a few knives at the assassin, since he blames her for getting him into this mess, and screams for the authorities. Alethiel chases him, throwing knives in return. For reasons largely obscure to everyone, the halfling decided to back Gonter, and proceeded to attack Alethiel as well. Being the stealthy, supercool assassin, Alethiel fled. Gonter also fled.
The authorities arrived just as the jock managed to climb down from the rooftops and immediately apprehended him, along with the confused halfling. They were taken to the stockade and asked to account for themselves.
Marc, the jock’s player, tried to pass the halfling off as his sick son. In a moving, tear-jerking, and utterly hilarious display, the jock was able to convince the authories that they had done nothing wrong, and that his son, though a bit hairy and rotund, was a perfectly normal individual.
Meanwhile Alethiel returned to the inn where the group was staying and had her revenge. She snuck into the stables and slashed the halfling’s bonded pony’s throat. The halfling failed his system shock roll; thus, he took damage for the severing of the empathic link.
He was only first level.
In the middle of Marc’s sob story, the halfling keeled over, dead. Marc pretended that his son had died, hurled abuse at the authorities, and generally behaved very badly. This got him released immediately, on the promise that he wouldn’t mae trouble for them with the city council, or whatever.
He rejoined the assassin. They hunted down Gonter, took him outside of town, and lynched him.
I think we all had issues back then.
Here’s another Amber vet. Reminds me I haven’t played in eons. More email coming your way!
I started playing AD&D over 20 years ago, and have played and run it almost constantly since then. One of the best groups I ever ran, I was the token guy (to quote Brianna’s character after a particularly hard-fought-but-successful battle: “Now all we have to do is get our periods in synch, and we’ll really be the bitches from hell!”). Ahem. Anyway.
I spent some time playing Champions and Fantasy Hero with some of the writers & editors for Hero Games, and did some playtesting for Hero and AD&D.
One of the best GM’s I ever met, Barr Chugg, ran a game-systemless campaign in which we came up with maybe a paragraph of character background, then we just roleplayed our way through situations.
Anybody want to get together for a game in the Twin Cities?
One my favorite characters actually had one of these! (Actually, it was a +3 skillet of hurling, but it was only +1 when held in hand.) Ah, my dear old monk, Yan Kankuk, master of Pan Fu (the Art of Kitchen Fighting)…he was my character in our “silly” campaign (as opposed to our high-level, intrigue-laden, three-DMs-to-coordinate the game campaign), and such a favorite that I’ve recreated him as a LARP character. I haven’t been able to come up with a “safe” war-skillet for IFGS use, but it’s only a matter of time…
I started playing D&D with my older brother and his friends when I was 11. They accepted “the kid” after I’d saved their bacon a time or two. It helped that my brother was an excellent DM, and played his NPCs with no out-of-game knowledge. My very first character was a mage…a sneaky little bugger named Grellin. He blew his starting gold on some second-hand leathers (not armor, just battered old riding leathers), a dagger, and a supply of poison. His first adventure was tagging along with a party out to kill an evil “wizard” (a 6th level mage–to us, he was tough). He spent the whole trip sneaking around, saving his one magic missile spell, bashing people in the back of the head with his dagger hilt. I played him like a first level thief. When we finally faced the baddie, Grellin stood up boldly and cast his piddly little spell…and was thereafter ignored by the mage, who could tell from the spell that he was out of magic. So the baddie didn’t notice him slip behind the wall hangings, sneak around behind him, and coat his dagger with poison (I got a couple of lucky rolls–save vs. paralysis or get noticed). He did notice the envenomed dagger slamming into his back as he tried to fireball the rest of the party, though. Fortunately for us, he failed his saving throw and fell dead at my mage’s feet. The best part is that none of the other players had noticed either–they were ignoring “the kid”. The dumbfounded looks on their faces were priceless.
I’m more into LARP now, when I have time to game. I find it more satisfying in a lot of ways. Nothing beats telling LARP war stories to tabletoppers who don’t know what you were playing:
Magdalene, I’ve never seen anyone get as far into a LARP character as you describe. That would be a little creepy–we tend toward somewhat sillier, Pythonesque characters. Were you playing a combat LARP or a theater-style LARP? It makes a pretty big difference.
All right kids, you better get your pagan butts where you can ge some de-programming before it’s too late. God still loves you and you can be saved if you will only check the little box on the bottom of the page.
[sub]DISCLAIMER: final redemption and salvation of soul subject to final approval of Gawd™. YMMV[/sub]
So, according to Jack Chick, all you have to do is get a cleric to eighth level, huh? What if you’re multiclassed? Or hey, rangers get cleric spells after eighth level, do they ever qualify?
Where are the rules lawyers when you need 'em?
Actually, back in high school my mom did confiscate my D&D stuff for a time. Or actually, what she thought was my D&D stuff; a couple of Traveller books and a few six-sideds.
Apparently, she was worried that I wasn’t doing enough drugs, or picking up too many math skills or something…:rolleyes:
Anyway, the game looks like it’ll live through the recent turbulence; and one of my players just announced his intention to start a 3rd edition campaign. I’m going to fulfill every DM’s dream… I’m gonna get to play!
Ok. I am not a D&Der. I admit that freely. It is not by choice, merely by lack of convenience. Many of my friends have played D&D in the past, but none of them currently play or know anyone who does. However, I do play online on a MUD (multi-user-dungeon). I am a level 36 Lama (remorted, or a level 96 monk, if you are not familiar with remorts). And no I don’t have any stories. Just thought I’d share.
Good night.
dookie
…but not by much. A friend introduced me to D&D – original, pre-AD&D D&D – in the summer of 1979. I picked up AD&D from 1980-1981 and have played that almost constantly since then. I created my Narth campaign in 1982 or thereabouts, and have kept it running pretty much without interruption since – the current roster of players includes folks who have been in the game for 14 years now.
Over the last 20 years, I’ve played or GMed (in addition to D&D/AD&D): Villains and Vigilantes, Paranoia, Toon, Teenagers from Outer Space, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, Mage: The Ascension (both tabletop and live), Vampire (both tabletop and live), GURPS of many varieties, In Nomine, Champions, DC Heroes, Shadowrun, Marvel Superheroes, Whispering Vault, and damn I know I’m forgetting something. Oh, well.
Unlike a lot of folks who game, my parents don’t have a problem with it – not since I showed them a 4-digit check from TSR after my first professional game writing gig back in 1985. (I figure that all told, I’ve paid for all my gaming materials four or five times over with my writing over the past 16 years…) I’ve written professionally for AD&D, GURPS and In Nomine. Over the summer I’ll be writing a game world for a superhero system that will be published in PDF format by a company in Italy. Interested people can see a little about my writing on my website: http://www.eclipse.net/~rms/myworlds.html and/or http://www.eclipse.net/~rms/bkstore.html
Favorite stories… geeze, I’ve got way too many. Most of them come from my players, actually, since I GM, mostly, and I should really let them tell them. There is one fun one, from a Vampire LARP that I played in a few years back.
First, you have to understand that my wife is allergic to cats – they cause her great breathing problems. This is key to the story, but not in a bad way.
Anyway, Peggy and I were tagged to play a former Prince of New York and his consort. This ex-Prince had abdicated and gone off to seek Golconda for a few decades, but failed and had come back. He didn’t really have an immediate agenda, he was just moving back to familiar digs with his lady. But his reappearance was, of course, akin to throwing a big rock into a small pool.
Anyway, the LARP was being held in the basement of a game store. And when we got there, we discovered there were a few cats in the basement. Peggy panicked, but we quickly discovered that the cats clearly preferred to remain at the far end of the basement, the end away from the staircase down. And Peg was breathing okay for the moment. So we quickly agreed to Stay Away From The Cats for the entire game, which coincidentally put her near the door if she needed to run outside for fresh, uncatted air.
What didn’t occur to us for the entire game was that the current Prince of New York and his coterie were all lounging around the end of the basement where the cats were. We did all our mingling and politicking and socializing on the “safe” side of the basement, only crossing the invisible borderline to make our necessary greetings etc. Furthermore, I was thinking entirely in character, roughly, “I’m immortal, I’m kickass, and I’m patient. I really don’t need to overthrow the current Prince, in fact it’d be terribly inconvenient to be the Prince again. I may change my mind in thirty or forty years, but for the short term, I don’t want it.”
Anyway, the upshot of my low-key roleplaying and our hovering in the catless zone was that we ended up making the entire court of the Prince incredibly paranoid. They couldn’t figure out the game I was playing. Between the apparent harmlessness I was projecting, and the fact that I never got further than 30 feet from the door unless I absolutely had to, they were certain I was about to pull off something 1) enormous and 2) devastating. But they couldn’t figure out who I was targeting or what my agenda was. When the game was over, the current Prince’s player came over and begged me to tell him what I’d been up to – which was when I learned of my dreadful subtlety and strength. <grin>
– Bob