No word, 2 letters and a character: D&D

Who here plays? What edition, and all the "specs".

I play 3e, used to play every other week (Until I realized I had to work in my AP classes), and I played DM when nobody else volunteered to do so, so I was pretty much always DM (worst job in the world).

Have not played in years and miss it. Our group all grew up and moved away. A bunch of us tried to get a 3.5 game going using OpenRPG, but schedules and obligations got in the way. We couldn't decide to go with 2nd edition or 3rd. You probably get the picture.

Yes, being DM is often a thankless job.

Very well put (thankless).

I would play 3.5, but I don't want to spend the money or time to get the new rulebooks. I spent enough on the core ones, so I'll just play the 3.5 stuff that I hear (like the Gnomish weapons, the Dwarven stuff blah blah blah)

I was just about to post about D&D but I play all the time 3e though I have played in AD&D but I personally hate it with the THAC0's and all. I also agree being DM isnt the best job in the world but it does have benefits.(insert meniacal laughter here) But other than that it does suck, but keep on playing D&D is one if the best non videogame games ever.

Heathens! Heathens all! Third Edition and its successors are a blight upon roleplaying. They are sent by the Powers That Game in order to lure you into a sense of non-roleplaying.

Where is the playing of roles when your kensai has nine and a half attacks with two weapons? It is the cursed tool of powergamers, too easy to play.

Only the True Games will save you. Only they involve the playing of roles. Shadowrun, Hunter, Wraith, Mechwarrior and Second edition will save your souls!

(PS- I'm a DM. I'm stuck too, and it's a thankless job. Players tend to be assholes, only wanting to play ubercharacters, whining when they act stupid and their characters get waxed. I object to simplified gaming, and I object to games which encourage powergaming. And for the record, THACO is a cakewalk compared to what each adn every DM does, even the heretics who turned to 3rd. I'm trying to find a group to play SR with, even though it's hardcore. )

DE

Used to DM back in the 70s, a long time ago. I still have the original white boxed set of the D&D game back when TSR was called Tactical Studies Rules and Gary Gygax was running the show. I did play AD&D 1st edition but as soon as the company got bought by people who just were looking to make a buck by selling "new editions" one after the other, I gave it up. For TSR, it ceased being about fun, but about how much money they could make. I'm sure I spent hundreds of dollars on AD&D 1st edition rule books and the like, and I just couldn't see buying new stuff just because TSR put out new editions.

I was a pretty tough DM. None of that uber-character sh*t in my campaigns, no sir. Characters that got to 12th level usually were retired. The most fun is to be had around 5th - 8th level, where an orc horde or a frost giant raid can still be a challange. The whole G and D (Drow!) series was a blast and was very well done.

It's interesting to note that in the early 80s, before powerful computers could fit in houses, I predicted Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights (or something very much like them). I always said, we would end up playing D&D on computers one day. It's nice to be right once and a while.

Agreed, AS. I'm *this* close to outright abbandonning D&D. Second edition is a ton of fun, but it's possible to powergame it, and it's a little complicated. My game of choice is Shadowrun, nowadays. Good, solid game. ABsolutely no way to powergame (trust me, I've tried all kinds of stuff). It's leveless, classless and complicated enough to demand players learn the rules. Some of the White Wolf games are actually also pretty good for the playing of roles, but they're mostly out fo print.

DE

Currently I run, a Dragonlance 3/3.5, It's a fantastic World, and I put a new spin on it's current state of upheaval. In the recent timeline, the 2 deities of Good and Evil, are gone and there is no solid leadership. Plus the old ways, and the new ways are uncertain about themselves. The order of High Sorcery, now has Sorcerer's to ponder or flambe. Also Priests of the Krynnish pantheons, have a sorcerer equivalent divine caster, called a Mystic that draws holy power from within as opposed to a deity to deal with.

In my spin, with Paladine and Takhisis gone, the balance of good and evil is in flux, like no other time in history. One lone woman mystic receives a startling vision, It is now the time to bring the world into a new age, the Age of True Balance. Neutrality finally takes the role it was meant to take, the great Balancer.

Good and Evil, are the targets to undo, and to help. The pc's have tough choices, Slay Knights of Solamnia, help out Knights of Neraka (Takhisis), Restore the Elven Homelands, enact commerce with the new Draconian Nation.

I find that regardless of any munchkining, it all comes down to Storyline, improv, and roleplay. I can make any challenge suitable to the most broken rules character's.

I myself always powergame when I PC, but I keep this in mind, you have no right to powergame, unless you have a fantastic character story to back it up, and you better be able to roleplay as HUGE, as you make your character.

-ADHDsux4me

used to play d&d alot... but then my band, football, work, and girls kinda started to take up all of time and i phased it out... kinda wish i still hadthe time though... used ot play warhammeras well.

I play D&D, but not nearly enough... classes tend to get in the way.

I used to DM a 3e campaign, and loved it... I had a world and storyline set up that both I and the players really enjoyed, even if it wasn't anything TOO far from the standard Tolkienesque fantasy fare.

My freshman year of College, I played an absolutely horrible campaign that was more realpolitik soap opera than Dungeons and Dragons... we played weekly for three months, and honest-to-God never left the town.

After that, I got in with my current group; two of the five current players are newbies (or were when we started). I'm playing a character I've run before, an Elven wizard by the name of Aram Nethermoon. He's a lot of fun to play, as he is a complete coward but still possesses typical Elven arrogance.

I used to dm some guys from school earlier this year.
I started with a basic tolkien/dungeon campaign I created. (it was a Hunter the power rangers or that.)
Some were really into rpg others were just "looking cool sitting around me and listening in the cafeteria." I thought everyone was having fun.

Around level 6-5 one of the players a good friend of mine who played the wizard of the group , found me in the hall and said I was being unequal to the characters, appearantly coz I like them, he was so tired of it he's leaving the game.
Wizards life must be tough I guess.

Another thing. Never let the Necromancer fall in love with another party member. Or the gm. Results are disastrous.

We did something really crazed a few years back. We did up first edition character using the old old hardcovers (the one with the statue eye being taken, the fire giant, Fiend Folio, etc.) and ran through Expedition to the Barrier Peaks and someof the Giant trilogy. Wow, now THAT was what made D & D great. No complicated feats and skills, just good old hack and slash and problem solving. And man, those old modules are EVIL hard. We loved it, but, at 33, we've gotten off the D & D kick for a few years now. I miss it greatly, and I HATE 3rd edition rules. It's just not the same games, just the same dice.


Also, I've been on a nostalgia kick, diggin up the old stuff. I'd highly recommend reading through the older stuff. Makes you remember WHY you played the game...

I currently play (about once a month) a modified version of 2nd Edition. For a change, I’m not DM’ing, so that’s kind of fun. My character is an elf (my fave) and started out as a Swashbuckler Thief, then switched to become a Mage (we allow dual classing for any race) after reaching 5th as a Thief. Currently, he’s a 5th level Thief and 10th level Mage. He uses two weapons, either a Saber (in which he is a Bladesinger), or an Elven Bow…though now he rarely needs to pull either out and relies mostly on his spells.

I have most of the 3rd edition books, and would like to try it (I like the skills and feats systems) but haven’t got the rest of the group on board with it yet. In the past, I’ve played and GM’d just about everything, all versions of D&D, White Wolf (Vampire, etc.), Palladium (Rifts, Beyond the Supernatural, etc.), and a host others like Shadowrun, Robotech, Star Wars, etc., including quite a few made-up systems.

Some of the best fun we had though, was in a competition at a convention once. It was a tournament, using 1st edition rules, with pre-generated characters. First time we ever did it too… My boys were awesome though, hehe… First, we all made it into the finals, so that was cool. During the finals, we chose to play the one Evil party (there was one good, one evil, the rest were neutral, and we placed 2nd in the first rounds so we got 2nd pick). Cool thing was, the dungeon was designed to zap the party’s strength. First encountered? Shadows! So, as the evil cleric, I simply commanded their asses! So, now I had minions, muhahaha!!! We lost our assassin, but luckily, he had Gauntlets of Strength. So, we then gave the Gauntlets to our Con fighter (high con and hit points, the other fighter had high strength). So, we meet up with another party. I was near a hot door (had Resist Fire on) and the rest of the party was in a Minor Globe of Invulnerability, as well as Invisible 10’ radius. The enemy party is coming down the hall and their Invisible Magic User comes in and launches a Fireball! No biggie, the party is protected by the globe, and I’ve got my Resist on, hehe… Our Mage answers back with a Fireball of his own, killing the enemy Mage, and hurting the other party severely. Melee ensues. We Haste our party, and Slow theirs Then, our Con Fighter (with the Strength gloves) pretty much slices and dices his way through the enemy party, while I Hold Person on people, and the Mage toasts them with Magic Missiles, etc. hehe…. When all is said and done, the guys at the other table are all ripping up their character sheets and out of the tournament, hehe…with one lone survivor, the Druid, who is high-tailing it the hell out of there with our Fighter chasing him down. He had to shift form all kinds of time to keep healing up from it, but finally escaped as a lizard. Their whole party was dead (save for the druid) and we all had only a few points of damage (none even in double digits, hehe). Man that was fun!!!


[edit on 25-1-2005 by Gazrok]

I played a host of games for a long time. One of my favorites has to be Shadowrun, but I also enjoyed D&D, Traveller, and a few others.

I used to play with a group that was really great, but the DM was fantastic. We played 3 different campaigns over the years with 3e rules, which we were playtesters for, so we had the rules (and fixes) in adobe acrobat well before it actually came out and then got free books for doing so. One member worked for Wizards and he ended up getting us all the other supplimental books, etc for free as well.

The DM used to limit XP and items very heavily. We would level about ever 2 sessions and items were hard to come across. He would usually have some type of weapon that was a chosen type (bow, sword, etc) for each person and fit them in the game as +1 weapons with "slots" for power gems. We would get these maybe at 2nd or 3rd level. Much of the adventures would be uncovering these gems to power the weapons over time, but yet he was in control. To add some fun, he also added special powers (built into the story) that each member had. They also increased over time to add some great gameplay. I remember a Wizard I had with natural Spellfire ability. He would gain points in it for certain things and never became a "power gaming" issue. Usually someone's special ability really came into play in a crunch, such as a couple people down, the people left were almost down and the a special power was just enough to take out the main baddie and save the day.

I have to say, the DM also had a vast collection of hand-painted minis and various peices that he could make any setting. I added the visual and boardgame aspect that made the game excellent.

One other game that a different person had was a Start Wars game with the new rules that came out. I have to say, that was an excellent game.

The DM used to limit XP and items very heavily. We would level about ever 2 sessions and items were hard to come across. He would usually have some type of weapon that was a chosen type (bow, sword, etc) for each person and fit them in the game as +1 weapons with "slots" for power gems. We would get these maybe at 2nd or 3rd level. Much of the adventures would be uncovering these gems to power the weapons over time, but yet he was in control.

We do the same thing currently..., but advances about 1 level per game up to 5th, then about 1 level per two games after (but we only game about once a month, sometimes twice).

For example, the character I mentioned above, 5th level Thief, 10th level Mage, has a +2 Saber, a +2 Staff (which I'm not even proficient in), and an Elven Bow +1. Come to think of it, I think our DM is a bit TOO stingy.

Then again, I'm a terror of a player to DM. I pretty much walk around with Stoneskin and Strength cast on me (as they last a long time) and if things get really nasty, I cast Ironguard so that blades go right through me, hehe.... A favorite tactic? I have an item that grants Protection from Fire, so I Dimension Door into a group of the enemy while Improved Invisible, and then let loose with a Fireball centered on me, hehe... BOOM! Since I've played so long, I can really use spells in very interesting ways that make the DM's plans go all to hell, hehe.....

Between my wife and I (who also plays), we've got a gaming book collection equivalent to a store's inventory, hehe, and enough painted, and unpainted lead figures, to line a bomb shelter I've also got a Warhammer 40K Eldar army, and lots of plastic fantasy figs as well.

[edit on 26-1-2005 by Gazrok]

Originally posted by Gazrok
Then again, I'm a terror of a player to DM.

Yeah, our DM was quite stingy too. LOL! I remember one of the classic moves was when we first started a game and we (the heros) were basically banded together to quest for a King, country, whatever to save the WORLD from the forces of evil. Standard fair of course. Sooooo, we join forces and are "sent" on our first quest. Problem was the some of us didn't have the money to buy a horse.


I was like "Let me get this straight. We are tasked to save the world from evil and the head dude won't even give us a fecking horse?"



He never did live that down.

I was a bit of a terror, but not like some of our players. Wizard? Naw...was the first I ever tried. I think the thief I had was the one that I kicked butt with.

Well, as a Mage, you could have just cast a Mount spell and had a frickin' horse...

Originally posted by Gazrok
Well, as a Mage, you could have just cast a Mount spell and had a frickin' horse...

In that particular game, I was a Paladin.

It was more the spirit of things though. "Go save the world for a rich & powerful kingdom. No you can't have a horse."

Edit: and at 1st level, who picks Mount to take a slot?

[edit on 27-1-2005 by ZeddicusZulZorander]

I used to play AD&D (3rd ed), Spyhunter ( i think that was the name, but don't quote me on that ), and CyberPunk. It's been a couple years since playing - one DM moved out of state, and the other got disgusted by all the joking going on in our group and shut us down.:shk:
All my alter egos (characters) want to come out and play again, but with 2 little kids and bunch of other commitments, it's been impossible to set a time aside to play. My 3rd child (aka hubby) is thinking about DM-ing a Star Wars game, but, again, time and kids are difficult issues to work around. :bnghd:
Gaming is a great way to let off steam - hopefully, when dthe yay-hoos get bigger, we can start a game and include them.

That's why we try and do it at least just once a month, so we can coordinate everyone's schedule, as pretty much everyone has kids (mostly of the toddler variety...).

Edit: and at 1st level, who picks Mount to take a slot?

Well, we allow for two things, one, an INT bonus for spells, just as Clerics get for WIS, and two, you have a starting spellbook with a few spells also...

I pretty much go for Armor, Magic Missile, Sleep, Burning Hands, and Mount at the very least. I've lost WAY too many horses outside of dungeons to mess with it much anymore, hehe....