I, Brian

So I mentioned about wish fulfillment in another thread...

I remember once rolling up for a campaign, and the DM insisted that all of us must keep rolling the dice until all our attributes were effectively no less than 95% of maximum values. Boring - the campaign died after the first zombie.

Then there was the great fun I had with a couple of other characters, where the DM wouldn't let me re-roll a couple of slightly below average scores - which lead to some great fun role-playing with limitations, and actually adding to the role-playing experience.

For example - one great mage character I had was truly off his rocker. Nothing malicious - just wrong at the wrong moments. He suffered a slightly lower than average WISdom score, which translated into having less common sense than he should have. His epitome came when he discovered a wand that would produce a random spell whenever the wand was used.

So the mage is faced with a bunch of angry fighters, and in panic he waves his wand - poof! - he is now 6 inches tall and floating 6' off the ground. Imagine that happening to Gandalf at Moria.

A truly great moment was when a group of very experienced adventurers were exploring some passages beneath a castle - suddenly they were surprised by guards, and the frightened mage quickly waved his wand - lightening bolt streaks through the passage, hits the end and bounces back. All characters are electrified but standing - and so is one of the guards, about to whack the weakling age with a sword. So the mage desperately waves his wand again - a fireball whooshes out and fills the entire passageway with roaring magical fire and fries everyone in the passage: kills the last guard, but also seriously injures all the adventurers enough that they have to suddenly retreat from what should have been a very easy mission, while they go find an experienced enough cleric to perform a resurrection spell on the unfortunate robe-blackened mage.

Very nerdy stuff - but in role-playing, my own experience was that it was character that counted. People could try and be as heroic and dashing as they wanted, but it was always those characters with some real sense of personality, difference, and just plain quirkiness, that really made role-playing the fun story-telling tool that it was.

Foxbat

I never did a lot of pen and paper Role Playing. I did try Traveller and enjoyed it immensely. The biggest problem I had was that the folk that were interested all drifted to different corners of the Earth.

Because of this, most of my amusing anecdotes concern slaughtering home dwellers in Baldurs Gate on the PC. Not very PC I know but it kept me grinning for a few moments

Ashen Shugar

I played AD&D for years as a kid. Can relate to what you say about limited characters. My best mate was DM and only allowed us 1 roll & what you got was who you were. I think these are more challenging characters to play, and thus, more fulfilling.
Sad thing for me, my oldest 2 kids have NO imagination. I tried to get them into AD&D & they had no idea...they don't even READ...where did they come from? Must have been a mix up at the hospital. Fortunantly there are 2 more younger ones who may one day look at a book with reverence and awe and play AD&D &...

Leto

I played Masquerade with such a bunch of chatters (that's law students for you) we soon dropped the dice just to tell us what our characters do and don't (with respecting limits of each clans). Finally we used a regular dice before starting to choose the tone of the story : 1 - parody, 2 - action, 3 - gore orgy, 4 - detective like, and so on...

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Sirathiel

Pen and paper like I did it only once in eigth grade. The setup wasn't very professional. But I've grown very fond of the computer role playing games such as Baldur's Gate II, NeverWinterNights, IceWindDale and the like.

I've also tried the kiddie forum version where everybody just creates a character (without the attributes stuff) and then a story develops written by multiple authors from multiple view points. It was quite fun, but the stories never got anywhere... :biggrin:

tyranus

You are talking about an Add-venture or RP, I do them as often as possible and enjoy them immensely (yes I also play D&D). The problem is that, yes they usually never go anywhere. That is because people think that it just something fun to do and do not take it serious. I personally have to push the people I do them with into action.

Phyllis Sidheuaine

I belong to a very small group of tabletop gamers with three "long-term, dedicated" members and the other two "dedicated" members have gotten me involved with some PS/computer games.

A short list of games/characters I've played (starting with the tabletop):

1) Jok: a 30' dragon that attends IOU (much to his regret)
2) Kirill Sergei Zholotov: a fifteen year old Russian-American that started play being able to control electricity and fighting for Yahweh, ending play as "Yahweh" because the previous one was killed by an NPC
3) Natalie Grebe: a 17 year old 6' tall bipedal skunk with a penchant for driving like a maniac and the ability to teleport
4) Dr. Evonne Goolagong: a "doc" in Trinity
5) Blaze Firewalker: a former 7th Legionare in Trinity
6) Chandra: a Bast in Witchcraft (this one I ran)

PS/computer games-

Final Fantasy IV, V, and VI
7th Saga
Breath of Fire I and II
Chronotrigger
Dofus (online multiplayergame where I have two different characters)

Phyllis Sidheuaine

marie34

I am one of those from the category of adventure games lovers. before i got a laptop, i used to play mario bros and warrior land on my gameboy, then i moved onto mario bros, legend of zelda and picmin on my gamecube and currently i play MMRPGs runscape, maplestory and dofus on my laptop...
they are good to relax with and the graphics are very nice.

Phyllis Sidheuaine

I'm currently playing Mabinogi online MMORPG and I'm working on running a PBEM (play-by-e-mail) based on Yomigaeru Sora Rescue Wings). I'm also playing an assassin in Dark Heresy (she's "mind-wiped", but rather adept at taking out her "prey", especially with her hunting rifle).

Phyllis Sidheuaine

Brimstone

Although I havn't exaclty played them in a while, they're still quite fun. Theres also a lot you could do with them like do silly things such as make them dance and all sorts of things which you try to do and even make for something fun.