Do you play tabletop RPG's?

[Deleted]

Been playing d&d 3.5 (and before that 3.0) for 14 years, with more or less the same group (we are 5-6 in total).

The campaign we are playing, is not really a campaign, more like an open world. We have several different groups, varying from low level to high level (depending on what we want to play on the day and who is available). All of the groups exists in the same world and follow the same timeline (though some are slighty ahead of others, due to the regularity they are played). This leads to a world filled with known NPC's (met by several groups), old/retired PC's that has become a semi-NPC, PC's and yet unknown NPC's.

It makes a dynamic world and it is fun, how one groups actions can influence the other groups.
For instance, it may be that group A kills the emperor. But it is really group B that feels the consequences of it.

Some of the groups we have:
- The tyrannical party that takes over a kingdom. Butchering and suppressing their way to glory (high level. cleric, bard, Blackguard and paladin of tyranny)
- The evil druid who seeks to destroy all civilization (medium level)
- The merchants trying to establish a foothold in the kingdom taken over by the tyrannical party (good party, low level)
- The good characters who fights off a demon invasion (good high level characters)

It is a bit hard to explain, but it is great fun. Often we spend the same time discussing the world as we do playing it .

[Gorgodeus]

I play tons of both tabletop rpgs aas well as virtual tabletop rpgs...

[Cairhiin]

3rd edition? Really? Huh. Never met a D&D player who didn't either stick to AD&D or 3.5. Well, that's not true, my neighbour and his roommate are avid 4th edition players... Mostly because they've spend like $2000 on books, maps and merchs believing it was the best thing ever.... They were very disappointed, yet keep playing it. Have yet to try 5th, but I've heard good things about it.

We play a mix between 3.0 and 3.5. Some of the fixes in 3.5 we incorporated but not all. We were quite happy with 3.0 bar a few things that were simply broken and never bothered to fully move to 3.5. We also tried 4th edition but quit after a year of giving it a real chance. We have been debating about moving to 5th edition in the future but due to my busy schedule we been postponing it.

Funny thing is the most broken thing in 3.0, Haste, we are actually still using in its 3.0 form. We talked about it as a group and we decided to leave it be for now. It is one of the things I really want to change going forwards though.

[Venziir]

We play a mix between 3.0 and 3.5. Some of the fixes in 3.5 we incorporated but not all. We were quite happy with 3.0 bar a few things that were simply broken and never bothered to fully move to 3.5. We also tried 4th edition but quit after a year of giving it a real chance. We have been debating about moving to 5th edition in the future but due to my busy schedule we been postponing it.

Funny thing is the most broken thing in 3.0, Haste, we are actually still using in its 3.0 form. We talked about it as a group and we decided to leave it be for now. It is one of the things I really want to change going forwards though.

So, more like 3.25 :P

[Sigxy]

I used to like playing those things, but I've just stopped liking them lately, which is a shame because I'm currently trying out Pathfinder for the first time - but I just can't enjoy it that much. I've played a whole different bunch of them: Started off with Dragons & Demons when I was.. 6? Many years later I got to try Dungeons & Dragons 3.5, and much later 4.0. I've also messed around with Call of Cthulhu, Mutant and Shadowrun. But it just ends up more dull with time - I guess I just much more prefer games these days where I have full control of my character and if I mess up: my fault. Not where it's up to the dice to decide if my character, no matter how good he is in such an action he's doing, succeeds or fails. Though that being said, I still consider Neverwinter Nights one of my top 5 games of all times, which is based on D&D 3.0.

[Cairhiin]

So, more like 3.25 :P

Yah I think that would be a good description. Our group isn't really that anal about the rules and we sort of just decided as a group what to do with certain 3.0 problems. So far it has worked out okay. Two other groups of our friends play Pathfinder, and they play literally with the rule books on their laps; sticking with 3.0 would not have worked out if I'd had been DM of one of those group for instance. They would have exploited haste every chance they'd get.

[Venziir]

Yah I think that would be a good description. Our group isn't really that anal about the rules and we sort of just decided as a group what to do with certain 3.0 problems. So far it has worked out okay. Two other groups of our friends play Pathfinder, and they play literally with the rule books on their laps; sticking with 3.0 would not have worked out if I'd had been DM of one of those group for instance. They would have exploited haste every chance they'd get.

Urgh can't stand Ruleplayers honestly. It's so meta, and it kills any kind of rp and flow in the game. Heck, there's a reason as to why each Corebook has the words "the rules are guidelines" somewhere in it.

[Lady Dragonheart]

I occasionally play D&D with the beloved, but we don't have a large group that we play with like we used to. We mostly just play for the fun it, together.

[General Junos]

I did a Cthulu-verse one once. Husband and a bunch of friends wanted me to join in, but I wasn't interested. They basically allowed me to be OP as hell, and I did enjoy it (even though I didn't use said OPness to any extent, being new to tabletop and all). We got together maybe three times before we had to call it - RL kicked everyone's ass, and getting everyone together was near impossible anymore. That, and our DM flaked off.

[Deleted]

I want to, but none of my friends are into it, so I stick to playing video games. :/

[Ciddy]

Urgh can't stand Ruleplayers honestly. It's so meta, and it kills any kind of rp and flow in the game. Heck, there's a reason as to why each Corebook has the words "the rules are guidelines" somewhere in it.

Yeah, my group is very laid back (tabletop gaming is really just a good reason for us to get together as friends on Saturday evenings, hang out, and drink beer more than anything else), and I think the game is a lot more fun that way. We do follow a lot of mechanics pretty closely but lean more towards a "DM's decision > official rules" policy and do what we want when it comes to any kind of RP situations.

There is a local game shop where they run D&D sessions, but I didn't have much fun with that because they're really anal about rules.

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Shadowrun, pretty much anything from white wolf and the best of all; plush power and plunder

Nice. My group regularly takes turns when the current DM either gets tired of doing it or reaches a stopping point in the campaign. After having played the Shadowrun games on Steam, I've been reading up on the tabletop and am planning to give it a try next time it's my turn to DM.

[Cairhiin]

Urgh can't stand Ruleplayers honestly. It's so meta, and it kills any kind of rp and flow in the game. Heck, there's a reason as to why each Corebook has the words "the rules are guidelines" somewhere in it.

Yeah I much prefer my group. They love doing weird stuff, and aren't bothered too much with the rules. My other friends are all about combat and doing everything to the letter of the rule, which is horribly boring. Their games pretty much go from combat to combat. In our games sometimes combat might not even happen all night.

[WarpedAcorn]

Urgh can't stand Ruleplayers honestly. It's so meta, and it kills any kind of rp and flow in the game. Heck, there's a reason as to why each Corebook has the words "the rules are guidelines" somewhere in it.

I am a stickler for the rules myself. I have no problem with a homebrewed setting, house rules, or anything of that nature, but what I can not stand, and what ruins my fun, is inconsistency. Its frustrating if the DM changing the rules at the last minute to suit his needs, or if he indicates something we did the previous session can not be done this session (with no reasoning).

One thing I used to play a lot of was Living Greyhawk, which was an organized D&D campaign played with the whole country representing different parts of the Greyhawk world. There were very specific rules to follow, and all your adventures (which were approved by a group before being sanctioned for play) had to be documented and signed by a registered DM. It cut down on cheating and it ended up being a lot of fun for me and the people I played with at the time. Of course we did cheat ourselves...we often had "conventions" where we "drove" to another region in order to play some of their modules.

[Venziir]

Yeah I much prefer my group. They love doing weird stuff, and aren't bothered too much with the rules. My other friends are all about combat and doing everything to the letter of the rule, which is horribly boring. Their games pretty much go from combat to combat. In our games sometimes combat might not even happen all night.

Sounds like my weekly pathfinder group sadly. Combat this, combat that - oh a dap of meta-RP aaaaaand moar combat! One of the players is also a guy who treats the corebook like the Bible and constantly bickers with whoever is the GM,- which is very annoying. But then again, the plot we are playing is also a very combaty plot... It's a horrible campaign honestly.

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I am a stickler for the rules myself. I have no problem with a homebrewed setting, house rules, or anything of that nature, but what I can not stand, and what ruins my fun, is inconsistency. Its frustrating if the DM changing the rules at the last minute to suit his needs, or if he indicates something we did the previous session can not be done this session (with no reasoning).

One thing I used to play a lot of was Living Greyhawk, which was an organized D&D campaign played with the whole country representing different parts of the Greyhawk world. There were very specific rules to follow, and all your adventures (which were approved by a group before being sanctioned for play) had to be documented and signed by a registered DM. It cut down on cheating and it ended up being a lot of fun for me and the people I played with at the time. Of course we did cheat ourselves...we often had "conventions" where we "drove" to another region in order to play some of their modules.

Hm, Living Greyhawk sounds a lot like Pathfinder Society, which I've played a lot... It had ups and downs. Also, I agree about the inconsistency obviously. But strict ruleplay gets overly rigid honestly and ruins a lot of of my fun, mostly because it ruins the flow of the game.

[WarpedAcorn]

The best and worst thing about tabletop RPG's is that they can go any which ways. You can RP everything, you can roll everything, you can talk your way out of things or you can bash everything with a big stick. But you gotta have a guy running the show who knows what the table wants, and some tables want opposing things. Its tough to find that balance so the RPer is happy that he got to talk his way into a Noble's Garden party and schmooze with the pretty ladies, but also let the player who built his dwarf barbarian for combat swing his axe. A lot of DM's, myself included, forget to listen to the players and pay attention to the things they enjoy or did not enjoy because it might hurt "their story". You have to remember that when you are playing a tabletop game, the story belongs to everyone and everyone can change it.


A funny anecdote I heard was a DM placing absurd puzzles for the players to figure out. Something like having 6 Pedestals and 4 random items and a live pig. He didn't actually have a legit solution in mind, he just let the players dick around until something sounded plausable. The reasoning was that whatever the players came up with as a solution would be 10x better than anything he could. =D

[dope_danny]

I discovered a spiritual sequel to Mordheim the other month called "Frosgrave". Just a £10 book and while it has official figures you can use any and its basically DS3's Irithyll: the game. An ancient hyper advanced magical city is caught in a disaster and buried beneath ice for millenia, now its thawing out and you play a wizard and apprentice team delving into the ruins as the old experiments, golems, monsters and other tomb robbers spread across the town.
The fun part is how your characters level up kind fo like d&d over a campaign and the rules are much simpler than warhammer style "giant tombs or rolls within rolls". its a fast skirmish game with a handful of figures instead of a big, expensive army and roaming monsters cam appear each turn nobody plays you just roll how far they move to the closest character so you need to choose when to run and when to hold them off.

I'm new to it but its got 3 small expansions and seems to be picking up steam and i can recommend it.

[Gallahadd]

Nowhere near as many as I used to, but yeah I still dabble. We used to have a running joke in my old WoW guild (the officers all had a DnD campaign running on Roll20) that at some point in their lives, all hardcore gamers will have an obsessive PnP phase. We dubbed it "The Call of the Dice".

It's been a while since I've had a real hardcore DnD group. Might have to set one up.

[icedwarrior]

I used to play D&D with a few college buddies. I found it to be a lot of fun, but it was difficult to devote that amount of time and still get stuff done (I'm talking 6-8 hour sessions). Sadly, I've since moved and I don't know anyone that would be interested in playing D&D where I live.

[Venziir]

Quick question; Does anyone know if there is such a thing as "One Shot Sessions Plots" for D&D 5th? Google wasn't a big help as it showed me wierd things on reddit o.O

[Jetstream]

Oh hell yeah. Playing in an Exalted 3e game right now. Once that's done I'mma run the next one. Ex3, Mutants and Masterminds, Aberrant, one of those probably.

(Y'know, there should totally be a TTRPG forum here. Just sayin'.)