Do we discuss them here in the open thread?

I regularly play quite a few and was wondering about various peoples opinion on them.

Wanted to know if we had a place for that.

I used to regularly play MERP, Battletech, Mech Warrior, Warhammer (Fantasy, 40K, RPG and Epic). I haven't played for a few years, but hope to introduce my kids to them in a few years.

I used to play WHF. Still have a massive Ork army and a smaller Woodelf one sitting in my parents' attic. I haven't touched the stuff in years, though. Lack of time for me and my brothers, who I used to play with. Also, GW can go and die in a fucking fire, so there's that.

I'm also fairly certain we already had a thread for that. Can't find it, though.

Mazille wrote:Also, GW can go and die in a fucking fire, so there's that.

Games workshop pissed me off because they dumbed-down all the games to make them more accessible (and far less interesting). They also charge far too much for the figures - that's what you get with a monopoly I suppose. Why do you despise the company? Same reasons?

I used to have Eldar and Skaven - I was pretty good at painting them up as it goes, had a couple of figures in the local GW window - loved it!

Keep It Real wrote:

Mazille wrote:Also, GW can go and die in a fucking fire, so there's that.

Games workshop pissed me off because they dumbed-down all the games to make them more accessible (and far less interesting). They also charge far too much for the figures - that's what you get with a monopoly I suppose. Why do you despise the company? Same reasons?

Same reasons. Well, those and their general strong-arming of small, local shops. I knew a guy once, who opened a TT gaming shop in a town of about 15000 souls. Pissed his savings away on the thing. GW did nothing but fuck him over until the shop went tits up and he had to start working as a taxi driver to stay afloat.

Keep It Real wrote:I used to have Eldar and Skaven - I was pretty good at painting them up as it goes, had a couple of figures in the local GW window - loved it!

When I got into it at around the age of 12 or so I didn't have the patience or inclination to paint the figures, but one day it just clicked. I have a few rather good ones - if I say so myself - stored at my parents'. Funny, since I seemingly lack any sort of artistic talent in any other endeavour.

I've started playing Epic in the mid-90s and love the current version (Epic:Armageddon), do have a couple of 40k armies (and 40k was a decent game until the 6th Ed. addition of fliers, fortifications and the big bad MCs), a couple of fleets for Spartan Game systems and gangs/warbands for a variety of skirmish systems (Infinity, Malifaux, Freeboters Fate). I've mastered a couple of RPGs, mainly the FFG ones set to GWs worlds and played a bit of Midgard, Shaddowrun and the Battletech RPG. I've tried out Fiasko recently and like it a lot.

GW is far from a monopoly these days and they've made some bad decisions (in terms of games that mainly a bloat of special rules, in terms of business it's been increasing the cost of entry and some rather silly lawsuits). Back when I started GW was actively trying to get people to advance in the various aspects of gaming - WD would teach you things about painting, terrain making and designing scenarios. These days they try to keep people dependent on them (instead of how to build terrain, it's buy our terrain kits, etc.) while not catering to people who made their initial investments. I still like to paint minis, I love making terrain, but playing GWs big games isn't that much fun anymore.

Not really one for playing the games but do enjoy the modeling aspect.
Working on some 54mm Normandy British Cromwells from Warlord Games, Bolt Action range. Also got some troops waiting for a primer coat.

I don't get to play as much as I would like to, but I've gone to the GothCon gaming convention in Gothenburg every year since 1984, where I use to play Advanced Civilizaion, Settlers, some micro scale (1/300 mm scale) or other war games (20 mm scale), as well as any game that happens to be on. Then a friend and I have a tradition to play a Battle of the Bulge-themed wargame every year as close to the launch of the 1944 offensive as possible (16 December). Last time was tenth year straight.

I used to have a 40K Tau army, but in that regard Mordheim and Necromunda were far more interesting to me. The more personal RPG elements interested me.

As for tabletop Pencil and Paper RPGs I am a bit fan. I have a collection of game books for a few different setting and games. DnD 3.5, Ravenloft 3.5, Ravenloft 2nd ADnD (but not the core book), World of Darkness, Vampire the Requiem, Modern D20 and Shadowrun. I also have some of the Dark Sun ADnD rule books on my PC.

At the moment I am writing up a campaign for a Modern D20 game, without any of the supernatural elements that can be added. It is a setting where the police are having no luck stopping crime, large gangs and syndicates are organising crime and are getting away with it thanks to lawyers abusing loop holes and technicalities. The government has decided to use a loophole of their own, civilians can commit crimes to discover evidence and it would still be allowed to be used by the police when they rock up. And those civilians can defend themselves and since they are really working for the government it can be quickly dropped and they can go back to stopping crime.

The writing is hurting my hand, I was never good at long periods of writing, but the drawing of maps has to be one of my favourite parts. Since I did Tech Drawing at school I have loved drawing plan views of things.

Used to play D&D (from the original basic up to 3.5), Shadowrun, CoC, and White Wolf's WoD. Oh, and Paranoia.

Picked up 4th Ed. D&D Player's Handbook in a used book shop a few years back, but most of the people I used to play with (including our GM) have moved interstate so I've never gotten around to playing it.

I picked up the DnD 4th Ed book and it felt wrong. It felt like a MMO in PnP form. There were some good ideas (like 1 HP mass enemies that could make high levels wade through a large army), but the characters and "roles" just felt wrong in a DnD game.

DarthHelmet86 wrote:I picked up the DnD 4th Ed book and it felt wrong. It felt like a MMO in PnP form. There were some good ideas (like 1 HP mass enemies that could make high levels wade through a large army), but the characters and "roles" just felt wrong in a DnD game.

Well, you have to consider the way 3E was being played. Sure, you could make a fighter - just to use that class as an example - who specialised in the rapier and wore light armor, but this was sub-optimal. Min-maxing meant that people playing fighters either:

a) Had characters who wore the heaviest armor they could and ether went for weapon/shield or two-handed combat styles.

or

b) Had characters who sucked.

4E - AFAICS - just says straight up, "The role of the fighter is to get in front of the rest of the party and go toe-to-toe while everyone else does what they do. If you want to play an agile fencer dude, you want to play a rogue." In other words, it makes it clear what the tactically best decisions are and frees up decisions for roleplaying. The complaint that players are being straightjacketed into roles rings hollow to me because players can pick any role they want. Rather than departing from the flavour of the game, it seems more of a return to 1E straightforwardness: "You want to play that class? You'll be doing that. You want your character to be doing this? Play this class."

What kinds of things do you want a character to do that you can't under 4E rules?

For starters min/maxers are the bane of my DnD existence. Sure they have fun playing like that, but to me it is the antithesis of the game. Role playing is what it is about, the rules are just there to stop people fighting over who gets to role play first and who gets to kill who. You say a fighter wearing light armour and using a rapier is sub optimal, and I say he is a deadly dextery based killing machine, who thanks to that high dex doesn't need heavy armour and thanks to not wearing heavy armour he can flip around that room murdering everything in sight. He also gets more feats than a rogue, allowing him to be better focused on being a fighting machine. And on top of that he is an interesting character to role play, he isn't the bog standard, he is unique.

There is no right and wrong in a RPG PnP game, there are no roles that need to be filled. There is what you want to do to have a good story and fun. If that happens to be playing things in the most standard min/maxed way possible then good on you and your group. But you will be missing out on the stuff that comes from thinking out of the box. If your DM is only capable of thinking in a way that forces you to play with a tank then that is his fault and it is bringing the game down for the players, unless that is all they are after. There is a reason the 3.5 core books repeatedly go on about playing it your way and the rules being secondary, the fun comes from playing the game how you want not how the rule book tells you.

There are a bunch of characters, who were strong in the game (and not by min/maxing their class) and fun to play that I could never recreate in the more cookie cutter 4E. If you like it good, have fun playing it. But it will never be the kind of game I want to play, it is too focused on locking players into set ways of playing and sucking the unique fun that can be had by creating characters that aren't just standard and the fun that comes from DMing a world that rewards players for doing that.

DarthHelmet86 wrote:For starters min/maxers are the bane of my DnD existence. Sure they have fun playing like that, but to me it is the antithesis of the game. Role playing is what it is about, the rules are just there to stop people fighting over who gets to role play first and who gets to kill who. You say a fighter wearing light armour and using a rapier is sub optimal, and I say he is a deadly dextery based killing machine, who thanks to that high dex doesn't need heavy armour and thanks to not wearing heavy armour he can flip around that room murdering everything in sight. He also gets more feats than a rogue, allowing him to be better focused on being a fighting machine. And on top of that he is an interesting character to role play, he isn't the bog standard, he is unique.

There is no right and wrong in a RPG PnP game, there are no roles that need to be filled. There is what you want to do to have a good story and fun. If that happens to be playing things in the most standard min/maxed way possible then good on you and your group. But you will be missing out on the stuff that comes from thinking out of the box. If your DM is only capable of thinking in a way that forces you to play with a tank then that is his fault and it is bringing the game down for the players, unless that is all they are after. There is a reason the 3.5 core books repeatedly go on about playing it your way and the rules being secondary, the fun comes from playing the game how you want not how the rule book tells you.

There are a bunch of characters, who were strong in the game (and not by min/maxing their class) and fun to play that I could never recreate in the more cookie cutter 4E. If you like it good, have fun playing it. But it will never be the kind of game I want to play, it is too focused on locking players into set ways of playing and sucking the unique fun that can be had by creating characters that aren't just standard and the fun that comes from DMing a world that rewards players for doing that.

Again, what kind of characters do you want to create that you can't in 4E?

AFAICS, the only kind that's ruled out is the absolute generalist; the jack-of-all trades. Which you could make under 3E rules, I'll grant you, but usually amounted to a character who couldn't pick the locks the party encountered, couldn't fight the monsters the party encountered, and couldn't cast spells that overcame the SR of those monsters. Rather than a character who was good at everything, you ended up with a character who was shit at everything.

I just don't see how the system "locks" people into certain styles of play. Unless of course your group was in the habit of putting the mage in the vanguard to go toe-to-toe with orcs and stuff while the fighter hung back and shot arrows at them. The roles just clarify what each class was designed to do.

I got the old D&D Basic set when I was 14 and moved into AD&D within 12 months. Fantastic game. WE flirted with CoC (steady now..) and many other games such as Top Secret before trying Steve Jackson's Car Wars - that was enormous fun, until a good friend with aspergers worked out a win-formula and never lost a game again.

I couldn't make my bard, who was better at picking locks (or disable device) than the rogue was and could buff the crap out of the party as well and was good enough at ranged combat to help in any combat. As well as being able to use his rapier to devastating effect when needed. Lets not forget how he could also talk us past a lot of obstacles. Charisma doesn't have to be a dump stat.

I couldn't make my frontline cleric who was not maxed on wisdom, instead had higher con and strength, he used his limited spells to buff himself so he could wreck absolute house. He once won a bar fight while naked.

I doubt I could make my Dwavern Ranger who used a trident and rode a giant spider. He would often be in the front of the group with his trident planted in the ground to stop charging enemies. He never used ranged combat, underground there isn't often enough room for it so his clan focused on melee and spiders of course.

My mates gnome barbarian would more than likely be out as well, he didn't wear armour and used a great sword and longbow.

And my other mates fighter that was dex focused and who multiclassed into sorcerer. He wore the lightest armour he could and used mage armour to almost make himself untouchable. I had plans that later in the game I would reveal he was half dragon for a nice bit of roleplaying to explain the sorcerer powers and why I let his race favoured class be sorcerer.

Talking of min/maxers, Warhammer is/was the idea game for these gits and GW rolled in it too. IIRC the Khorne demon model with wings and the ability 'feel no pain' was near impossible to destroy because of the shit rules**. A fighter flying into close combat got a quick strike and no one else (Marines at least) can fire into a melee, thus once the demon had engaged into the close ranks, as rules demand, it can chew merrily through a 1/3 of all soldiers. And it would take X3 successful die rolls to score one wound and bypass that 'feel no pain' BS.
I went to GW to discuss this stupid rule/monster and the kid told me that only the Necron top-dog could bypass the 'no pain' thing as this creature was effectively Death personified (a special kill rule). So, £45 for a piece of plastic to hurt another peice of unkillable plastic. FFS

** min/max wet dream because as a HQ unit it could stand completely alone, but was served by 'gated in' lesser demons as the rest of the ranks.. twats.

Ironclad wrote:I got the old D&D Basic set when I was 14 and moved into AD&D within 12 months. Fantastic game. WE flirted with CoC (steady now..) and many other games such as Top Secret before trying Steve Jackson's Car Wars - that was enormous fun, until a good friend with aspergers worked out a win-formula and never lost a game again.

That is one I forgot from my list of games, Call of Cthulhu...amazing rules books. I wouldn't mind finding an experienced DM in that to learn how to really play it properly. A Cthulhy by Gaslight campaign would be super.

DarthHelmet86 wrote:

Ironclad wrote:I got the old D&D Basic set when I was 14 and moved into AD&D within 12 months. Fantastic game. WE flirted with CoC (steady now..) and many other games such as Top Secret before trying Steve Jackson's Car Wars - that was enormous fun, until a good friend with aspergers worked out a win-formula and never lost a game again.

That is one I forgot from my list of games, Call of Cthulhu...amazing rules books. I wouldn't mind finding an experienced DM in that to learn how to really play it properly. A Cthulhy by Gaslight campaign would be super.

We have one on the forum. I'll shoot you a PM later or tomorrow, he's in the UK mind.

Ironclad wrote:

DarthHelmet86 wrote:

Ironclad wrote:I got the old D&D Basic set when I was 14 and moved into AD&D within 12 months. Fantastic game. WE flirted with CoC (steady now..) and many other games such as Top Secret before trying Steve Jackson's Car Wars - that was enormous fun, until a good friend with aspergers worked out a win-formula and never lost a game again.

That is one I forgot from my list of games, Call of Cthulhu...amazing rules books. I wouldn't mind finding an experienced DM in that to learn how to really play it properly. A Cthulhy by Gaslight campaign would be super.

We have one on the forum. I'll shoot you a PM later or tomorrow, he's in the UK mind.

I don't mind stuff set up over the internet, the Modern game I am going to be running will be done that way. With that in mind I don't have the time at the moment to be part of one...unless I can get it sorted timezone wise. And if everyone is prepared for me to be a noob who keeps asking if can fire magic missile at the darkness.


I doubt many people will get that joke.