RPGaDay, Day Five – Stories of my Character

Welcome back, Dear Reader. Today we are asked: “What story does your group of players tell about your character?”

I’m sure this will be a short post, because as we’ve said before, I don’t play much. I suppose if we were to travel waaaaaay back in time to my pre-marriage days, when Bill, now of The Gamer’s Lounge fame, my group would happily tell stories of my tendency to have my PCs leap before looking, eager to engage the threat head on, regardless of the danger to my PC’s life. There was also the time that during a time crunch, my PC deliberately cut himself with a soul-drinking dagger in a failed attempt to open a sealed vault door prior to being capture by a band of angry, xenophobic elves. The PC survived the ordeal, having made all of his saves.

What can I say, I’m (was) an enthusiastic player, not necessarily a smart one.

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RPGaDay, Day Four – Impressive PCs

My apologies, Dear Reader, for yesterday’s lack of a post. The dread Ogre Responsibility kept me firmly in its fierce, cruel grasp all day yesterday. To make up for it, a Double Post:

Yesterday we were asked: “What is the most impressive thing that you can remember another player’s character doing in a session?”

As I spend of my table time behind the GM’s screen I’ve seen a lot of player character action, but I think the most memorable thing I’ve seen another PC do at my table harkens back to the Water Genasi Cleric that I spoke of in Day Two‘s post. In addition to playing his pre-generated PC to the hilt based on some rather flimsy RP hooks provided to us by WotC, he was an inventive player. Near the end of the adventure, the PCs needed to channel water and his Cleric had a “Shape Water” cantrip at his disposal. Convenient, right? I thought so too. However, he later put Shape Water to a better use when the party was attacked by a Water Weird, set to guard the doorway to the vault the PCs were trying to breach.

The player turns to me and asks, “Can I use Shape Water to damage the Weird?” “Yes, yes you can,” I say to him. Next thing I know this player is going all Avatar the Last Airbender on this Water Weird with the biggest grin on his face. This is still one of my favorite gaming moments.

RPGaDay, Day Three

Today, Dear Readers, we are asked: “What is something you have done with your game character that you are the proudest of?”

To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure I have one. Since most of my playing time is spent on the GM’s side of the table, I don’t get a lot of opportunity to play in a game instead of running a game. And when I do get a chance to play, my last few playing experiences, all of them one shots, haven’t been the most enjoyable of experiences, mostly due to the inability to really get into a character and make that PC a part of me and me a part of him/her. I know this is a problem that Hal has talked about as well, which doesn’t surprise me give that his GM time is much higher than his PC time also.

I’d like to be able to be a player again, but I’m not sure that’s going to happen any time soon. For one thing, I happen to like GMing, to be able to facilitate my players’ being awesome and their ability to derive enjoyment from the games I run. Secondly, I have a hard time turning off my inner-GM, which is probably a post for another day.

RPGaDay, Day Two – Memorable Gaming

Today, Dear Reader, we are asked: “What is the best game session you have had since August 2015?” In other words, “In the last year, what was your most memorable game?”

Last year, I was hosting a Dungeons and Dragons Adventurers League event for Free RPG Day for 2015 and there was this one player, a walk-in who I had never met before and haven’t seen since, at my table who I know had a wonderful time. I mention this player because he played his character to the hilt – as a Water Genasi Cleric, he had a  role-playing hook that his family had been slaughtered by one of the Cults of Elemental Evil and that the PC hated all cultists from that cult. During the course of play, the party had encountered a high-ranking member of the cult, which the Cleric PC had recognized by his clothing as being a part of the Cult that killed his family. “I’m going to kill him!” he said upon seeing this cult leader and looked at me to get the OK to make an attack roll. “Go for it,” I told him, allowing him a surprise round action before going to initiative. *rolls a d20 *

He rolls a natural 20. A Critical Hit.

The Cleric rolls maximum damage and then I call for initiative, where the Cleric is at the top of the round. He rolls his attack again.

He rolls a natural 20. Again. Another Critical Hit. At this point, the  whole table is hooting and hollering, cheering this player on as he rolls max damage. Again. This player single-handedly dropped so much damage on this one NPC it didn’t feel right not to let the player have the win over the NPC. I sat back in my chair, smiled at the player and asked him, “How does the NPC die?”

Everyone at the table loses their mind with the thrill of that quick, brutal round of combat. The excitement at the table was palpable and definitely had an effect on the rest of the game session. I can safely say that everyone at the table had a great time, including me.

RPGaDay, Day One

Hello there, Dear Reader. In an attempt to get this blogging thing back on the tracks from where it fell off years ago, I’ve decided to partake in 2016’s RPGaDay blogging activity. Today marks Day One, where we’re asked: “Do you prefer to use real dice, a dice application or program, or use a diceless system?”

For me, it’s all about real dice in my gameplay. It’s the ritualistic nature of having a handful of dice and dropping them on the table to see what Fate has in mind for my character. Or in my case, for my player’s characters and my NPCs. There’s something implicitly satisfying about the sound of dice as they rattle in your hand and as they tumble on the tabletop, portending either weal or woe for the player who’s dice have just been cast.

Real dice are the only way to go when it comes to tabletop gaming, but sometimes your players are scattered across the nation and you have to use virtual means to play. In those cases, there’s not a lot of options available to you. You can trust your players (which I do) to roll their dice honestly or you can rely on a dice rolling app, which work really well when dealing with non-standard dice sets (I’m looking at you, Age of Rebellion). I have some issues with dice-rolling apps, primarily with the true randomness of the dice rolls, but virtual dice are better than no dice, which typically leads to no gaming. And I don’t want to not be gaming if I can help it.

Oh yeah….

I have a blog here. Expect some content soon.

This….

is awesome.

Trust….

Is a Two-Way Street.

Image Courtesy of Brandon Doran

What’s the best part of playing in a Role Playing Game?  Is it the getting together with friends and having fun on a Friday night?  Is it the collaborative story telling?  Is it the ability to be someone else for a while, doing things you could never do? 

Painting, my Dreaded Enemy

Image courtesy of Buckeye Beth

What is it about miniature gaming that drives you up a wall the most?  Is it the rules lawyers?  The cheesy mouthbreathers who only care about winning?  Is it a lack of support for you favorite army? While I do find all of those things to be annoying, none of them match up to what I find to be the most onerous task for a miniatures gamer.  Painting.

More Navel Gazing

Hello loyal Reader,

I must apologize for the lack of posts this past couple of months. Things in my life have been hectic to say the least and by the time I return home from work, my sleep timer starts to tick down to that inevitable end.

I get home, start working on dinner, play with the Kid, maybe watch some TV if I’m lucky and then it’s off to bed to repeat the whole cycle again in the morning.

What galls me the most is I have posts to write, I really do. And I’ll post them at some point, I promise you. And no, I can’t post from work any more. The Powers That Be have made it impossible for WordPress sites to load up on the company network. So, there’s not really a whole lot I can do until I get home, where I become a virtual zombie the minute I walk through the door.

Thank you for being patient and bearing with me. I’ll do better for the future.