Comments | beccatoria: D&D Tabletop RPG: It is a thing I recommend.

beccatoria

D&D Tabletop RPG: It is a thing I recommend.

Sep 26, 2014 23:40

Okay, so, I rarely talk about this here, but I regularly play tabletop RPGs. Loads of different stuff over the years - White Wolf, D&D, Mutants & Masterminds, Homebrew Wackiness. The point is, pretty much every Sunday, me and my husband and a few of our friends spend the day gaming. (For the uninitiated, I'm basically talking about Dungeons & ( Read more... )

roleplaying games, storytelling, d&d, rpg games, the best hobby

Comments 12

gonzo21 September 26 2014, 22:54:54 UTC

Sounds like an absolutely amazing game.

And yes, RPGs are exactly like having a fandom of... a small group of people. Who are intensely passionate about a shared creative experience. That leaves memories that last a lifetime.

Powerful things for those of us who live in our heads more than the average amount.

beccatoria September 27 2014, 18:18:16 UTC

Thanks, dude. It's been really neat hearing from a few more people than I expected who really get it. When people talk about stories as a force in our lives, it's always roleplaying that makes me feel most connected to that human tradition of storytelling, you know? Anyway, yeah. Powerful stuff.

gonzo21 September 27 2014, 22:30:38 UTC

It is unquestionably one of the enduring sadnesses of my life that my gaming group all moved away, and we don't get to play anymore.

laura47 September 28 2014, 01:46:52 UTC

we've made it work over video chat. not sure if that's an option for you, but if it is: you want good mikes/headphones. i like g+ video chat cause you get lots of useful features of free that skype charges for (screenshare, multiple video people at once). and you want something coherent for a battle map, that one is hard, assuming you use one.

Thread 5

amnisias September 27 2014, 09:03:41 UTC

That summary of your characters arc sounds like a summary on book cover. Which makes me think, you should write a book - well more like a triology or pentology, I guess. The beauty is, it's all already there, you just need to write it down.

beccatoria September 27 2014, 18:22:11 UTC

Aww, thanks dude. To be honest, I don't think I ever will. As I said, some of the story feels odd now, or fits together strangely, because of how and when we played it. I'd need to sculpt and change things for it to play out well as a story, and I was only one of the players; it'd always be...my gospel I suppose. I'm not sure how well it would survive the adaptation. But...I'm really pleased that I conveyed it well enough you'd like to read it, and thank you so much for taking the time to read it.

kerithwyn September 27 2014, 15:04:34 UTC

Wholly fabulous. RPGs have been an enormous part of my professional and personal lives for most of my life; I've never missed being part of a regular game more than right now, after reading about yours.

beccatoria September 27 2014, 18:28:13 UTC

Aww, thanks. It's really meant a lot to me, having more people than I expected turn out to understand.

And I just...I have vast oceans of sympathy. No one should be without a regular game. I hope you find one, with good, generous players, damn soon.

laura47 September 28 2014, 01:21:17 UTC

i will always ready about tabletopping! i really hope my dresden files game starts up again soon, and we have a crazy idea to do a tabletop off of a ridiculous LARP, but LARP keeps getting in the way of my tabletop.... #GamerProblems

YAY GAMING! YAY STORIES!

I feel guilty, sometimes, that he doesn't write stories for everyone to read - that his preferred artistic medium is so unshareable. But he says it's honestly what he prefers; his favourite hobby. So I guess I should just feel lucky instead.

this is actually a big issue for me, expecially going from writing LARPs that easily rerunnable and can be boxed up and handed off, some of which have been played by 100+ people, to campaign tabletops and LARPs... it's so so different from other kinds of storytelling, it's weird!

beccatoria September 28 2014, 20:17:27 UTC

Aww, yay! I've never actually LARPed. I think it'd be fun, but also I think that I'd be too self-conscious to do it properly. Plus it's common for me to panic in-game and go, "wait, wait a minute...right, okay, now I know what I want to say..." which I imagine would be immersion breaking in LARP. Like I'm not so great at improv?

Your comments about the creative sharing stuff is interesting to read, though, not having much experience with LARPs. I mean, our games tend to be very different to pre-made adventures anyway, just because of our style of play. But I'd never even though of the notion of writing stories for 100+ people! Like, at least with tabletop games there's usually an assumption of 3 - 8 players, you know?

Do you still LARP? Do you find it a very different experience from tabletop gaming?

laura47 September 30 2014, 21:07:07 UTC

first off: theater style larp: when i say 100+, it's because i run the same 9-15 person games over and over. and it's self contained enough that i can just do that - it lasts for ~4 hours, and everyone has prewritten character sheets (written by me& my team, we haven't run a commerical prewritten game in like 10 years), and people fill out detailed questionnaires, i tell them who they are, and then it goes from there. and every time it's different, ever time, despite the characters starting from the same place. the ones i've rerun the most are a victorian tea party (which lurking dark secrets, of course), a post apocalyptic amnesia game that is a race against time and against your own lack of memories and often has a high death count, and my latest game which is actually set in the afterlife, 9 people sitting on a boat, heading to their final destination, having to sort though all the unresolved parts of their lives, seeking forgiveness from each other, seeking answers, grappling with existential questions. it's the darkest thing i've ( ... )