Too much roleplaying?
Am I doing too much roleplaying?
I've been trying to review my time, and I'm starting to think it may be possible...
Monday evening - Running an AD&D game down at the Green Man. Mostly combat-heavy with limited roleplaying, but I'm persevering. The fact that I run the game myself is helping. I've taken them through the The Dark Tower is a rather useful learning experience, since it's impossible to escape from unless you get the right clues - from talking to the NPCs.
Cue a pile of dead NPCs of impressive size. They killed the guy offering them dinner, the one warning them about onrushing orcs, the totally defenceless ones, and even the naked NPC in the bathtub. By the time they found some people reading in the library, they were starting to catch on, and only killed another four before deciding to try talking to people. It's possible I'm not being entirely fair to them, but they claim to be having fun. I understand that my use of plot is a confusing but welcome change to their normal game.
Tuesday or Wednesday is wargaming. I'm generally playing either Warhammer fantasy battle, or more often Popularly and somewhat accurately described as a blight on the face of role-playing, LG is a single huge AD&D campaign, centrally scripted with prewritten adventures and NPCs. The advantage is that it is a huge international effort, involving over 15000 people, in a bright and vibrant fantasy world that is uniquely well detailed and realised. The downside is that the game sticks absolutely to the published rules, particularly when they are silly or unworkable, involves huge amounts of bureaucracy, paperwork and record keeping, and generally focuses on combat. You can't do anything in the gameworld that isn't a prewritten adventure, from which you get experience points and gold notarised on a printed record sheet. When people say AD&D is not a roleplaying game, but a wargame, this is what they are talking about The day I don't spend wargaming, I spend with huggyrei, a weekly evening that is most welcome in the middle of a busy week.
Thursday is Ars Magica, the same game that I've been playing for 6 years. We're up to session 253, and the game shows no sign yet of coming to an end.
Friday and the weekend is generally spent with huggyrei, which means running Foundation every other saturday, or occasional other games, such as Raganarok sky is a game invented by John, with contributions from the rest of the group. It started when Paul's Buffy/AD&D game died, and is basically a cross between Norse Myth, Firefly and something with a lot of flying sailing ships in it. My character is the captain, leading the crew as we struggle to understand why the Jotun are suddenly interested in the BALDUR barrier, after so many years in exile..., Temasek is a bit of a departure for me, a fantasy game using the FATE system set in an island principality, with a political setup loosely based on teh myths and legends of Singapore, and the surrounding area. The characters are establising themselves as courtiers on the rise, have already fun afoul of the sinister Lords of the Basalt Throne, braved the Followers of the Light spreading their influence from far-off Jeddah, fled through the war-torn peninsula with the golden sword of the Sultan, finally escaping pursuit by dancing for the spirits of the twin hills., and the Wheel.
Too much? I am having fun, but the pace of life is a bit punishing at the moment. Hectic is good, but maybe a bit more variety early in the week would be better. I suspect one or other of the AD&D games may have to give way...
I've been trying to review my time, and I'm starting to think it may be possible...
Monday evening - Running an AD&D game down at the Green Man. Mostly combat-heavy with limited roleplaying, but I'm persevering. The fact that I run the game myself is helping. I've taken them through the The Dark Tower is a rather useful learning experience, since it's impossible to escape from unless you get the right clues - from talking to the NPCs.
Cue a pile of dead NPCs of impressive size. They killed the guy offering them dinner, the one warning them about onrushing orcs, the totally defenceless ones, and even the naked NPC in the bathtub. By the time they found some people reading in the library, they were starting to catch on, and only killed another four before deciding to try talking to people. It's possible I'm not being entirely fair to them, but they claim to be having fun. I understand that my use of plot is a confusing but welcome change to their normal game.
Tuesday or Wednesday is wargaming. I'm generally playing either Warhammer fantasy battle, or more often Popularly and somewhat accurately described as a blight on the face of role-playing, LG is a single huge AD&D campaign, centrally scripted with prewritten adventures and NPCs. The advantage is that it is a huge international effort, involving over 15000 people, in a bright and vibrant fantasy world that is uniquely well detailed and realised. The downside is that the game sticks absolutely to the published rules, particularly when they are silly or unworkable, involves huge amounts of bureaucracy, paperwork and record keeping, and generally focuses on combat. You can't do anything in the gameworld that isn't a prewritten adventure, from which you get experience points and gold notarised on a printed record sheet. When people say AD&D is not a roleplaying game, but a wargame, this is what they are talking about The day I don't spend wargaming, I spend with huggyrei, a weekly evening that is most welcome in the middle of a busy week.
Thursday is Ars Magica, the same game that I've been playing for 6 years. We're up to session 253, and the game shows no sign yet of coming to an end.
Friday and the weekend is generally spent with huggyrei, which means running Foundation every other saturday, or occasional other games, such as Raganarok sky is a game invented by John, with contributions from the rest of the group. It started when Paul's Buffy/AD&D game died, and is basically a cross between Norse Myth, Firefly and something with a lot of flying sailing ships in it. My character is the captain, leading the crew as we struggle to understand why the Jotun are suddenly interested in the BALDUR barrier, after so many years in exile..., Temasek is a bit of a departure for me, a fantasy game using the FATE system set in an island principality, with a political setup loosely based on teh myths and legends of Singapore, and the surrounding area. The characters are establising themselves as courtiers on the rise, have already fun afoul of the sinister Lords of the Basalt Throne, braved the Followers of the Light spreading their influence from far-off Jeddah, fled through the war-torn peninsula with the golden sword of the Sultan, finally escaping pursuit by dancing for the spirits of the twin hills., and the Wheel.
Too much? I am having fun, but the pace of life is a bit punishing at the moment. Hectic is good, but maybe a bit more variety early in the week would be better. I suspect one or other of the AD&D games may have to give way...