Ok. Game night.

[winneganfake]

This is probably not the best time to post this, but I may as well just do it now and linkback to it on Monday when more of you are actually reading.

So, I've been talking around the idea of hosting a game group. That needs to stop, as you lot don't seem to want to sign onto something unless its a definite THING. So, that said, I'm making it a definite thing. Starting post-giftmas, there will be a weekly game night here. Thursday nights, from 8:30 onwards.

Now we get into the lovely question that most people are going to ask- what am I looking for? People who want to play. I give not a shit if you've never played a role-playing game before, or if you've worked in the industry for the last ten years. I care that you want to come over, bring snacks, have a good time, and play an RPG in the process. All skill levels/experience welcomed. Benchsitters/observers are welcome, but recognize that you will likely get good-naturedly badgered into playing at some point if you keep coming over.

Now then, we come down to the other important question- what's going to get played. We have options, and I'm loath to force people into a game they're not interested in. Right now, though, I mostly want to hear who's interested in coming, and if any of the following hooks sound interesting to people. See Below for the games/hooks:

Game 1: Part of this is the standard epic quest for knowledge power and glory. Part of it is a desperate run for survival from massive forces of enemies arrayed against you. It's epic fantasy on a scale to compare with Tolkien and the like- magic, ancient artifacts, flashing blades, and.... poop. This is the world of Low Life- fantasy role-playing in our own world, far after humanity has left it to it's descendants. Character races range from evolved cockroaches and sentient worms to horcs, smelves, and cremefillians (the intelligent descendants of the eternal snack cakes). It's a great blend of humor and fantasy role-playing, and it's definitely worth a play or two. System: Savage Worlds

Game 2: Czernobog. A planet far on the edge of known human space, permanently warped and twisted by parasitic abominations that infect everything they touch. Travel to such a world is a death sentence, as no human who has set foot on the planet since invasion have survived. And the daughter of your benefactor has been lost there. Now you and your companions are going in- twenty four hours to find her, or her remains, and get back out. Only that's not the real story. The real story goes much, much deeper. System/World: Fading Suns (non d20 edition)

Game 3: ????? There's options. HoL, TMNT, World of Darkness (just the mortal corebooks- I'd rather us playing a horror game with some horror to it, rather than vampires, etc.) Unknown Armies, or at least two homebrew ideas I've been tossing around. Or if someone else wants to run something, I'm up for suggestions.

At any rate, I'm looking for willing players/victims at this point. Any takers?

Comments

[brent-kellmer.livejournal.com]

I'd be very interested in #2, although until March my playing time might be limited due to Teresa's obligations (which might keep me home).

[winneganfake.livejournal.com]

How limited? I mean, could you commit to say, two regular (key part there, the regular thing) thursdays a month?

[brent-kellmer.livejournal.com]

I have to run it by T, but almost certainly. If it was a weekend, it'd be much more limited. Thursdays should work out, though.

[winneganfake.livejournal.com]

Ok, well, let me know either way. if we go every other, it'll likely be 2nd and 4th thursdays, otherwise we may just alternate the game every other week.

[brent-kellmer.livejournal.com]

Cool. I've been looking for a gaming group for some time now. Where do you guys live now?

[winneganfake.livejournal.com]

Public posts being what they are, I'm not going to post it directly- here's the friends-level post I keep our address and contact info in: http://winneganfake.livejournal.com/220454.html

[brent-kellmer.livejournal.com]

Thanks -- I understand complete about the public posts, considering that I refer to my boys as Primus and Secundus... For some reason I thought you'd moved since 2005.

[winneganfake.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah, it's an old post- it just gets edited whenever we move. That way I never have to deal with updating the link on my profile.

[brent-kellmer.livejournal.com]

and for the record, although my preference in what you suggested above was for the SF game, I might well be interested in the Warhammer FRP -- never used it before though.

[winneganfake.livejournal.com]

OK. How d'you feel about the suggestion of Low Life and Warhammer on alternating weeks- had you the free time, would you be up for both?

[brent-kellmer.livejournal.com]

I'd love to, but honestly I don't think I'll be able to get there from Monroe more than every other week.

[winneganfake.livejournal.com]

Totally understood. Well, when I hear back from wakko, I'll be posting up the schedule, and you can let me know which nights you're going to make it in for.

[wakko.livejournal.com]

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd edition came out a couple weeks ago.

I've been looking for a group interested in playing.

[winneganfake.livejournal.com]

Maybe. It's a definite possibility- given the response I've had so far, how well would it hold up to players with rather infrequent schedules?

That, and WFRPs pretty low-fantasy, yes? the crowd so far, I think is more after the wild and crazy rather than the peasants slowly trudging their way up the scale. I'm not saying no to it, by any means, I'm just trying to figuire out if it'll work or not.

[wakko.livejournal.com]

It depends on what you mean by 'holding up'. The system itself is extremely intuitive, and easy to pick up. In the demo I played a couple weeks ago, most of us hadn't really seen much detail about the system, but we were able to pick up the basics in about 15 minutes.

So, in that regard, I'd say that it's much better than, say, D&D. Insofar as you won't have a lot of "What was that bonus, again?" issues.

Plus, just about all of your actions have reference cards right in front of you, so that also mitigates a lot of the problems with people not knowing what their characters can do, or how to execute it.


I'd call WHFRP medium-fantasy. There's a fair bit of magic and fanastic stuff, but the mages all run the risk of going insane, or being consumed by the Warp. The primary protagonists are goblins, orcs, demons, monsters, dragons, the chaos gods and the minions of chaos, etc.

I guess that's WHFRP's big selling point is that it's a high-risk, grim fantasy setting. Lots of danger, lots of 'odds are against us' scenarios, but just enough rewards to keep players interested in pushing their luck just a little more.


I'll be picking up the core set, and probably the initial campaign materials, sometime after the holidays.

More info is here: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite.asp?eidm=93&enmi=Warhammer%20Fantasy%20Roleplay

[winneganfake.livejournal.com]

It's mostly a question of would a/your typical scenario tend to get rather fucked up if we had players who couldn't make every session, or who could, at best, make only half of them? Though actually, I'm thinking of a workaround for that. Two different games running on alternating weeks- think you'd be up for running Warhammer on the second and fourth thursdays for example, and I'll run something else the first and third?

And if the learning curve on the system is that simple, I'm glad to hear it- the setting also sounds awesome at this point, so I'm thinking it's worthy.

The price point on the manuals is giving me sticker shock though, as I know I can't afford the Core set any time soon- I'm assuming like most games, we won't need everyone to buy a set in order to play.

That said though, I like it. Looks good to me.

[wakko.livejournal.com]

Ah, yeah. I see what you mean. Mostly, that's a system-agnostic problem. Any competant DM can craft a workable story and/or just run a couple of campaigns.

There have been a lot of people complaining about the price point.

I've got a mixed opinion. While $100 is a bit steep to pay in one shot, you're getting a ton of stuff. 3 books, custom dice, action cards, and more. Compared to D&D, this is actually slightly cheaper than the D&D core set (PHB, DMG, MM) plus each person's investment in dice and other materials.

The nice thing is, you can easily have a single core set for a group of people. So, not everyone needs to make the investment at the same time.

Let me double-check my schedule, but I think doing a bi-weekly game ought to be fairly easy for me to do.

[winneganfake.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, it's just some games tend to be such a drastic change even in just a few character levels, that a character left out to pasture for a couple of sessions ends up so woefully far behind that they might as well re-roll.


I can totally understand their reasoning on the price point- I just don't have the cash in my own wallet. As long as a core set works for a full group though, and you're set on buying it anyways, I'm definitely fine with it getting hosted here.

Cool- let me know on the schedule then, so I can get stuff reposted to the general masses.

[wakko.livejournal.com]

Yep. After the demo session, I'm sold on the system, so I'll be getting a copy. The main question will be when. First week of Jan is my current target.

My general policy for infrequent players is that if they get more than 1-2 levels behind, is just to allow them to jump to 1 level behind the current average party level. That way the game doesn't suffer too much due to wide variance in character powers.

Right now, I'd say I'm about 80% confirmed. There's one detail that I'll find out about on Monday (21st) that may change my plans. I'll ping you as soon as I've got that remaining bit of information.

[chuckiebear.livejournal.com]

With the exception of first Thursday Artwalks I would be down.

[winneganfake.livejournal.com]

I think we're going to try and either do every other at this rate (as most people have scheduling issues of some kind) or we just may end up doing games where characters can go out to pasture regularly if need be.

[ex-chuckiebe113.livejournal.com]

Awesome! You can count me in.

You should abduct Victoria and consider doing the Vampire game we rolled toons for ages ago.

[winneganfake.livejournal.com]

If I still had the manuals, notes, or desire to that that game, I'd consider it, but I don't. Playing Vamp just doesn't appeal much anymore.

[ex-chuckiebe113.livejournal.com]

If you did a Vampire game Nathan would be down as well.

[winneganfake.livejournal.com]

Nathan? Which Nathan? Though, still with the lack of gamebooks, etc at this point.

[chuckiebear.livejournal.com]

My roomy Nathan (Jake Rain).

If you decide you want to try it sometime he has all the books.

As for me, I'm for playing just about anything.

[winneganfake.livejournal.com]

Ah gotcha! Well, he's more than welcome to come as well, but I don't think Vampire's on the menu. Looks like Warhammer Fantasy is, however, if he's still in for that.