| From: | Bull <chaos@*****.COM> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | [Sorta OT again] My AD&D Game and Thanks |
| Date: | Wed, 23 Jul 1997 05:44:49 -0400 |
Thanks to everyone who replied to me. There were a lot of you, and if I
haven't replied personally yet, I still might, and if I don;t, thanks! i
got a lot of ideas, and some good advice.
One thing that really shocked me was that I got so many replies from
listmembers who chuckled and said they "Secretly Still Liked AD&D, but Were
Afraid To Admit It" (Heh, sounds lik a book title in the making, eh?). I
know AD&D has gotten a bad rep in the last few years, but really... It
seems like an Orc in a Humanis Policlub meeting. he's under a table, and
afraid to come out where the 'Clubbers might see him...:]
Is AD&D really so bad?
Now, before anyone goes off on me about this, let me say a few things...
A) They have handled somethings VERY badly (Namely their whole copyright
and the internet stuff)
B) They have a bad tendancy to "overdo it", like pump out 40+ Dragonlance
novels about the same 8 Characters, when they were old after the first 20.
C) tehy're money grubbing bastards.
However, remember this. Most of us are in this hobby of gaming because of
D&D. I started with basic D&D when I was 10, GMing for my 9 year old
cousin and my 7 year old brother (And occasionally my Mom when she wasn't
too busy). Sure, adventures then were nothing but enormous trap and
monster filled dungeons, and I used SOOOO much graph papaer drawing maze
after maze, but it was terrific fun.
How many of you have, with whatever game you're playing now, be it AD&D,
SR, or even Vampire just gone back to the old days and had a good old
fashioned Dungeon romp? Where you stopped taking yourself and your
character and your game so seriously, and just enjoyed the thrill of
gnoshing heads in true powergaming munchkinous fashion?
YOu can do this in any game, and quite easily.
For SR, simply do a bug hunt. Put the characters in a vast underground
Hive, and let the lead and manabolts fly.
For Vampire, well... No clue how you would do it there. Seems most WW
players around here are munchkinny enough, and too "angst" (Copyright White
Wolf) ridden to have fun... but i'm sure tehre's a way... (BTW: For
those of you who are rabid WW players, I'm teasing. I have an
overabundance of dorks in black around here who seem to think suicide,
being a vampire, and drinking blood is cool... So I get a little
sarrcastic about the game...:))
Try it some night, and a one shot... you'll enjoy it...
Anyways, back to the subject at hand...:]
I spent most of the night dealing with char gen. I wanted my guys to be
able to create their own characters from the ground up, because you really
get more of a sense of "realness" in a char you made, rather than in a
pregenerated one... However, I left their backgrounds and stuff fairly
vague for now... They don;t know enough about the world to make BG's, and
it leaves me room to manipulate them...:]
Plus, I forgot how long it can take when you have to explain things like
what "Constitution" and "Charisma" mean...:] And what is a d4 and
how do
you read the bloody thing?? :] (One of the funniest things was when I
dumped my dice on the table and said ok, grab 4 d6's to start, and one of
the guys said: "Sure, no problem. Ummmm... What's a d6?" :]:]
I gave them a little bit of background on their hometown (Shadowdale), and
did a little roleplaying as they were hired by the Captain of the Guard to
scout some caves a few miles off that it's umored some goblins or something
have moved into.
After that, i led them into Keep On The Borderlands, and they went a
dungeon crawling...;] They had a blast fighting monsters and getting
treasure, and one of them even got a +1 dagger tonight. he thought that
getting a magic dagger was the coolest thing...
It was really refreshing having a true party of "beginners", and brought
back a lot of fun memories of reading and trying to figure out the old
basic D&D books, and watching them get so fired up over the littlest things
was truly fun.
We need more eager, innocent newbies playing games today. Those of us who
have been around a while have gotten too old and cynical for our own good.
We've gotten into fighting over rules, and numbers, and namecalling
(especially on this list lately) and it seems that most of us have lost the
reason that we started playing these games in the first place. To have
fun, and to be transported into a world that was much cooler, and more fun
than this one.
It's funny... I dreaded going into this. I was afraid of getting
munchkins in my game, and of not having enough roleplaying, and enough
seriousness to have fun. Now, I'm glad I agreed to run for these guys.
It's like being a kid all over again, and maybe a little munchkin isn;t
such a bad thing, in moderate doses, and in the right game...:]
Bull-the-reminiscing-Ork-Decker
--
Bull, aka Steven Ratkovich, aka Rak, aka a lot of others! :]
The Offical Celebrity Shadowrn Mailing List Welcome Ork Decker!
Fearless Leader of the Star Wars Mailing List
List Flunky of ShadowCreations, creators of the Newbies Guide,
in production now!
HOME PAGE: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Cavern/3604/home.html
"Gen Con, here I come!"
-- Me
