What ROLE-PLAYING have you been doing?

It feels like most here are 30+ and have children. Assuming everyone's spent some time either in front of or behind the GM screen in the 80s or 90s, who's still involved in the role-play hobby?

I'm 35, and have been playing on and off since about 8. By on and off, I mean I'm usually involved in some capacity in at least one or two sessions of something a year. Usually, in the GM role. I go through spells where I think it's a good idea and great fun, and then truthfully, other times where I'm ashamed to be in my 30's telling nerd stories with grown damn men. Still keep coming back to it though...

Anyway, the last game I ran was Dragon Warriors about 2 months ago. Love the system, the setting, and the creative force behind it. Unfortunately, the plug has been pulled on future releases and I'm wondering if I should pull the plug on the rest of my 'campaign' as well. Only because I prefer to play in and buy current systems simply to support the hobby.

So, who's still doing this? Now more than ever? Not often? Preferred role (gm/player)?

(Also, Chapel, I'm one confirmation away from being good on the 5th for GW.)

I'm getting a review copy of the new Red Box and I'm planning on playing it with one of my groups that has never played D&D. They are NOT "talk like an Elf" kinds of people, so I want to do a pretty straightforward hack n' slash, 1st level dungeon crawl. You know, rooms full of Kobolds, corny puzzles, all that stuff.

I haven't played an RPG in 12-15 years (aside from a hilarious one-off with MYSTARA over at Swamp Castle), I'm kind of looking forward to it but I'm definitely not planning out a campaign or anything ike that. Maybe if they like it I'd run some simple modules or something but I'm not about to invest all that time and energy into it again.

I haven't played any in about five years, but I'm planning to check out the Mouse Guard RPG when its reprinted next month. Playing it will entirely depend on how many friends I can recruit into a game. I'm not interested in rp-ing with random strangers at this point in my life.

Yeah, I'm not into 'talk like an elf' either.

As far as campaigns, at this time in my life I consider a module that runs more than 4 session a closed campaign. At any rate, that's what I usually run. Buy a module, then tweak it with my ideas and bits from the character's backgrounds.

Never been interested in the time it takes to world and story build and all that.

I'd really like to do a little RPing, nothing serious, it's been about 15 years since I have. I have a copy of mouseguard and my girlfriend really wants to play Warhammer RP with me, but of course, that means I am the GM and that takes work.

Michael Barnes wrote:

I'm getting a review copy of the new Red Box and I'm planning on playing it with one of my groups that has never played D&D. They are NOT "talk like an Elf" kinds of people, so I want to do a pretty straightforward hack n' slash, 1st level dungeon crawl. You know, rooms full of Kobolds, corny puzzles, all that stuff.

Not into talking like elves either. In fact, I usually prefer settings where the pcs are human.

As far as campaigns, for the past several years I consider an adventure that runs 2+ sessions and has an ending - a campaign. I've always simply run store bought modules but modified them to suit my taste, pc backgrounds, etc. I've never been too interested in the world building stuff.

I've wondered if the Red Box might be the way I should go. Cuts out the sillier races, good dungeon crawling, etc. Be sure to post a review.

Jeff White wrote:

(Also, Chapel, I'm one confirmation away from being good on the 5th for GW.)

I have been playing on and off since, well since I was a wee man. IN the last year I had been running a D&D 4e campaign. Postponed it when I had the baby last year. Since then I ran a session of Traveller, and have plans to run Gamma World in the next couple of weeks. As hopefully ye shall see.

In the last 10 years or so, I've played with a few groups here and there. Did a long regualr campaign of Dead Lands, which was a lot of fun.

I definitely haven't played with any regularity since my college days, where I would run several sessions per week in various systems.

But I still consider myself an RPG'er of a sort. Even though my schedule is a little tighter because of the little tike.

I haven't role-played in about 16 years. The last thing I remember us doing was starting a short-lived MAGE: THE ASCENSION campaign.


Now, if you started a thread entitled "What POLE-PLAYING have you been doing?" then Black Barney would have plenty to chime in with.

It's tougher to role-play when kids are around the house. I'm tutoring homework an hour each day and coaching softball twice a week.

The kids aren't quite old enough for role-playing. I purchased a copy of Faeries when my daughter was younger and she had no interest whatsoever. My 10yo is going towards Warhammer 40k so he may never be interested.

My group dabbled recently in 2nd Edition AD&D and got mixed reviews. I'd like to get back to it.

S.

I've been running a bi-weekly Call of Cthulhu campaign for nearly 3 years now. I probably would have burned out by now, except that one of the other players runs CofC adventures for the group about 20% of the time. This last Saturday, he couldn't make it, and I was too busy to pull something together, so we played two games of Arkham Horror instead. I'm really looking forward to Mansions of Madness, because that looks like an even better fill-in game for a Call of Cthulhu session cut short or canceled.

I have never played an RPG, just board games my whole life. But I have to say the older I get the more they intrigue me. My problem is that I don't like most fantasy settings. So D&D, Pathfinder, etc. are right out the window.

I have however have been interested in the Cadwallon RPG, although from what I can tell the rules are atrocious, but the world is fascinating to me (which is shocking because I normally don't like any Fantasy setting like that).

I have also been looking at the Wraith: The Oblivion, but since I am an RPG noob I don't know where to start really. I love the girttiness of the world, and I love the idea of going insane and having other players play your character for a turn, or two.

The last thing that is close, but is more of a board game, is City of Chaos. No this is a world I would love to explore as a true RPG. I really like the ideas of the Guilds in this game, and the setting is right up my alley for the most part.

Knowing all this, oh wise ones, can anyone recommend a good RPG for me that I can really cut my teeth on?

Thanks,
Dan

Some day, I will wrap up the Call of Cthulhu campaign. At that point, I'm planning to run a D&D 3.5 campaign set in Ptolus. And some day I will return to running an L5R campaign. My previous L5R game ran for 3.5 years and actually split into two separate groups once we had a dozen players.

Last Alchemist, check out Savage Worlds or Spirit of the Century. Both fun and non-fantasy.

I'm currently in two games:
- D&D 4e Encounters. Playing through the remix of Keep On The Borderlands at my FLGS. Mostly fun so far, but the other players need to stop dithering. Too many people don't think about what they're doing until the DM says "It's your turn." Makes the combat crawl. But, when everyone's on point the session fits into a solid two hours and rocks.

- Call of Cthulhu. I've GMed this game more than anything else; it's been my main go-to game for GMing for two decades, but I've never actually played up till now. Having a lot of fun with that too, although I have to resist the urge to be a lead dick and try to tell the GM what to do.

I'm a little surprised at all the comments about "I don't have time for that anymore." Yes, you can spend 20 hours a week prepping for a session and burn an entire Saturday playing, but you don't have to. That's just the stereotype about D&D specifically, and it's no more valid than the Eurogamer stereotype that all AT games take 8 hours. It's easy enough to play D&D in short chunks. Not to mention that there's plenty of non-D&D RPGs that, out of the box, support short sessions with little or no prep.

I'm not sure I've ever stopped RPing since age 15. I've mostly played and prefer D&D, but played some Cyberpunk, Star Wars, Vampire, and LARPed(Amtgard). I've also played many RP board games/video games and don't count Magic Realm as a game or RPing or fun. I prefer to GM.


I finally decided to make the switch from D&D's 3.5 to 4th edition. I'm enjoying the ease of learning and playing the new system and have been startled at the number of "retired" players coming out to try the new system. I still play a 3.5 game remotely (via skype), as a player character, with a few friends back home on the weekend. I'm interested in trying out the redone Gamma World universe, but not enough to buy a copy.

I just started back up in March after giving the hobby up for about 10 years (I tried to get back into it with D&D 3 and failed). I ran Paranoia XP for a few sessions before that fizzled. I was really frustrated.

I decided to run Dread: The First Book of Pandemonium following that, which encouraged more character-driven play than anything I had played. I'm learning to let go of the need to tell any sort of story as a GM and my players can't get enough. I figured out exactly what I want out of RPGs (player authored storytelling) and haven't looked back.

I'm getting ready to run Apocalypse World next. I'm also playing in a D&D 4E game, which I'm enjoying.