Adventures with Roleplaying or: "I rolled a WHAT?"

[hildy89]

Inspired by friend and keeper of the dreaded quotelists, tinagilman, I went back and put together a scary list of my roleplaying gaming history. I didn't start gaming until I was in college. I discovered the local sf/gaming group on campus and later the local SCA chapter who also gamed after the meeting. Until I met the SCA group, I was usually the token female, although not always the only female character. You will notice a tendency towards different games, ones that may not be as familiar as AD&D and the White Wolf crowd. I tended to play "oddball" characters. I haven't gamed tabletop style since I came back to Virginia, although I have done several online games.

Games I have played:

Advanced Dungeon & Dragons: My intro to gaming. Usually played a cleric. *Very* low level of actual roleplaying involved, mostly hack and slash style gaming. And run away and flee the monster, but actually survive, which was my one success story.

Rolemaster: my first introduction to Tolkein's Middle Earth, other than the "Hobbit" animated movie. I played a bunch of characters. Since I was on a Mercedes Lackey kick at the time, some of the characters have familiar names, like the seeress named Selenay.

Champions: The superhero RPG. The main character I played was a Champions system version of Queen Projectra/Sensor Girl from the Legion of Super Heroes, known for creating illusions.

GURPS: Think this campaign was similar to Champions, though more conspiracy geared.

Shadowrun: The ultimate cyberpunk game, combined with a little magic for spice. Long running campaign that proved that picking an oddball character can give dividends.

Justice Inc: A pulp hero roleplaying game. Fun game, wish it had lasted a bit longer.

Timelords: A cool timetravel game which allows you to play yourself or even an alternate self. The only game I was actually brave enough to run myself a few times.

Vampire: Masquerade: probably 2nd edition. This was *way* before the other White Wolf games came out. Very very short existence as a Gangrel.

Star Trek: Even though I'm not a Trek fan, I found this game an interesting challenge. A *lot* of roleplaying in this game. I wound up playing the Communications officer, who through some *slight* problems along the way, wound up the first officer. *gulp* There's a button that explains it nicely: "Who died and made you Captain?"

Comments

[tinagilman.livejournal.com]

I have noticed a tendency among male players to play really high-Charisma female characters (oftentimes elves) who toy with the hearts of men. The last game I played in had such a character. The player was very lucky I wasn't the DM; the player kept casting Charm on this one particular NPC merchant and getting him to do things like give her incredibly merchandise for absolutely nothing. The DM (a guy) was amused by this.

I, on the other hand, would have made the NPC a psycho-stalker reminiscent of Angelus at his absolute worst, powered up the character and turned him from a merchant into a necromancer or something horrible like that, and then turned him loose on that character and the PCs in a stalker drama to rival that of any soap opera.

Uh, yeah. Turning geek mode off now. Plus I should actually go and clear off my desk because I get anothr big project at work today.

[hildy.livejournal.com]

We had one guy in the SCA group who played female characters a lot. He tended more towards the "ice queens" I seem to recall. May have been beautiful and charismatic, but just as likely to bite your head off if you tried anything.

It was a nice change from the two Rolemaster GMs who seemed to always play Archmages. *rolls eyes* Not quite the setting yourself up as a deity, but after awhile, the umpteenth level of spells got tiresome. Their thing was looking at the spell lists and oohing and ahhing over "Hey, how many experience points would I need for..." These are also the types who could argue your head off on the appropriate usage of Tolkein Elven languages etc. They would have critiqued the movies to death.

[tinagilman.livejournal.com]

Ice queens aren't so bad. Somewhat annoying, but dealable. At least to me.

The Rolemaster GMs, though? Shoot. Me. Now. *rolling eyes* I hate that sort of thing from GMs. I had one guy who always, always, always, GM or PC, played a snotty British know-it-all spellcaster--like third season BtVS Wesley, only yet more annoying. I feel your pain.

You know, if you lived in Chicago we could get our own happy little BtVS RPG going. I've got the book. Gah. I would love having people in my town who like to game and like Buffy.