New Games and new DM's

New to me.  I really like trying new systems, and checking out other DM's.  Who knows you might find something great.

Later:

Dave

mY EYE's

Is it just me ... white text on a black background makes my eyes hurt.

Palladium Games

Back in the day we had a lot of fun playing any Palladium system we tried.  My buddy Chris ran a a couple of great TMNT campaigns.  A couple of us ran Heroes Unlimited games which I always had a blast playing.  I know I ran a Ninjas & Superspies game now and then, which I thing everyone liked.  Someone ran a ROBOTECH gme for a while.  Of course we tried Palladium Fantasy, but compared to AD&D it fell short for us/me so we never really got into it.


RIFTs ... yeah we played, I don't remember who ran the games, but I do know we had fun playing.  So I've read a bunch of blog posts in the last couple of weeks bashing RIFTs.  Yes the system might have a fucked up power curve, but come on guys.  The GM should be on top of character creation and put the kibosh on the power gamers.  The GM should be on top of the entire game, how hard is it for a good GM to crush any PC he wants to.

Like most games it's only as good as the GM.

Plus anyone who gets Keith Parkinson to paint a couple of covers must know a think or two.

She shot until the gun jammed.

As a fairly serious competitive shooter (my youtube video's) from my experience I can tell you; your average modern handgun works.  Start fiddling with shit, use bad ammunition, cheap magazines (clips go on your belt not in your firearm), or any number of user errors cause guns to jam.  Yes fatigue can cause parts to wear and fail, however in most cases that takes lots and lots of rounds down the pipe.

It's all about the DM.

AD&D, D&D 3.5/Pathfinder, or D&D4e it really doesn't matter to me.  The rules are there as a structure, what makes a game worth playing is the Dungeon Master.

unclebear

You dig it?

Stuff, stuff, and more stuff.

Dudes like stuff.

They like other dudes stuff, they like to look at stuff, they especially like to buy stuff the crazy thing is they like to buy stuff for there characters as much as for themselves.  All the stuff is just fluff.  People are what make gaming worth it.  If you played Rifts (which I'm only using as an example because I missed the whole d20 cluster frak) did it really matter if you had the South America book while playing a game based in France, um ... probably not, even though there was that cool piece of armor in the book you didn't have.  Yes we all remember the coolest thing our one great character absconded with, but was it as important as the afternoon you spent adventuring?  Not in my mind anyway.

Good Dungeon Masters ... or BAD

"my campaign" 
"my players"  


Are two of the most condescending things an egotistical DM says about the game. We are all playing the game, you might be sitting behind the screen, and the creator of the "world" (and lets be realistic it's all been done, whatever you "created" is appropriated from somewhere) a good DM has to let his baby go and realize once players begin to inhabit the "world" it's not yours anymore. One of the great things about gaming is seeing where we go together.  


Players do have to recognize that the professions the characters have chosen are inherently dangerous, bad things are bound to happen. If bad things didn't happen, that would be boring.  
Now that I've spoken the truth (tongue firmly in cheek); my opinion on sand box gaming.  BORING.  Adventuring and exploring are two distinct activities. Yes my wife and I might go explore Yellowstone, and that's great, but I want to grow old. In the games I play I want adventure which denotes a certain amount of risk. Risk I am willing to take with a character. I supose if the characters can come up with a Big Hairy Audacious Goal and the DM is willing and able to facilitate sand box could work. My opinion is the DM presents a problem, the players solve it, FREESTYLE!


exploration
the action of traveling in or through an unfamiliar area in order to learn about it
adventurean unusual and exciting, typically hazardous, experience or activity

Random yummieness!

I think this is just great:

Random pit table

Falling into a pit sucks, getting a party to fall into a pit is one of the great pleasures of DMing.

Playing AD&D with 3.5 D&D players

I'm thinking about writing a set of guild lines for the 3.5 punks playing in our AD&D game.  There are a lot of great 3.5 rules, but we are not playing 3.5, so no you don't have free fucking action, an attack of opportunity (at all, but especially before your initiative, I bet you don't have the combat reflexes feat, oh yeah there are no feats), and your mages high wisdom score does not grant them bonus spells.

Yes it's all a game, and I've enjoy playing in a 3.5/Pathfinder games please just keep the rules in the proper game.

Ogre-Mage