roleplaying

[juldea]

Slowly but surely (thanks to the horrible influence of good friends if nothing else) I have come to the point of actively working on my desire to tabletop roleplay. I'm talking manuals, character sheets, dice, etc.

For a long time, a particularly disasterous event with my older brother when he was 14ish and I was 11ish led me to shy away from roleplaying, even though I was fairly certain that I would enjoy it. Most of my friends roleplayed, but I always found a reason to avoid it. After realizing the truth behind the said disasterous teenage event (that 14 year old boys are inherently cruel to their younger sisters, especially younger sisters who want to hang out with their brothers), I then became stuck with the burden of being the one person who didn't already know their way around the systems due to years of practice, and never asked to join my friends for fear of slowing them down or even (gasp) looking like a newbie.

I'm over that.

I want to roleplay. I now know a lot about the story of a few different systems and would like the chance to participate in those stories. I know Vampire the best (thanks to isaiahblake), have droplets of knowledge of various other World of Darkness settings (Mage, Werewolf, Changeling), and have seen a D&D session (but not books). I am fairly certain I am more of a storyline/character interaction player than a hack'n'slash, although I realize that I might want to start with the latter in terms of not expecting too much of myself.

Speaking of isaiahblake, in an AIM chat last night he casually mentioned running an online game for goldbug and I. I have latched onto this idea with sharp claws, although goldbug seems pretty ambivalent and isaiahblake would need a bit more prodding to actually begin setting something up. I guess the point of this paragraph is to see if anyone else would be interested. I think I can safely say it'd be a White Wolf game of some sort, but beyond that it's not in my hands anymore. Tentative responses are fine, since there's nothing remotely solidified about this idea yet.

I have also sent off an email to everyone's favorite webcomic author kobold, since he posted back in 2003 (y'know, way back then) about S*P Boston gaming groups forming up. I don't know if they've already formed, if they're really open to newbies, or what... I think I could count on S*P fans to provide a good deflowering. *snicker* karlean7, any knowledge?

And therefore in parting I say, if you are interested in satisfying this urge of mine, or even if you just are part of a regular game that I could sit in on to get a better feel of how things go, please let me know. I know there are several readers of my journal that I would like to get to know better and who roleplay, and maybe we could kill multiple birds with the same stone? :)

Comments

[gager.livejournal.com]

Actually, I may be interested if you run an online game. Roleplaying online isn't something I've ever done (I've been an entirely tabletop sort of person), but it sounds like lots of fun.

[isaiahblake.livejournal.com]

I can provide logs of online sessions I've had if you want to get a feel for the way I play. I've never run an online tabletop, though I've run normal tabletop games, and I've played MUSHes online for years. Was in charge of the vampire portion of two of them, actually.

Of course, when I talk about the World of Darkness, I really mean it. I'm sure Juldea can attest to that, having seen some of my characters in logs.

But... the more the merrier, pretty much. Lemme know what you'd prefer to play and I'll see what I can do.

[gager.livejournal.com]

Let's see, I have some experience with d&d 2nd, d&d 3rd, White Wolf, Warhammer, Changeling, Rifts, and Call of Cthulhu.

I think the games I've enjoyed the most involved 'horror' role-playing, but I'm open to anything. Online transcripts would be great to get a feel for how it's played online since I've only played tabletop.

Shoot me an email at gaming@devtopia.org

Thanks,
-Lyle

[juldea.livejournal.com]

I approve of you as a gaming partner! ;) I'll keep you updated.

[tpau]

you may want to consider checkign out the table top roleplaying at Arisia and seeing what is up there. i will poke at my GMs (i am in quite a number of games) and see if they mind anyone sitting in

[juldea.livejournal.com]

What's Arisia?

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Actually, I should clarify this. I know what Arisia is... it's a convention, and it's happening in Boston sometime soon, and people drop its name quite a bit recently. However, that knowledge still leaves me a bit ignorant about what goes on there, what's involved in going, if it costs money, etc.

In other words, I'm not completely oblivious to the world around me that's been talking about Arisia for a while, I just never knew whether or not to pay too much attention. ;)

[tpau]

it does cost money. howeverif you volunteer to work, you can coem fof free the next year. i volunteer in the consuite(freemuchies are there) and that gets me in free and a tshirt :)

wht goes on: games, panels, costumes, shopping, fun, parties.

ask in person? hard to describe in typing...

[tpau]

*gulp* ok. http://www.arisia.org
arisia is a really really big science fiction/fantasy/filk/etc convention. it is happening two weeks from now, in the park plaza hotel. There are games beign run by peopel you may know from dance practice. itis a lot of fun. ther eis gaming, shopping, masquarade, play, etc.

ask me in person at dance practice.

likewise, if yo uare at all interested in LARP (live action role playing), check out www.intercon-d.org, a big all-LARP convention i nChelmsford, where a bunch of peopelyou knwo are runnigngames, including me :) that is march 12th weekend. likewise ask me in person.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid if the crowd at dance practice finds out I'm clueless about Arisia, I'll get mobbed around and inundated with more information than I can process. :)

The way I currently view LARPing is even more intimidating than I view RPing (I'm not sure if I can talk like someone else, how can I fully act like them?). It might just be something that I have to be a tad bit inebriated in order to try (to get over my self-inflicted inhibitions), but I have no clue how that'd affect my ability to play. Heh.

Who knows, maybe by March 12th weekend I'll be all into it!

[zenandtheart.livejournal.com]

Role playing always drew me, but the hardest thing about it is finding talented GMs, I reckon. Good luck!
The most enjoyable game I ever had was Paranoia. My ex and his friend occasionally went out to nightclubs and stuff to live role play Vampire.. I can't imagine how difficult that would be to run.

[isaiahblake.livejournal.com]

'Enjoyment' is above your security clearance. Report for termination immediately.

Failure to report immediately will result in the Computer assuming you are intentionally tardy. Tardiness is treason.

Have a nice daycycle.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Hmm. See, I was certain that Paranoia was the name of the RPG my friend guvnor wrote in high school for his senior project. Therefore the name coincidence amuses me.

I think talented players will be just as important as talented GMs, really, but perhaps they'll be easier to find. Or maybe one creates and supports the other?

Boston Gamers?

[crazybone.livejournal.com]

There's a Boston Gamers community on LJ, but their Yahoo Group
is more active post-wise.
There are a bunch of people of varying levels of
playing/GMing experience in the group.
The ones I've met in RL have been good people in and out of game.
Check it out.

-CB

Re: Boston Gamers?

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Well, you see...

I tend to assume that any large gathering of people is inherently stupid. Sometimes if I'm looking for something in particular and I haven't been able to find it in smaller, more familiar groups, I'll take the plunge of looking in a large group of unfamiliars (like posting at bostonsingles). Though that generally involves convincing myself there will be diamonds in the rough. Heh.

Plus, intimidation. Heh.

So I knew about that LJ group, but I figured I'd check out things closer to home first. :)

I didn't know you were still around and reading. I thought you had given up on your journal... just a seldom-posting type of guy?

Re: Boston Gamers?

[crazybone.livejournal.com]

Large gathering people doesn't necessarily = stupid but the bigger
the group the larger the population of wingnuts at either end of
the extremes.
I can understand the whole intimidation thing though.

As far a posting, well I got the account when I was jobless and then I had this work contract that was supposed to last for a week last four months.
It was a time/attention span/slack thing, but I do try to read the posts once a day at least.
I usually only post when something strikes me as funny/cool or I
just want to post a "what's up with that?" commentary.
Plus I'm trying to concentrate on actually doing my fiction writing.
Not really a resolution, more of a personal promise to myself thing.

-CB

Re: Boston Gamers?

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see you are more idealistic than me, or maybe just less misanthropic. Unless I handpick a large group, I'm pretty certain the majority of the members are stupid until proven otherwise. And I don't consider it a bad viewpoint to have. :P

Lucky you finding a job. Sigh.

Seeing as you're posting more now and I like the things you write, consider yourself refriended (yay).

[tramissa.livejournal.com]

I'd love to get back into a roleplaying group...I've done Vampire (briefly - for a few weeks only but long enough to adore it) and D&D 3rd edition for a few months. But that's basically it. Vampire was my first rpg and boy was that an induction and a half ;) We were left to figure things out mostly by ourself, with only our GM and 1 other player ever having participated in an RPG before. We somehow managed to blunder our way through and even take our GM by surprise a few times.

Sigh, I miss having people to play with.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Well, maybe you should join the growing online game that's forming up :)

[tramissa.livejournal.com]

I doubt I would be around at the times it would be played.

Keep me updated though and if I can I definitely will...I can think of someone else that would probably love to play as well ;)

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Heh, some of us keep some pretty radical schedules. It just might work. :)

Oh, he would, would he?

[tramissa.livejournal.com]

Most likely :) Particularly if I asked :P Seriously, we've been discussing RPG's lately and how we'd both love to play again

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Well.. neat! :)

[karlean7.livejournal.com]

I fired off an e-mail as well.

Basically, Randy still wants to do it, he just needs to get off his ass and make a time.

I think it'll start to happen when everyone gets back from vacation.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Good, neat, cool, I'm not too late. Whee!

[londo.livejournal.com]

Don't play online, don't play Vampire. I run one-shot games every now and then, mostly intended for newbies. Email me or something if you want in the next one.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Yeah, uh, I think responding to this is useless now, but I wanted to write something anyway.

...and I'm still going to want to play Vampire with someone, sometime.