Author Topic: The most fun you've had roleplaying  (Read 1937 times)

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Wordman

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The most fun you've had roleplaying
« on: December 03, 2008, 02:31:16 AM »
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The point here is to gather some data.

Please provide some information about the most fun you personally have ever had while roleplaying. This could be for either a campaign, a story arc, a session, even just a single scene, but you can only pick one. Tell us the following:

Scope: Was this a campaign, story arc, session, scene or what?

System: What rule set was used?

Style: A brief (i.e. single prase) description of the genre/setting/tone of the game. Examples: "gritty horror", "low magic fantasy", "swashbuckling adventure", etc.

Demographic: Basic makeup of the group: number of players, genders, rough ages.

Memory: A fond memory of the game. Keep it short.

Analysis: Why was this the most fun you've had roleplaying? What made it so?

Components: Put the following items in order, with the element that most contributed to making the game fun first, down to the least (yes, it's a generalization; do the best you can): the gamemaster, the mechanics, the other players, the actual characters, the story, the setting.
« Last Edit: December 03, 2008, 03:46:11 AM by Wordman »
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Chemus

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Re: The most fun you've had roleplaying
« Reply #1 on: December 03, 2008, 04:10:00 AM »
The most fun I've had while role-playing is during a campaign run by my friend Sirperry.

Scope: This was a full-length (1-20+) campaign in Sirperry's homebrew setting 'The Kingdom of Dagnar'. It lasted 2 years or more.

System: D&D 3.5 (With a couple of homebrewed classes thrown in)

Style: High Fantasy

Demographic: DM: Male, early 30's; Two main players, each male late 20's; various 'replacement' players also early to late 20's. Most of the campaign was with just the DM (Sirperry) (playing Largo, a ranger-rogue half-goblin DMPC for fill-in), Lancelot (playing Raith, an elven custom Dervish-type class) and myself (Playing Giskard, a changeling-lizardman 'Paladin' of nature).

Memory: My fondest memory of the game is when the DMPC had been briefly grappled by a demilich who then threw up a Prismatic Sphere. On my next turn, I jumped through the sphere, failing many of the saves, ending up with 10 HP left to my name, and used all of my daily points of my lay on hands ability to turn the demilich to dust. Had I just let it take her, we would have gotten more adventure out of it, but I didn't know that, and Giskard surely didn't.

Analysis: This was the most fun because the story was really there, and we three had lots of fun. The foibles of the PC's and the NPC's were great in play. One of the 'filler' players lent a lot of personality in the form of a female wizard, but overall it was just our interaction via the game, especially for so long, that was what made it the best for me.

Components: In order of greatest to least, the GM, the characters, the players, the story, and the mechanics were what contributed to making it fun for me.
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godmoney

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Re: The most fun you've had roleplaying
« Reply #2 on: December 11, 2008, 03:17:06 AM »
Scope: It was a session at GenCon.

System: It used QAGS (Quick Ass Game System)

Style:It was an investigative horror comedy.  :P

Demographic: Wow, one of the hippie chicas from Looney Labs playing a newspaper reporter, one of the QAGS guys playing a unitarian TV evangelist, me playing a P.I., and the gm playing the rest of the town of point pleasant, west virginia  :lmao

Memory: Rolling thru the hills of WV in a redneck monster truck, me at the wheel, the hippie chic hanging on for dear life taking notes, and the bible thumper blasting away with a shotgun at the "mothman" as it chases us, all the while praying to JesusBudhaAllah.

Analysis: It is one of the few times that i can recall almost the whole session.  This is most likely due to the gm and other players at the table.  (IF you ever get the chance to play at one of thier tables i HIGHLY recommend it.)

Components: GM, Players, Characters, Story, Setting, then Rules

Shoggoth

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Re: The most fun you've had roleplaying
« Reply #3 on: December 11, 2008, 01:37:26 PM »
Scope:  A one-shot scenario, which I had run previously.

System:  Spirit of the Century

Style:  A two-fisted Pulp adventure story set in the 20's in New York City.

Demographic:  Three guys in their early to mid-Thirties, one woman in her late twenties, and one female college student.  Two of them were married, one of the guys knew noone but me and the college girl knew noone but me.  The one guy knew the system very well, but noone else had every played SotC.

Memory:  A couple of scenes jump out at me - there was one where a player engaged the BBG in a duel of words that nearly led to the bad guy's undoing, a scene where the lion tamer character got up on a stage and performed for the audience with her acrobatics and her lion to keep them busy, and the guy playing a Japanese Ninja with the Aspect "Minimar Engrish" played it to a T.

Analysis Much of the joy for me happened as each of the players started to get the hang of the system and began to really USE it.  The system puts a lot of power in the hands of the players, and as they learned how to do that and really pushed back at me, forcing ME to get even more creative, the whole table became ultra engaged and invested.  The role playing was strong, each of the characters was able to shine at least once during the adventure, and we all came away from the table feeling like we'd done something great.

Components:  Hard to rank, but I'd go with Rules, Players, Characters, GM, Story, Setting.
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tsuyoshikentsu

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Re: The most fun you've had roleplaying
« Reply #4 on: December 24, 2008, 04:26:49 PM »
Scope: Dawn of Defiance, AFAIK the whole shebang.

System: SAGA, obviously.

Style: Star Wars, KOTOR-style.  If that term has no inherent meaning to you, action-adventure space drama with lots of sly humor.

Demographic: Me, Tempest Stormwind, Radical Taoist, and two of Tempest's friends.  (For those who don't know us, that ranges us from 18 to mid-late twenties.)

Memory: The lovely thing about ORPG is that you can pull exact logs.  I'm EM-16.  (If you don't get it, say it out loud.)

EM-16: Surprised Observation: Master, these creatures appear to have a language I may be able to comprehend!
EM-16: This implies that they're SENTIENT!

Centora Tan: You couldn't tell?

EM-16: Correction: I didn't CARE.

Centora Tan: Is restraint deliberately programmed out of your routines?

EM-16: Statement: Though I am familiar with six million forms of communication, this "restraint" does not seem to be among them.


Analysis: I should caveat my explanation with the point that there is only one universe in which I would ever play an existing character or a clone of one, and that is Star Wars.  I'm normally averse to this sort of thing, but HK-47 is just so hysterical that I felt the need to at least try when I made a combat droid.  And as it happens, every so often I get a chestnut of pure brilliance; this was one of them.  I thought it was funny, and so did everyone else.  It was a great feeling.

Components: Characters, setting, rules, players, GM, story.  (Note that everything except the last is nearly tied, while story falls so far behind it isn't even funny.  I'm sorry, but the DoD plotline sucks.)
« Last Edit: December 24, 2008, 07:28:55 PM by tsuyoshikentsu »
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Eepop

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Re: The most fun you've had roleplaying
« Reply #5 on: January 09, 2009, 05:39:57 PM »
Scope: Campaign with lots of political moves in the background.  There was a dispute over who should rule kingdom after the king died, as his son was too young to rule.  We both did some killing of those who seized power, and protected the young boy.  This particular part of the story takes place in the middle east during the crusades, shielding the boy from harm by taking him to the last place anyone would expect us to go.

System: Homebrew rulesystem, that used, of all things the d12 as the core dice!

Style: Low magic fantasy using real world history as backdrop.  Magic existed and was not entirely uncommon, but it was generally less powerful than melee and you were more frail (in an already very lethal system).

Demographic: Two late teens, one young teen.  It was a skill based not class based system, but the characters would be best summed up as Necromancer(me), Ninja, and Fighter/Rogue.

Memory: My character had a middle eastern heritage, so he had been playing along with the "Muslim" faction, when he noticed that they were headed to the home where the boy and the rest of the party was staying.  I had to convince them that I would handle this house alone.  I ran in and we all stared at each other trying to figure out what to do.  The inspiration came when I realized an artifact I had could be used for something completely unintended*: to use his feign death power that was usually constrained to himself on those in the house.  But it had limited uses and one person would have to be left out.  Then the Ninja offered himself to be killed so that the others would not be found out.  So my character had to kill someone who had become a friend, and then charge outside having done the deed in a fashion believable enough for it not to make the sacrifice meaningless.  (No diplomacy checks here, you act it, or you fail)

Analysis:
---This story: Having to think quick and find a solution to what seemed an impossible situation, and having it be a solution that no one liked but what had to be done.
---The whole campaign:  Playing something as shunnable as a necromancer is a setting/system where it actually meant I was frail enough to die if found out.  In say D&D or WoD, I could just say F'it, and flaunt my powers and just kill anyone who tried to stop me.  I was still powerful in this system, but the entire world was much more lethal than any other system I have ever played.

Components: This one is really hard, because this example really had these all singing in chorus.
the actual characters - For making that situation necessary.  Each character had reasons why protecting the boy was vitally important to them.
the mechanics - For making the consequences very real.
the gamemaster - For recognizing this situation had presented itself and pushing it forward.
the other players - For selflessly sacrificing himself for the greater good.
the story - There wasn't really any railroad here, just events within and beyond our control that we had to react to.  Additional kudos to the DM, who took it in stride when we took it in stride when we decided to run far away to protect the boy.
the setting - Being history through a lens was pretty cool, as you always knew and simultaneously didn't know what to expect from an organization or place. (Tangent! Very excited because another person is planning to run a campaign with a similar semi-historical basis.)


* - The item allowed me to use necromantic powers that could normally only target myself.  Was originally intended with offensive abilities in mind, like using my life stealing ability to heal an ally instead of myself.
« Last Edit: January 09, 2009, 05:43:00 PM by Eepop »