Carcassonne saved my marriage!

[CKorfmann]

I don't know about you guys, but I love role-playing games and have always been a big fan of D&D.  I've gone through a few seasons of D&D playing, but never got to be part of a group that was serious or available enough to be satisfying.  I don't think I every played a character past Level 10.  I tried playing online on posting forums like this one, but a single session took months.  When 4th edition came out, I spent a some time reading about it and researching the rule changes and stuff like that.  Since we moved to NC and I have been seperated from my the last set of gaming buddies, I've been tempted down the slippery slope of WoW.  I have a few friends who've got several 70th level characters, or 80th or whatever they're up to now.  I'm sure some of you do too.  I enjoyed watching, but always kinda felt like a kid standing outside a candy store.  My wife is always talking about how WoW "ate" all her friends and how she hates it.  I guess Carc came along at just the right time for me when my gaming prospects were slim.  I don't get to play very often at all, but do so enjoy talking about it and thinking about it.  One day... I'll have a new gaming group and we'll play Carcassonne till we're blue in the face.  That is, that soft, pleasant hue of Carcassonne blue. 

Anyway, does anyone have any cool D&D stories to share.  I can live vicariously through you! 

[Scott]

The first job I had after graduating from university, a coworker warned me right away not to get into games like Everquest (what everybody played before WoW). I have played some roleplaying games, like Knights of the Old Republic (Star Wars) and Fallout 3, and enjoyed them immensely, but Fallout 3 is the only roleplaying game that I still find myself playing. I think I have obsessive compulsive disorder, because I usually methodically make my way through every area cleaning up all the trash. Lately I haven't played much because my games crash when the video card gets too hot. I guess I'll have to wait until summer is over.

I stay away from the pay-to-play games mainly because I would feel a tremendous obligation to play them every chance I had to get my full money's worth.

[CKorfmann]

Where I'm from, they call it Evercrack!

[Tobias]

I played EQ for four years. Two of them were end game raiding (we were like the 4th - 5th guild serverwide when we were as best). Six hours a day five days a week. Luckily my spouse at the time played as well. Raiding the very hardest encounters in EQ, where everything must be perfected (a fight could take 4-5 hours. Yes, one fight!) was a true blast. And when we failed, we (almost) never gave up or pointed fingers in blame. We just gritted our teeth and came back the next day.

I loved it, and I would still love it. There is no game hard enough for me to play now though, sadly. Not that I am particulary good, but I want it to cost to fail; I want frustration!

[Gantry]

I think I have a first edition D&D rules book somewhere. Blue cover, looks like it was hand drawn.

[CKorfmann]

Come on now!  There must be more table RPG gamers in here than this.  Don't be ashamed! 

[The Missionary]

LOL... it was in danger?

[EcoGuy]

I'm an old AD&Der myself and spent many Friday nights into Saturday nights throwing dice keeping upsetting who evers mother allowed us all to camp out at that weekend.  Played a little in college and after that migrated to Ultima Online and then started traveling so much for work I pretty much got out of gaming all together until recently.

My favorites in AD&D were the speciality classes that were discussed in Dragon Magazine such as the Archer, Ninja. etc (I think they are in the Players Handbook now) and made many a DM mad with these fairly unknown classes.  My all time favorite was an issue on the different types of Dungeon Masters and remember reading the article on the Killer Dungeon Master that had a 1-100 die roll chart for random ways to die my favorite of which was your nose hairs spontaneously combust and you die of smoke inhalation. (I think I still have that Issue somewehre).

I can go on and on but thats just one story ... hope it helps CK.

[schattenherz13]

Hi,
I am Martin from Germany and I am DM of a RPG-Group with 4 players (2 women and 2 men) since 1997. We have already 873 game sessions, Yes we keep book and track of them! With an average playing time about 6 hours and we are playing despite our jobs 2 times per week. We are playing the forgotten realms formatand are actually at 1403 Taliser Time Table. The best level some of "my" players reached wath Nagash Lord of Svalatheim, an gnomish Illusionist (imagmaker-kit) with 18. level. He needed 212 sessions for this, because combat is very rare at our table. The second best was Amadena a female Kagonesti Psionic with 16th level. Actually we are playing a semi political semi pirate seeborn Campain involving the kingdom Turmish and starcloak. It's always nice to talk to othe gamers.
Sorry about my bad English.
And let the dice roll, Martin

[CKorfmann]

That sounds great.  Sounds like a lot of fun. 

[ElderMystic]

For those of you D&D gamers out there, did you know that there is a much better game system you could be using? A core group of fantasy role playing gamers that I've been playing with for 20 years (I started when I was in my early 20's) use the Rolemater system (specifically and this is imporant...2nd Edition, Iron Crown Enterprises circa 1994).

What makes it such a great game system?
1) Because you can account for any game situation. The manuever charts alone add the dimension of allowing a PC to attempt anything. It's up to the gamemaster to assign a level of difficulty and any other mod's he sees fit to the situation.

2) Character development is comprehensive. The ability to create unique characters with skills of their choosing is both fun and rewarding. There are hundreds of skills to develop.

3) The Arms/Combat and Spell user systems add variety to the gameplay. Yes, keeping track of some things can be tedious if you let them. Our group made some slight modifications to the combat system (our house rules) that quickened the gameplay, but at the same time did not take anything away from what the system has to offer.

4) You can add things from D&D to supplement your game. I currently run my Rolemaster game in the Forgotten Realms setting with the Rolemaster Shadow World pantheon. Rolemaster even gives you guidelines for converting D&D monsters to their Rolemaster characteristics and stats.

(I also recommend that you get the Rolemaster Companions for numerous other professions, spell lists, optional rules, etc.). You will be rewarded with a rich and detailed playing environment, a much more mature game system than D&D. The Rolemaster Second Edition stuff can still be found used and in PDF form. Once we switched to Rolemaster, we never looked back. And we've been playing with the same materials for 15 years. No version changes! ICE has even been re-releasing some of the 2nd Edition stuff.

[CKorfmann]

Wow, that really interesting.  I'll have to look into that.