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Post by lemming13 on Jul 17, 2010 21:08:11 GMT
I've been looking around the Vault, but as I only joined a couple of days ago you'll forgive me if I have missed any posts on this topic. I'm an enthusiastic player of roleplaying games - not the legendary Dungeons and Dragons, I outgrew that when I was 15, but the original White Wolf World of Darkness and Call of Cthulhu systems that allow for more actual roleplay and less dice. I've also played Warhammer Fantasy, Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader, Deadlands, Whispering Vault and many more (including a crossover of World of Darkness which was homegrown and set in the 1930s - not just inspired by Indie and Hellboy, but many other pulp delights). Is anyone else out there a player? My playing group fell apart because of personal disagreements, and I'm beginning to feel like I'm the only British RPG-er left outside of London...
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Post by lemming13 on Aug 16, 2010 13:51:28 GMT
Nobody into the pen and paper games, then? Oh, well. How about (shocked gasp) computer horror games? Anybody else a fan of the Dark Fall series, and Darkness Within?
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Post by dem bones on Aug 17, 2010 13:35:01 GMT
sorry lemming, can't really help, i'm afraid as the only pen and paper games i've attempted are the less tricky one's from French Party Games, quite possibly the least raunchy book in the history of literature. hope you don't mind me asking but this is the kind of thing that fascinates me, probably because i saw a lot of it in my vampire days. in your experience of the role playing world, have you ever encountered anyone who takes it all a bit too seriously? |
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Post by lemming13 on Aug 18, 2010 14:28:19 GMT
Oh, hell, yes. I never met any British player who actually completely lost touch with reality (though I've met at least five players of MMORGs who don't appear to know they are not their online avatars), but I've met scores who were fairly confused. I tried live action roleplaying only once; the location was actually perfect, a hideous basement room hidden behind a games shop that was in an underpass between our junky-haunted local bus station and a semi-derelict shopping precinct, but most of the players were just such desperately sad people I never went back. They were mostly convinced they were either real vampires or would one day be approached by the blood-drinking ones to become one. Most pen and paper gamers can stay grounded, but I knew a few who in confidence informed me of the 'true' nature - mostly vampires, but at least one witch, a couple of mages, one son of Satan and an unspecified immortal. One told me he had had messages from the Great Old Ones through a ouija board. I just smiled and sidled off, never revealing that I myself am gifted with mystic powers; I can communicate telepathically with fudge, and can make hot coffee go cold. Damn, done it again...
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Post by dem bones on Aug 18, 2010 19:38:19 GMT
thank you for that, lemming. very enlightening and the 'live' experience sounds like a proper adventure. now i think of it, much of what went on on the vampire 'scene' was actually role playing by any other name. most of the fans i met were lovely, including the blood-fetishists, but the casualties could be a pain. It was mostly the middle-aged and upward who struck me as those who couldn't, or wouldn't, step back and see it for what it was, basically a bunch of goths dressing up and having a good time. As alternative lifestyles/ unlifestyles go, it's no better or worse than others, i guess (pirates and hobbits were pretty big last time i looked), no less bizarre, either, and certainly shouldn't be immune from having fun poked at it. Besides, i was the only real vampire among them. Everyone else was just posing around.  The self-proclaimed "professional" v-hunters were ... words fail me. It's best i spare you the details as it would likely attract the same undesirables (in every sense) to the board, when it's taken me five years to get them out of my life. Perhaps it's enough to comment that there is deluded and there are those who should never have been exposed to C. Lee in The Devil Rides Out. |
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Post by lemming13 on Aug 20, 2010 20:05:35 GMT
True, true - or Buffy, for that matter. And Twilight, I fear, has shifted the age range of the deluded down a decade or more among the vampire fraternity; too many are far too involved in it. But I don't have any issues with anyone having fun in an alternative lifestyle; I'd rather see someone Gothing it up to the nines, fake fangs and all, than some chav with his trackie bottoms tucked into his socks shambling about in a hoody, or his bunny boiler 'lady' with a tacky tattoo peeking over the top of her Primark leggings. Personally I think it's a very sad thing that in an allegedly civilised country people could be persecuted and even murdered for choosing to engage in a little harmless escapism like Goth culture, but then I'm afraid we're outnumbered by the loutish mob. So I'll wear my frilly Victorian corset and Venetian mask behind closed doors.  |
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drfell
New Face In Hell
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Post by drfell on Oct 21, 2012 22:04:08 GMT
helo there,
luckily we are not the only gamers in stoke, iove the old WoD stuff especially vampire masquerade, though i havn't played foir a while. I now live in stoke.
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Post by Knygathin on Oct 23, 2012 8:42:21 GMT
. . . Dungeons and Dragons, I outgrew that when I was 15 . . . One doesn't grow out of Dungeons & Dragons. One suddenly stops in sheer dissapointment, because of a lack of good players and Dungeon Masters. In my case, I unwillingly stopped playing when I was 18 or 19. Because the other players met girlfriends, and after that they came with lame excuses and refused to meet. The dull nitwits! Or in a few cases, finding more mundane materialistic interests, which was just as well, because those individuals lacked imagination anyhow. The game itself is infinite. It all depends on the commitment of the players, and how good the Dungeon Master is, just like a book all depends on the imagination of the author. I can attest that there is no more pleasant way of socializing with friends, than a successful night of Dungeons & Dragons, the room lit only with candles, perhaps a few snacks (although it sometimes tends to break the flow of the game), and a well prepared Dungeon Master, with rich vocabulary, and knowing his dice. . . . in your experience of the role playing world, have you ever encountered anyone who takes it all a bit too seriously? What't the use of pretending sane?! We're all fucked up. To begin with, the Human species is a mess and an anatomical freak. I believe, that the more one reads of fantastical literature (including horror, SF, fantasy), the richer one's inner imaginative texture for it grows. That alternate world becomes more and more realistic, the more complex and complete it matures. And why should it not become an alternate reality that one believes in? In many cases there are more genuine truths in that imaginary world, than in the material world we struggle along our bodies in. And haven't you all seen the latest science documentaries on TV about the brain and nervous system? Our lives are ALL in the mind! Even when we think we live in the material so-called "real" world, we still don't see objectively, it's all distinctly coloured by preconceived conceptions and desires inside the brain. Materia is dull, besides, and well overestimated. I see nothing neurotic or ill about choosing one's imaginary world as an alternate reality. On the contrary, it's healthy, and a testament of recognition of the madness outside. |
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Oct 23, 2012 11:35:22 GMT
. . . Dungeons and Dragons, I outgrew that when I was 15 . . . One doesn't grow out of Dungeons & Dragons. One suddenly stops in sheer dissapointment, because of a lack of good players and Dungeon Masters. In my case, I unwillingly stopped playing when I was 18 or 19. Because the other players met girlfriends, and after that they came with lame excuses and refused to meet. The dull nitwits! I won't say that I outgrew D&D, but I gave it up around when I turned 15 as well. I suspect that's the typical pattern--suddenly cars become more important than flying carpets, and putting the moves on a real girl more important than questing to save a half-elf thief, even if the former has acne and the latter has a charisma of 17. I still have fond memories of the game, however--it was, and is, a grand framework for encouraging people to use their imaginations. I bought an old module a few weeks ago, Beyond the Crystal Cave, just to read for nostalgia's sake. I remember the animated television series as being rather cool. All of the D&D films have looked like crap, however. I'd be curious to hear whether there was a religious backlash against the game in the UK. Here in the US, the self-appointed moral guardians crusaded against the game--they said it encouraged devil worship and anti-social behavior, just like heavy metal (though a cynic might suggest that their real issue was that it encouraged the use of one's imagination). Somehow I managed to turn out OK even with all of my monster manuals and Iron Maiden CDs. |
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Oct 23, 2012 11:50:10 GMT
I'd be curious to hear whether there was a religious backlash against the game in the UK. Religious backlashes only happen in the US. And in the Arab world. |
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Post by andydecker on Oct 23, 2012 16:29:37 GMT
Religious backlashes only happen in the US. And in the Arab world.  I am not so sure about the new Russia, though. |
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Post by Knygathin on Oct 23, 2012 22:18:37 GMT
I won't say that I outgrew D&D, but I gave it up around when I turned 15 as well. I suspect that's the typical pattern--suddenly cars become more important than flying carpets, and putting the moves on a real girl more important than questing to save a half-elf thief, even if the former has acne and the latter has a charisma of 17. I still have fond memories of the game, however--it was, and is, a grand framework for encouraging people to use their imaginations. . . Good points. And now you're apparently back in fantasy land. I bought an old module a few weeks ago, Beyond the Crystal Cave, just to read for nostalgia's sake. Yes, that's quite enjoyable, isn't it? Back in the day I knew from old ads of the 1970's modules from legendary Judges Guild, but they were out of print and impossible to find. Not until the Internet started a decade later, was I able to find some second hand. They were lovingly made, and exciting to look into. |
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Post by Knygathin on Oct 23, 2012 23:15:28 GMT
I was very curious about the Call of Cthulhu game, but never had an opportunity to play it. Then I decided there was no way a bunch of guys (forgive my contempt for the man in the street) could sit down and recreate Lovecraft's atmospheres. So I was content to stay with the original fiction. Gahan Wilson wrote an enthusiastic article about the game in Twilight Zone magazine, but was perhaps mostly excited over the wonderful little pewter miniatures made for the game. The original game box was evocatively inviting. On the back was a picture of Cthulhu, conceived by artist Gene Day I think, and still my favorite depiction of Cthulhu, to this day. Maybe because I first saw it when most impressionable, as a teenager. Not realistic, or completely realised, perhaps. But having the right nostalgic atmosphere.  Game box:  Gahan Wilson's favorites. The pewter miniatures:  |
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