Traditional Games

Off-Topic
#21

I really used to play Magic: The Gathering and I started playing the game a bit before Exodus came out, but have since quit outside of shuffling up the occasion Legacy or Vintage deck or trying something on Cockatrice. Many of the formats I used to play are long gone and Standard and Modern just don’t seem that interesting right now (plus they are expensive to stay into).

EDIT: Holy crap, Exodus was 1998. It’s been around that long…

I dabbled with Pokemon right when it started and played in a league when that happened, but haven’t touched it for a long time. I still have the cards but don’t even know how much they go for.

I used to play Yugioh (especially the video game incarnations) up until last year, and funny enough that Likeaneko mentioned Monarchs since I really like that deck style even though the version you could play before the bans was really powerful. I’m not a fan of the crazy things XYZs and (possibly) Pendulums can do and honestly I don’t think I would go back to playing the game outside of an occasional video game spin just for fun right now.

Force of Will has currently got me hooked though and I think it would take too long to describe how many decks and ideas I currently have and have yet to build. However, using Untap to play online with others has really become a pain in the butt over the last few months.

#22

Here is a summarization of all the various card games and tabletop RPG’s I have played over the years
and some of my experiences.

Card Games

MTG (Magic The Gathering)

I started when I was still in high school with a Duel Deck of Golgari and Izzet. I just played with my best friend and I lost basically every game. Still, it was a lot of fun to play casually and as the years went on, that’s mostly how it stayed. I rekindled my love for the game when I got into a Magic club in college (I remember the first time being there, I bent the cards to shuffle them like you would playing cards in Poker, which made everyone collectively cringe). I attended some drafts when Fate Reforged and a reprint of Conspiracy was a thing (someone pulled a Ugin and Foil Brainstorm). I stopped playing after Dragons of Tarkir, which was a good set but magic groups reformed and disbanded in that time, so eventually, I stopped playing.

Once that best friend moved to where I was, I started playing again and made better decks to play casually with some friends of his. Currently, most of the decks I run have some variation of green but my best is a cheapass burn deck (both in budget and cards) and a White/Green Bolster deck. I run about 6-7 decks last time I checked, though. Not too long ago I met someone who is now a good friend of mine who wanted to get rid of some bulk, so I took a bunch of cards that weren’t worth terribly much but were still decent (for the most part). I do very much enjoy this game, though it is ridiculously expensive to keep up with standard, legacy is laughably expensive and I don’t have enough friends who still play this to justify Commander.

YuGiOh

This was the very first card game I had ever played and do, in fact, still have a binder full of YuGiOh cards from 2004-2004; Some in less than optimal condition. I started when my then best friend and neighbour played it and I enjoyed it, especially after seeing some of the 4Kids anime. Thus, I convinced my parents to shell out money to buy a youngin a bunch of flimsy but cool looking cardboard. Again, I was casual but it was the fun that really mattered in the end. Eventually, when I moved away, I stopped playing all together and really don’t have many cards of value aside from some cards I got from watching the YGO movie way back when (AKA: A cheap marketing ploy in order to convince children to buy more Card Games). My appreciation for this franchise was rekindled when I discovered LittleKuriboh’s brilliant abridged series of YGO. A little while ago, I had played YGO for the first time in over a decade (and lost, of course) with a good friend who loved YuGiOh and always wanted to play the card game. It may be a simplified version of MTG, but it is still rather fun to play, especially causally and isn’t nearly as much of a money sink as MTG is.

Pokemon

I got a bunch of the cards but never had anyone to play them with. That is really where that story ends.

Tabletop RPG

Fourth/Fifth Edition (D&D)

My very first experience in this genre was a silly, short campaign that (more than a little) disregarded the rules and just did some adventuring. I believe the game was 4th Edition (4e), though it might have been third. Anyway, it was fun for a bit and it was a while until I got into another one, though I swear there was another one between the previous one and the next one I am gonna talk about…

My first experience was a year ago, in college. I partook in a D&D adventure (I think the town was called Greenwich?) in which I played a Cleric named Dende (because as Team FourStar says in DBZA: “Nobody fucks with the White Mage”). I was a short little halfling who was fairly brainy in regards to history and religion. We did the typical kind of D&D stuff, killed some Kobolds (A LOT) and Cultists, met an asshole of a Blue Dragon and one of our party members participated in some fairly… interesting activities with a female Cult Leader (all I am gonna say about that…). Some other interesting activities included a belly dancing bard who managed to actually both entertain and send Cultists to a fiery doom via nearby book burning, a ranger who, when approaching a hill in order to scout, got urinated on by a Cultist who clearly couldn’t hold it in and a barbarian who, when attempting to intimidate his enemies with a blowhorn (don’t ask), he choked on his own spit and kinda tripped, falling down in the process (from what I remember). It kinda started dying out, as since we are all in the same Computer Science program, got really busy with stuff and slowly became unable to attend games.

The second game that was started was GM’ed by the same friend who I started playing Magic with a long time ago. We first started with 4e, since the GM had the books and PDF’s for it. Unlike the first couple games, this would be my first online game and I played a Dragonborn Paladin. In fact, it wasn’t long before we just switched to Fifth Edition. We had some cool characters in that one, like my requested NPC named “James Notfield”, which is an obvious parody of a particularly famous hard rock/metal band. I love Fifth Edition, honestly and so far it’s my favourite edition of D&D and probably my favourite Tabletop RPG I ever played. It is far better balanced than 4th and doesn’t take FOREVER when doing combat.

Shadowrun

This one was brief, but several months ago, I played in a game called Shadowrun. It is based in the future and more than a bit Pink Mohawk/Cyberpunk. The setting was quite interesting, though the most recent Corebook is incredibly poorly edited. Another downside to the game is that combat takes a lifetime, as you have to roll for each bullet and there are plenty of other actions one can do in their turn. One thing I really liked compared to other Tabletop RPG’s is the legwork you do for a mission. Because there are plenty of augmentations and things around you can use to your advantage, you often spend time planning out raids on Corporations (who rule the world in this setting) and doing various other planning/legwork (and I looove doing that). It was short but still fun.

Rogue Trader

Currently, I am playing a Warhammer 40K Tabletop game called Rogue Trader. I vaguely was aware of the universe after seeing some of the Codexes from the Warhammer 40K main game (with the incredibly expensive models). We haven’t done terribly much except get Warp Sickness, release some Pilgrims out from the Airlock, having our Navigator make a little mark on a Puppy accidentally from a misfire (Puppy wasn’t harmed, thankfully), kill a bunch of Orcs, destroy an airship or two and find some weird time travelling room to some Treasure maybe? I am playing a Techno Space Viking, hailing from Fenris (death spoopy planet) as an Explorator (main engineer/talks to machine spirits). Ridiculous setting and while the missions so far have been linear, it is generally a fun time.

Overall, I love both Trading Card Games and Tabletop RPG’s, having some experience in both of them.

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#23

As far as Magic: The Gathering goes, playing Legacy really depends on when you started playing it because outside of a few key cards like fetchlands the prices have become unreasonable since the large scale tournaments started. I do not play it competitively and haven’t for a very long time but it is still fun to play with others and we can always proxy cards with few problems.

Thankfully Sensei’s Divining Top is now banned so the format is more diverse again.

Standard is essentially a money pit and I cannot suggest that to anyone that is not very competitive or would not be able to have fun with proxies or online services like Cockatrice.

Force of Will is incredibly similar to one-on-one Commander in MtG with a few enhancements to the game (and its own drawbacks of course), and it far cheaper to build decks for at this moment unless you plan to play the mainstream decks which have become a bit expensive as well (especially Fox). It’s not for all of course, but it’s a thought.

#24

Ah, I see. Bear in mind that I have never played Legacy and only heard it can get pretty pricey. For a casual player like me, that obviously deterred me from playing that format.

Never heard of Force of Will and in fact, when I first heard you mentioned it, I thought you were referring to the Magic card of the same name. Right now, I have very little if any friends anymore who still plays MTG, but I appreciate the suggestion. May or may not look into that in the future, thanks.

#25

Oh man people still play Force of Will? It died in my community unfortunately. The rotations happen too fast and sudden.
Not to mention sometimes the company comes up with some weird card designs that makes the meta game really bland and unfun. Playing the game casually is amazingly fun though if people aren’t playing top tier decks.

I recently picked up WIXOSS card game and I’m still going hard in the Weiss Schwarz game with my Angel Beats and Charlotte deck

#26

I definitely play Force of Will but don’t have anyone to play it with outside of one online friend at this moment. I do agree that the printing of some cards (such as Laevateinn and Reflect/Refrain) and the rotations (one very sudden) do not help at all for game trying to find its way. I mostly play Wanderer and play anything from very casual to somewhat competitive.

It would be nice to play Force of Will with others or to teach them how to play it, but after using Untap to teach my friend how to play it I would look for a much better way to play online first.

Is there a card game Weiss Schwarz plays like for reference? I don’t see myself learning the mechanics in the next month or so, but I may pick it up if there is interest in it or a way to just play it online or something.

Most of my experience with D&D is actually either through the Gold Box video games (which used 1st Edition D&D rules), the Eye of the Beholder games, or the dungeon crawling genre which was heavily integrated with the D&D ruleset in the past (or in the case of the somewhat newer game The Dark Spire - it was quite literally a bad D&D story). I’ve played Dragon Strike but could not find a player or group willing to try something like Heroquest over roleplaying in D&D or Pathfinder, and that’s personally not my thing. At least not anyway. :deino:

#27

I don’t think there is a game that plays like Weiss tbh

It’s pretty unique and it’s a fun way to play waifu wars

#28

I finally got to play a Tabletop RPG last October after years of being curious but without a good “in” to check them out. We have been pretty good about meeting weekly and I have had a lot of fun with it. We play using the Pathfinder system. I don’t really know how it stacks up against other systems, but I have been enjoying it. Though honestly, I am kind of wishywashy on traditional fantasy settings, so I would like to check out some that have their rulebooks geared more towards other settings.

I played Pokemon TGC for a while, but a dearth of opponents made me a lot less enthusiastic about continuing to buy.

I love Tanto Cuore, and I picked up all of the expansions for it, though I have not yet tried the “Expanding The House” extension, but recently really enjoyed messing with the Vacation extension. I really want to get comfortable with the extensions and do a big game with all of them in action, but I still need to ease more of board game playing friends into that idea.

#29

In that case you might want to look into Shadowrun, while that has fantasy elements (there be dragons, yo), it’s more of a modern day, if not futuristic, setting. To sum it up, and hopefully this is correct, ask “What if the world is no longer run by governments but by mega corporations?” and you have a pretty good idea of its setting. I admittedly never played Shadowrun, so I’m not the best guy to talk about it, but from what I’ve heard, it doesn’t strike me as traditional fantasy.

I myself started participating in an Exalted campaign two months ago, and @pictoshark is also a part of this. So far it’s been very fun, although apparently I chose one of the more complicated systems as my first TTRPG.

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#30

Like Vyse mentioned, Shadowrun is a very popular cyberpunk rpg.

There are also a lot of pathfinder and D&D settings that are more steampunkish, with flintlocks and airships being common and magic typically relegated to a back seat.

There are a lot of systems that are modernish, although Shadowrun is the biggest one that comes to mind that is very “D&D” in style. Call of Cthulhu and Gumshoe are more psychological, in contrast to the combat and story driven D&D

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#31

That sounds really fun actually. I am playing a sorceress in my campaign, but I have taken a lot of magic that is better for solving mysteries/diplomatic solutions than fighting though I can tell that is not how this DM really plans their campaigns.

#32

My first pen and paper rpg was 1st edition D&D with my dad as DM. That first campaign ended after we accidentally burned the dungeon down and barely escaped with our lives. There were a couple other campaigns I played in growing up, including a 3.5 game, but my rpging really picked up in college.

There I took part in many campaigns across several systems including D&D 3.5, Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu, and d20 modern. Some highlights include characters such as Torg the Orc Barbarian. I think our DM that campaign gave us a free 18 to one of our scores and we rolled the rest. I, of course, put the 18 into Charisma and used Int as my dump stat. He was dumber than a box of rocks and lovable as kitten. “Me name Torg. Me like you! You funny!”

There was also the one shot I played in with a huge group of people where I created Candor Velexion. The initial idea for the character came when I saw the Ultimate Magus prestige class and I wanted to make a character that would eventually become that. He was a sorcerer from a family of wizards. He just sorta got magic intuitively, but could never really understand how it works and desperately wanted to, so he could be like his parents. He also had a falcon familiar named Lightwing.
The one shot was set in Eberron so there were magic powered trains and stuff. There was some sort of secret conspiracy or nasty plot or something. It might have been one giant reference to Murder on the Orient Express, I don’t quite remember the details. The one contribution I made to the big fight that broke out was fireballing a group of baddies. I don’t remember if that was what blew open a hole in the side of the train or if that was already there. At the end of the session this wizard NPC that told us about the bad stuff that was going down flew up next to the blown open train car on a dragon. He congratulated all of us on our success and thanked us. Then he invited my character to go with him to be his apprentice. So I rode off with him into the sunset atop a dragon. And that’s the story of where my user name comes from.

Falconen Lightwing was my only character to ever be able to fly on his own. He was a human with the flying template so he had wings, which I thought was really pushing what would be allowed for a level 1 character. Turns out our DM for that game was very inexperienced and was willing to let a lot more ridiculous stuff fly. By the end of the campaign one of our players had effectively taken over the world economically and could win any encounter with creatures that could understand him with a diplomacy check. And anything that wouldn’t listen would get filled full of holes on the first turn of combat by his cohort who had a bow that created arrows of force. Between that thing bypassing every type of damage reduction and energy resistance most creatures had and the insane dps of his build, every other member of the party was pointless. We finished that campaign off going into epic levels and everyone was allowed to run a sort of micro session to put an epilogue on their part in the story. I was the only one who had anything for that and I basically had to say “GM fiat” so that other player’s cohort didn’t end the plot monster before anything could happen.

One of the longest campaigns I played in was the Pathfinder campaign where I played a Dwarven cleric of Cayden Cailean, god of bravery, freedom, and ale. I don’t remember his name, but it was some pun on a type of stone. He was very stubborn and constantly drinking and eventually he got a magical everfull tankard of ale. Which I had made into a +1 frosty everfull battle tankard of ale! One of the highlights of that campaign was when one of our party members befriended this not quite a mermaid girl living in the harbor. At one point a meteor came crashing down on a nearby island. Some of the water pulled back out of the harbor and formed a big wave that was going to wreck the harbor. The only safe place we could get to in time was this giant arch across the harbor. We noticed the girl in the middle of the harbor and our barbarian that befriended her ran out picked her up and just barely made it back onto the arch in time to not get killed by the wave. I think that campaign was also the one that introduced to our group the lovable idiot Bear who wielded a huge maul. He was always getting himself into trouble and became a recurring character in campaigns in that group.

There was also Colorado James, the character I made for our campaign where we started out with absolutely nothing and had to use our wits and skills to survive. Eventually we got teleported of that island after we found this jewel thing that burst into a bunch of small pieces and started on a quest to gather them and put the jewel back together. And if that sounds familiar that’s because our GM told us after the campaign died that it was a giant reference to Inuyasha.

I’ve also played some of the Rise of the Runelords campaign. I started as a streetwise rogue, but because I was playing remotely and most of the rest of the group were in person I found it really hard to play as a talky character that wasn’t very useful in a fight. So I gave up on that guy and he left the group along with Bear to go on their own adventures. I rolled up a combat focused druid/monk that could wild shape into dinosaurs. He was a beast! That campaign died when our GM brought in a side adventure in the middle of the campaign at the worst time and one of our players did something apocalypticly stupid.

Other characters I’ve made include an alchemist with a split personality, a monk that was untouchable, a phalanx fighter, a pirate captain, that jerk I made for an evil campaign, a lawful evil cat bard named Mr. Bingleton, a car obsessed wrench head, a guy that could make people think they were on fire, and myself.

Some other systems I’ve played outside of college are 5th edition D&D, the Star Wars rpg, Spirit of the Century, My Little Pony rpg, Dungeons the Dragoning 40K 7th Edition (a fantasy kitchen sink system and setting), and a homebrew system my brother made up for a Zoids rpg. I’ve also read some of the GURPS books, but haven’t played it.

I could go into more detail on those stories, but this post is already a wall of text and I haven’t even talked about the board games I’ve been playing!

I really enjoy games that are dripping with theme. I also tend to like deck builders, co-ops, and 1 vs many games. Games like Argent: the Consortium, Aeon’s End, or Dead of Winter are my jam!
Most recently I got Near and Far which is a game where you recruit a group of adventurers and go around on a map gathering resources, setting up camps, and going on quests. It’s even got a book with individual stories for each quest!
I also recently finished a play by forum game of Tragedy Looper. It’s a deduction game where 3 time traveling protagonists are trying to prevent a tragedy orchestrated by a mastermind! It’s one of my favorites. (Please imagine an emoticon of Fuko thinking about starfish here.)
I’ve also been playing through Seafall with my regular gaming group. It’s a game where every time you play the board permanently changes and has an overarching story. I’ve been enjoying it for the most part, but one of our players isn’t having much fun and is probably going to drop.

I’m most looking forward to a game I backed on Kickstarter called Giga-Robo!, which is a game about giant mecha fighting.

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#33

Boy, oh boy, let me regale you about my tales with traditional gaming in the last year. Roleplaying mostly, or rather, roleplaying entirely, because that’s the only one of the lot of them that stuck at all.

I got into DnD about a year ago with a good group of friends I have online, and there’s two games we’re running, each one DM’d by a different member. One’s 5e, and the other, first one is 4e. it’s a dramatic story that…through entirely my fault has quickly become “Let’s start fantasy XCOM” because despite my character having roundly average stats, I always seem to come through when it comes to diplomacy. Here’s hoping the streak keeps going. The 5e one is fun, too. I play a drunken boxer elf who’s currently looking in the news about the fighting world so she can prove her fighting style is the best in the world.

I quite like the 4e one because it helped me build some lore around a recurring character. It’s cool. The games I play in are second in pure hilarity to the ones I end up hosting, though. I ask for the ridiculous and through all fault of my own, boy howdy do I ever get it.

Lemme tell you a little about All Outta Bubblegum. I could explain the rules right here - everyone has no stats and one resource each: Bubblegum. You start with eight and if you want to do anything, you roll a single 10-sided die. If you want to do something mundane, you have to roll under your current Gum score. If you want to do something kickass, you have to roll at or over that score. Fail to do either, get successfully attacked by another player, or if you want to auto-succeed at something mundane, and you lose a point of Gum and you can see how it’s possible to very, very quickly become a cold-rolled badass who can’t do anything normal without it being done in a ridiculously badass manner. I’ve pulled this out in numerous places and it’s almost always been a ridiculous hit. Emphasis on the “ridiculous.”

There was the time I went to a forum and my plot was “you are all cats in the same cat cafe.” That game ended with all the cats having superpowers and an enormous fight, and it set a precedent for the second time I tried it.

That go was with my DnD group, and when I mentioned that the first time I did this plot the cats all decided to have superpowers, they decided they were gonna have superpowers of their own. Not only that, but I created a ridiculous mall set where every single store was a joke somehow, and knowing my group as well as they did, they rolled with it.

Our heroes started by screwing about in such stores as “Walter White’s Totally Legit, Yesireebob Drugstore” and “It’s Just Pocket Tees,” and then when the drunk animatronics at “Frubby Fizzbird’s Pizzeria, Arcade and Unexploded Ordnance Storage” decided they’d had enough of their job and wanted to blow up the mall that all these things and the cafe were in, they sprang to life. Now I have a cat with atomic superpowers, one who’s basically Soldier:76, one that’s essentially Doctor Strange, and one that’s a Pretty Cure. I regret nothing about this and it was totally a good idea. Even more so because they had a second adventure where they saved Easter and I got to create an even wackier floor plan including such hits as “A Literal Chocolate Factory” and “Bees? (The Answer Is Probably).”

My other big hit is Wushu. Everybody loves when I pull out Wushu, because they know I’m gonna give them awesome, cinematic fights. I always do a magical girl setting when I do that because magical girls lend themselves so well to the flashy descriptions and elaborate attacks that Wushu lends itself so well to. People love it and I just need to be capable of sticking to a campaign, which I can now, so, cool, right?

My other big game is one I play with my best friends online. It’s called Megamek, and it’s a way to play the Battletech tabletop game online. It also comes with a way to make custom units, which allowed my friends and I to create the Armored Troopers from the VOTOMS franchise. Hey, you can do it, just divide the raw tonnage by 10 and you get the masses of each Armored Trooper. A Scopedog comes in at a neat 7.5 tons, and it’s a general purpose heavy by their standards; biggest come in at 10. See?

I’m always up to host or play in a tabletop game wherever I go, because I just love telling stories, and I love it when other people contribute to those stories. That’s what keeps me doing it…and probably what makes me like VNs and KNs, too.

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#34

Oh this is a topic. I’ve played a bunch of Tabletop Roleplaying games, Including Call of Cthulhu, DnD (the classic), the Star Wars FF game, and lately have been trying out the 40K RPG. My passion is for Blades in the Dark, which, well… let’s just say I don’t know how Kaza-friendly it is :yahaha: It’s all about playing scoundrels and/or gangsters who will stab blackmail steal murder and fight their way to the top of a steampunk semi-apocalyptic world after the Sun shattered and the gates of hell were opened and g-g-ghosts starting wanting to possess people (it’s pretty spoopy all things considered). It’s a super simple system and beautifully made too but not generally for the faint of heart. I might run a oneshot if anyone’s interested? Me and @Jokrono could show you how it’s done :umu:

There are rules and character sheets available on https://bladesinthedark.com So if you wanna be like this evil badass:

blades_cover-683x1024.jpg683×1024 60.2 KB

Hit me up yo.

1 Like
#35

Just a note of warning, part of the Blades in the Dark hazing experience is being diagnosed as clinically edgy.

Jokes aside it’s a fantastic system and @MagusVerborum ran one of my favourite all-time campaigns in BitD, I’d super recommend it :deino:

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#36

If you were to roll up a character literally made of knives I would be so excited to have you.

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#37

I am still playing Force of Will at this point with my one friend and that game did get faster and crazier, but it is still an awesome experience if you aren’t playing the best strategies.

Recently (in case couldn’t already guess based on Discord :deino: ) there have been a lot of new acquisitions in the strategy world. My home table configuration is way too small for Mage Knight or Gloomhaven, but maybe Legends of Andor, LotR: The Card Game, or playing against myself in Weiss Schwarz would work. Since my friend may want to try Forbidden Island on Tabletop Simulator soon, I’ve been holding off on trying Pandemic for now.

There are also so many tactical games and/or board games left to try out too. I know there is the Culdcept trilogy, Armello and all of the games in the recent Humble Bundle, and all sorts of games on Steam and Tabletop Simulator, but it sounds like it would be best to pick a few and just stick to them for a while. The good thing about playing a board game digitally is that your pet/pets don’t automatically win.

I’m perfectly up for trying anything that Kaza or anybody here wants to try of course. :yahaha:

Also, it seems my only experience with DnD is with the 1st generation rules. Gosh was that a long time ago, but that’s what they used to build a lot of the single player games back then.

#38

Recently some online stores were having some sales on a few board games and after watching a video explanation of it, I decided to pick up a physical copy of Tokaido. There are digital versions of this game that are quite cheap and that have mixed to positive reception (depending on if you want to play online too), but essentially it is a game of relaxation and enjoying the experience. It doesn’t feel like the point of the game is to win and that is honestly going to be a nice thing.

Speaking of digital versions, there is a decent to great Humble Bundle sale on some digital board games by Asmodee so click me.

Some of them have very mixed reviews so please be careful and read the Steam and Android reviews on the bigger names such as Agricola, Splendor, and Pandemic, but there is so much value to be found there.

Also, I’m going to see if my mother who loves Yahtzee is willing to try out King of Tokyo with me or not. This could either go really well or she may just want to play the old style Yahtzee instead but it may be a really nice change of pace too!

Finally, the expansions for Akrham Horror LCG and Lord of the Rings LCG are much more expensive than I thought they would be, but perhaps this is how Fantasy Flight Games works? It is kind of odd really.