Ars Mysteriorum

I feel absolutely crushed. Games are what I do. I loved Warhammer dearly and the way it reminded me of games of yore. I bought so many supplements for it... and I decided to hold off on Warhammer 40K and wait for a reprint. I really feel like I've been punched in the gut, as I've heard many others say.

This may be a bit off-topic, but speaking of WFRP... It's dying! Black Industries is closing shop! Ugh... I cannot believe it! I've started a topic regarding this outrageous travesty in the Gamer's Cavern.

I was utterly shocked to hear that Black Industries is ceasing production of RPG's as of September 2008. I simply cannot believe it. Especially after the highly successful sale of their new Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy RPG. Is anyone else as distraught as I am about this?

Heh. Having characters survive is not the purpose of this game, in my opinion. The story is the key. I always require my players to state one relative or friend that they correspond with on a regular basis so there is a replacement character always in the back of their minds. As far as being linear, this campaign is the first to take players abroad and have them explore areas. A GM has the power to make it as linear or non-linear as he or she feels. Being sure to explain to characters exactly what they are getting into and what kind of adventure it will be will aid the player in shaping the character as necessary to give the player a reason to want to get to the bottom of the whole story. Now... I haven't received this adventure yet, but in my mind no adventure is meant to be played as written verbatim. It is also the GM's task to give flavor to otherwise two dimensional NPCs and creating others as necessary to fulfill the character's own story-line. But... as I stated... I have not read the adventure. I am confident that I can make it fit the needs of my group though!

Woo! This makes me look forward to running it!

It's a legendary Call of Cthulhu adventure that's out of print. Probably one of the best.

Requirement? No.... But if your brain is on, you get a -4 THIS IS NOT AN RPG penalty to every combat action, skill check and saving throw. Which is no big. If you die as a result you can just get resurrected. I don't know why you'd WANT to...

I needed to share my joy! The e-mail from Noble Knight Games stating it was available popped into my gmail account and I snapped it up with reckless abandon. Has anyone actually played this adventure? Could you tell me about it if so?

i plaid dunjins an dragns moar then evry1. w00t! ph34r my l33t skillz. I m an RPG h4x0r. Srelusly. I plaid 2nd edison DND. I M AWSUM!!!!!!11!!1one Yeah. I'm a young kid compared to you heavy hitters. But, I would argue that my taste in games is eclectic compared to others my age. You will see not a single d20 supplement or core book of any sort on my shelf. That says enough.

Yup, working stiff over here. Nice break from entering numbers into funky programs to check out what's going on over here. Otherwise the numbers start to eat my mind.

I was curious as to how, throughout a workday, this site manages to accrue so many posts. Feel free to expand on your choice in the poll above.

Yup. I sucked the funny right out of that joke. Sigh.

Ok. I'm a dork. What did the be-tentacled Great Old One parry with?

What's this "could be" crap? It's PAINFULLY English. However... those cookies (yes... COOKIES) look nummalicious. Actually, I am not anything close to resembling a patriotic American, so I don't know why I'm doing all this cultural flag-waving... I must think it's humorous somehow. And it's probably not. Exit... stage right.

Ah. I kinda wish I had played Runequest instead of D&D. It sounds... deeper. From what I understand, Issaries has all the rights to Glorantha, right? So there's never going to be a Glorantha setting book for the new BRP? I'd like to see what made this game so great...

Holy crap. I was just JOKING! Holy crap. That was awesome!

Is the core mechanic difficult to learn and explain? Opposed rolls seem to be getting quite a lot of attention and flak and that has made me skittish. What are some potential difficulties and/or hang-ups with the system? I've only experienced BRP through Call of Cthulhu... so... explain it to me like you would to a three-year-old with ADHD and an IQ of 2.1. Hand puppets and a little show might help.

I guess some people get wrapped up in books... And some books get wrapped up in people.

What's a Yelmalion? :confused:

I agree with the idea of no winners or losers. Those terms are subjectively defined. I wish more people would apply that philosophy not only to their games, but life as well.

WHAT!? I didn't get cookies and milk! This is lame. I feel cheated and wronged. We got Totino's Arterial Nightmare Rolls instead ONCE in a while. I actually cut my gaming teeth on AD&D 2nd and then Vampire LARP. And yes, weird people they were. I quickly scampered back to the more "normal" (attaching the word "normal" to RPG players makes me snort my coffee out my nose) and comforting folds of conventional D&D. And had some of the best times of my youth and adolescence. Gaming will never be as fun as it was back then when there were no outside pressures other than having a good time. Nowadays the group still gets together, but have haggard faces and even 1000 yard stares in some cases. They still talk about high school games like they happened yesterday instead of almost a decade ago. Needless to say, it got a LITTLE creepy seeing them again. The one with the thousand yard stare is going through divorce after hearing that his wife was pregnant by another man. He is also, apparently, now a cross-dresser. I would have no problem with any of these things if he wasn't in such a gloomy state of denial. That and he prefers WoW to hanging out with friends now. My attempts to be there for as a friend for him were rebuffed with uncomfortable periods of silence and eventually being completely written off outside of horridly boring game sessions. Depressing. I ended up leaving my old friends who I had had so much fun with in the past. They just never grew up, and strangely, because of that the fun died. I think gaming has partially changed not simply because of the types of games coming out, but the changing culture of our society. I think that due to the feeling of loss of control that our highly corporate/systematic environment has created and the emphasis on success, when people play games they don't want insurmountable obstacles. They don't want to lose their nifty magical item. They want to win. Failures have turned into minor setbacks rather than interesting fixtures of the story (mechanic-wise, GMs are always the variable) and a rigid rule structure has been created that inhibits creative solutions to problems. A majority of problems in today's games have answers that simply lie in your equipment, skill, and/or spell lists. Failure has become a negative thing. Too negative. No one sees it as an interesting thing to overcome, or simply an extension of learning and experience. It's a BAD thing now. Failure is wrong and undesirable and not fun. Furthermore, having a personality is secondary to winning. Unless it's a winning personality, then we have a statistic for that. Yes, I'm bitter. And this is yet another rant. This is what happens when you post at work (probably why corporatism got tossed in there). I have yet to play Talislanta or Call of Cthulhu successfully with a group. Part of me is scared to, lest it be torn apart by people seeking only to win rather than have fun. Yes, I know those terms are subjective, but after watching people play WoW (World of Warcraft), where people get angry with each other if they don't win and hit one or two buttons repeatedly (and yet this is still called a game, even an RPG), I fail to see how this is fun. It looks more like... work. Wow, that got dreary. Ummm... think of fuzzy kittens! And BRP coming out! Yay BRP!

I like this fellow. Nicely done! Here's for research.

That's actually a nice analogy.

Digest the opposed test rules so I can aptly explain them to my players in a satisfactorily simple fashion.

I voted modern, but I'd actually like to do a modern fantasy. It's an interesting genre that's a more approachable and there aren't many choices in it when it comes to established RPG's. Really only World of Darkness is the big one, with a defunct tri-stat RPG and Fireborn (which is a bit limiting). I will not speak of d20 Modern's horribly broken system, aside from the fact that it's d20, which is more of a tactical board war game than an RPG. Oops. I guess I spoke about it.