Sunday, July 31, 2011

"Eat Chocolate! Level up!"

I played Old School Hack last night, with Risus Monkey, a few of his regular players, and Gaptooth, and it was pretty great. I have a good idea I'm going to use this one myself sometime: the awesome point system gives me pretty much exactly what I want out of a one-shot, and the character creation system... oh, man, the character creation system. Only one character in the party can be of any class at a time, and all the information for a class can be contained on a single page, so class selection is literally a matter of just throwing down all the class options the GM wants to make available down on the table and letting the players go through them and take them as they call dibs. I decided to play a Swashbuckler, and my goal was to rescue a princess -- any princess, I didn't really care who.

Risus Monkey is a great DM, his player's are extremely entertaining, and Gaptooth, in addition to running the most memorable goblin PC I've ever seen (he was convinced he was Link, and ended up on a leash for most of the evening), is an excellent artist. If he doesn't upload the picture(s) he drew of his character soon, go whack him until he does. The whole thing was pretty much perfectly in line with what I want out of a one-shot. Fast, goofy, fun.

More importantly, it was one of the few times I've had the opportunity to play with a DM who really knew his stuff. The vast majority of the DMs I've played with have been very new, and very young -- often people I'd gotten into the game myself. The handful of times I've played with who had played for a few years before I met them (in real life) it's been similarly disappointing -- either their play style clashed dramatically with mine, or they just weren't very good. RPG blogging has, in fact, been my only reliable system for finding good DMs: DMs who are as serious about the game as I am, and at it long enough to get good.

I'm not exaggerating (much) when I say that this was the most fun I've had in a single night of gaming in the last couple of years. The game I played at GenCon with Roger the GS of Roles, Rules, and Rolls was great, and I ran a few decent one-shots during college, but it's been a while since I did a one-shot that was kind of a party at the same time and where everyone was pretty much on the same page, game-wise. Been a player in that kind of a one-shot, never.

It's really reminded me that I need to play these dang things more -- in person, with live people who know what they're doing. Some other members of my high school group who have moved back to the area have been talking about running "something," but I'm really not convinced at this point that anything's going to happen -- it's one of those everyone-says-"we should run a game"-but-no-one-makes-it-happen things. Hopefully I'll be able to meet up with this new crew on a regular-ish basis, but otherwise I may need to start trolling the local game stores (Or maybe Google Plus? That's how I got this invite in the first place.) for games to join.

And now, quotes:

"Let's see if he can beat the whore's indifference."

"Hair creme probably looks like a healing potion to him."

"Red thing that appears to be Swiss! You said you would come with us?"

"Hey! Where's my rope?"
"Hey! Where's my lamp?"
"Hey! Where's my hair creme?"

"Every two weeks I am dipped in caramel, and then it's ripped off!"

"Gaptooth, the ogre proctologist."
"The only ogre proctologist."

"I'm invisible to horses!"

"This is how we roll."
"Poorly. Haltingly. And with a lot of innuendo."

6 comments:

  1. Thanks so much for capturing the quotes. They were flying fast and furious all night. :)

    And thanks for the generous write-up. I've been stuck painting the basement all day and will be referring to your post in a shorter one from me.

    And thanks for taking the leap and trusting that gaming with some dude you met on the internet could be fun. It was great playing with you and I think your sensibilities are aligned nicely with my regulars. :)

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  2. Thanks for the props ... and OSH looks like it has the right attitude! Will let you know when we are next in your area, we have a favorite gameshop and a geeky niece who might join in.

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  3. Read about the OSH game on Risus -- sounded like a great time! Then I realized that you are located in N. Virginia. I caught the Old School bug last year, but my current players aren't quite as enthusiastic about this stuff as I am, the bastards. :)

    I live in Takoma Park/Silver Spring, and I'm trying to start a semi-regular campaign using the Anomalous Subsurface Environment as a platform for post-apocalyptic science fantasy fun. I'd also love to host an occasional one shot as well. Anyway, if your other options don't pan out I'd love to hear from you -- you can find my Nearby Gamers profile on the Silver Spring map, as Dr_Locrian.

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  4. Risus Monkey: You'll notice that I didn't do nearly as good a job remembering people's names as writing down the quotes... >.<

    And no problem! Look forward to doing it again sometime.

    Roger the GS: That sounds great. :)

    Marcus: When are you planning on doing the games? I'm intrigued, but Silver Spring is far enough away that I could pretty much only make it on a Saturday or Sunday.

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  5. We're probably looking at late August or September. Up until recently we've been playing infrequent weeknights with some neighbors across the hall who haven't played RPGs since the 80's, but seeing as they're moving to Paris in September it's looking like the end of that particular group. It would be easy enough to shift to weekends. If you're interested in playing (either a one shot or in a campaign that would meet roughly every 3 weeks or so), please get in touch through either my Google profile or Nearby Gamers. Feel free to invite anyone else that might be interested as well! I'm on Google Plus too -- finally scored an invite.

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