Call of Cthulhu and EQ RPG

[Tossica]

I've recently been getting back in to pen and paper RPG's. I found ALL of the EQ RPG stuff for ultra cheap and have been buying all the Cthulhu stuff I can find as well. Any of you guys do any gaming still?

[Harrison]

Too hyper-nerd for my friends. I would love to, otherwise.

[Tossica]

I'm actually working on a way to incorporate some EQ source material in to my CoC campaigns. 1920's era investigators step through a dimensional portal and end up in Norrath. Could be some good times if thought out.

[Tossica]

I know the old school EQ source material so well, it's almost a shame to not incorporate it somehow.

[brinstar]

i'd totally be into it but every time my nerd friends gather to start a pen-and-paper campaign, it lasts six weeks before either A) Captain ADHD loses interest and wanders off or B) Sir Cueball finds himself a new girlfriend and disappears from the face of the earth

we are 0 for 3 now ;\

[Drem]

nobody has time for that kinda crap anymore. i'm finding it hard to even put in 30 mins of fallout 3 once or twice a week

[Tossica]

nobody has time for that kinda crap anymore. i'm finding it hard to even put in 30 mins of fallout 3 once or twice a week

I'm making time for it. I don't play video games much anymore, only make it "out" to the club a few times a month when I DJ and end up watching about 5 movies a week. I'll cut down on movies and play like 3-4hrs of RPG's once a week or biweekly.

[Harrison]

You know, I get pretty fucking busy and I always see time in my day where I say shit like, "I could be doing X right now, wtf."

I couldn't imagine being more occupied than I am now without sacrificing my health.

I never understood people saying they're simply too busy for something, personally. Especially recreational activities that they enjoy, a lot.

[Arlos]

I'm playing in a pen & paper 3.5 ed D&D campaign at the moment, actually. We play roughly every other week or so, for like 3 hours.

For those that want to do a campaign and don't have people locally, may I suggest checking out a program called OpenRPG? It's basically a front-end to allow for what is effectively pen & paper RPGing online. It's got buttons to roll dice, it's got a big area for the GM to load up maps, battle mats & JPGs to act as minis, etc. It's also got a general chat area, and also for sending private message, so you can even send notes to the GM just like you could in a table top game. Also, since it's just a front end, it works with really any game system whatsoever. D&D, Call of Cthulhu, GURPS, Rolemaster, anything, pretty much.

I've been playing in one such campaign too, that meets for like 3 hours every 3 weeks or so. It's let a friend of mine who hadn't been able to get out for gaming due to needing to care for a small child and a wife with a long-term health issue actually game again, since he can sit there at his desk and keep an eye on both of them, and still play.

You can check it out at: http://www.rpgobjects.com/index.php?c=orpg

It's got some issues, certainly, but overall, it's a pretty slick piece of software.

-Arlos

[10sun]

I'm working second shift six days a week nowadays (perfect opening for my career progression). Last winter, before I got the job, I was involved in a D&D 3.5 game and had a great time. We met once a week at each others houses; the host was responsible for making sure the space was clear and the snacks were available, but byob beyond that.

Call of Cthulu is a game I used to play about 8 years ago... character was an alcoholic to keep his sanity.

[Tossica]

Sooo tired of fantasy, hack and slash crap. CoC is way more my speed these days but it would be cool to add a small amount of fantasy content here and there to keep the players on their toes.

[Zanchief]

We went from 3.5 to a long GURPS campaign for about a year and a half (time travel, apocalypse, Yeti Samurai's et all) then went into 4ed (which we are currently playing).

We play about 4 or 5 hours every Saturday when the DM and less then two members are busy.

I couldn't imagine playing PnP RPG online. It just takes the fun out of it.

[Tossica]

We're playing Pathfinder right now and it's ok. More of the same old but the GM is good. I'm still working on my CoC campaign. It's pretty easy to convert between D20 and BRP which Cthulhu uses so I'm figuring out ways to link content from all of the EQ RPG source material and the 1920's CoC setting. Pretty cool so far.

[Zanchief]

I've heard good things about pathfinder but we're enjoying 4ed right now. It's very streamlined simple hack & slash stuff but it's fun.

[Tossica]

I've heard good things about pathfinder but we're enjoying 4ed right now. It's very streamlined simple hack & slash stuff but it's fun.

Pathfinder seems overly complicated to me. It's almost exactly like D&D as far as I can tell. My GF bought the 4ed books but I haven't checked them out yet. My son claims they cut out a lot of stuff and made it more n00b friendly which is a good thing IMO.

[Zanchief]

4ed is very well balanced yet still has a lot of character options as you level, but yes, things have become very simple. Pathfinder, from what I can tell, is 3.5 but with a few tweaks here and there in order to control balance (shapechange/polymorph).

If you want something lite and heavy on combat then 4ed is perfect. I do miss non combat stuff, but D&D was never good at that stuff anyway.

[Arlos]

One of the main things they did for 4th edition is balance out the power curve disparity between casters and melee. At the same level, both classes will have exactly the same amount of special moves they can pull off per encounter or per day. Compare that to 3.5 and earlier, where at higher levels, casters could do 837 different spells, and warriors had the entire option suite of: "I go hit it in the face with my axe" or "I go hit it in the face with my sword," etc. Also, where before casters were doing like 15d8 for spells, and fighters 1d8 + bonuses, the damage curve has been evened out a lot. Indeed, I think the highest damage attack I saw for any class was a Barbarian ability.

On top of that, though, yes, they did simplify things a fair bit. Healing was completely changed too, and you really no longer have someone who just sits in the back and tosses out cure spells all day either. Everyone has a certain amount of self-healing they get access to, plus, it assumes that if you rest for the night (an "extended rest"), everyone heals to full, regardless of if you have a healer or not. They also borrowed a lot of ideas from MMOs and from Magic the Gathering too, it seems. (interrupts, plus assigning classes to roles like melee DPS, ranged DPS, tank, etc.) There's lots more changes, but I'm not going to ramble on them for hours more.

Oh, and while it's true that playing over OpenRPG isn't quite the same as playing around a table with friends, it's actually a lot closer than you might think, especially if everyone logs into a TeamSpeak or Ventrilo server with each other too. It handles rolling dice, putting up maps, including battle maps with miniatures for your characters, messages to the GM or other players, everything. Just doesn't let you share pizza... rofl. On the plus side, it lets you play in a near-pen&paper campaign with people who may live thousands of miles away. The one game I'm in with it, the GM lives near me, one guy lives in Texas, another guy lives in Arizona, and the 3rd is stuck at home evenings, cause he needs to watch his kid and be there in case his sick wife needs help, and so couldn't play if he had to leave the house to do so.

-Arlos

[Zanchief]

I do like the idea of playing with my friends that are out of town, but I just don't like the idea of sitting in front of my computer all evening for PnP. I like sitting around and shooting the shit and getting my DM mad at me because we aren't paying attention.

[Tossica]

4ed is very well balanced yet still has a lot of character options as you level, but yes, things have become very simple. Pathfinder, from what I can tell, is 3.5 but with a few tweaks here and there in order to control balance (shapechange/polymorph).

If you want something lite and heavy on combat then 4ed is perfect. I do miss non combat stuff, but D&D was never good at that stuff anyway.

The heavy on combat thing is what I'm trying to avoid with the Call of Cthulhu campaign. You are just a person in that game and tangling with a monster will most likely get you skinned alive.

I now have all of the published material for the EQ RPG. They are practically giving the shit away. It's compatible with the D20 system and has a ton of all the great EQ content. I know I'm like 8 years late but I'm pretty excited to try it out. I don't know if it will hold the same appeal for someone who has never played the MMO but I still think it's some great content.

[Zanchief]

The heavy on combat thing is what I'm trying to avoid with the Call of Cthulhu campaign. You are just a person in that game and tangling with a monster will most likely get you skinned alive.

You should really try GURPS then. It's so involved that it takes a lot of prep work for the GM but the potential is limitless. It's so realistic sometimes it feels like roleplaying real life.

[Tossica]

The heavy on combat thing is what I'm trying to avoid with the Call of Cthulhu campaign. You are just a person in that game and tangling with a monster will most likely get you skinned alive.

You should really try GURPS then. It's so involved that it takes a lot of prep work for the GM but the potential is limitless. It's so realistic sometimes it feels like roleplaying real life.

I think I've played it in the past. The reason I like the Basic Role Playing system that CoC uses is because it's so simple. It takes about 30 min tops to roll up a character and pretty much anything can be decided by a percentile role. Check it out if you haven't. I think Runequest and perhaps some other games use it as well.

[Zanchief]

Simplicity is not something you'll get with GURPS.

[brinstar]

that shit sounds cool toss, i'd play over ORPG if i could