Nymian Harthing's page

My experience:
Show up to class at tech college, hear three guys babbling about World of Warcraft all day long. Since I dislike WoW I get annoyed. I do my normal gripe and grumble thing because that's who I am/was.

Through conversation find out one of the guys GMs on Saturday nights. The other two guys sitting near me like video games, but they express an interest in playing something D&D like. We decide to give a quick campaign a shot.

First day, I *show* them how I play: I launch right into character, an angry young human rogue who happens to think these two other adventurers are right idiots. The chip on her shoulder is about 10 tons and made of pure granite. She gives the two nicknames. "I'll call you...Brick, since you're thick like one. And I'll call you...Mr. Splashy!"

AND THEY LOVED IT. They loved the process of reacting in character, they loved the way the guy GMing described Brick almost being killed by a rat--we were rolling super lousy and we were first level!--and they loved that they were engaged and having fun. The rules were being explained as we played, which helped, since we started playing this beta version of a game called Pathfinder which was "kind of like 3.5E". I'd been playing versions from the red box and 1st Ed onward, so it helped me too.

TL;DR, man, where's the advice??:
Engage them in the story. Help them understand the rules by explaining them briefly but well. React to their ideas with thoughtfulness, understanding that they will try surprising or "dumb" things because they're new at this. And if you can, throw in a good veteran role player to help them get a feel for all the magic and color and glory of the game.

Yes. Often can and do.

Hell yeah, DragoDorn. \m/

Listening to Manowar's "Gods of War" album right now while chattering on IRC with some snobby metal folk. I'll hit the Skelator/Last Bastion/Iron Kingdom show next month though.

Gotta agree with DMW: "Don't try and diminish the villainy of the PCs adversaries".

Unfortunately, for some of us with on-call hours and other people who might need to rely on us (include: $FAMILY), turning off our cell phones for a few hours--or sticking it in a basket--is impossible.

When you play with mature, responsible individuals it's so much easier.

In many years of play, I have played with friends, strangers, romantic partners, and frenemies. Sometimes all at the same table.

Best tables I sat at were made of friends. Second best, interviewees. No probation periods.

Currently trying to get a friend to run a game via Skype but we are in different time zones. Another friend will be moving to a Scandinavian country in a year or two, and we will need to figure out games then...it's been a hell of a life lately.

But friends are in my experience best for my own games.

I can't stand the level of stats optimization (min-maxing) most folks feel is necessary in a game like Pathfinder.

But then I feel everyone should try a non-optimized character, basing their skills/feats on character life decisions, at least once.

Protection from Chaos.
(As a parent and an employee in a large company, it just seems appropriate!)

Why I love my life?
My job is great, my kid is a geek, and I'm getting a roommate in a few months when I move into a new place.

The roommate thing is good because I like interacting with adult humans on a regular basis. LOL Gaming twice a month isn't quite enough intellectual stimulation.

I learned that my friends sometimes like interacting with me better when I pretend to be a happy teenaged cleric girl. The game lesson: don't be dark.

(Not that I am ever serious or sarcastic or brooding, heh.)

166. Playing with dolls, Spaceballs style.

Rynjin and I don't always agree, but when we do, it's about skill checks!
Stay gamers, my friends.

Gloryhammer.

Bribe a GM?
Are you nuts?
You want them to think they're a god or something? ;)

Seriously, no way, never, nuh-uh. Not happening in any of my groups.

TLDR, so apologies if I'm repeating someone else's point, but badly.

Let's take a look at half-orcs for a second. I do hereby quote the Core Rulebook, page 25, "Half-orcs are monstrosities, their tragic births the result of perversion and violence--or at least that's how other races see them." Racism is built into the setting. Not sure I can help ya there.

Misogyny is more vague in the Core rules. I'd say non-existent but I'm sure someone would find a passage to contradict that, heh.

I'm playing a character in Cinco group that's got absolutely NO issues with orcs or half-orcs. When she was little, her parents went off adventuring, died, and came back as a full orc (dad) and half-orc (mom). While growing up, she didn't see any reason to treat orc-blooded individuals any differently. This made her unique in her views in a little town. Her romantic interest is the party's half-orc/half native Varisian wizard who grew up in the same town; he's able to talk to her for hours about Thassilonian ruins, her "first true love".

So the lack of racism and misogyny can be a defining characteristic, too.

Why can't both sides be a little bit wrong?

The GM had a point that the group was comfortable with only one style of play, and it was pretty much US VS GM; remember, the munchkin was also the one who said, "there's not a game on these shelves that can beat me".

The group was right that the GM should not be so heavy-handed with the story that their hands were tied no matter what route they took.

Both sides were also a little bit right, too.

The GM did try to give the group a story that hopefully would keep them interested and entertained. Even after Brother Silence was stripped of his ears, and started doing the crazy quotes, he was only discouraged by the GM once (and the quote, while hilarious, would make my brain hurt if I ever heard it spoken earnestly at the table). He encouraged roleplay. That's a good thing.

The group was right that you need at least a little bit of optimization. The group also questioned certain decisions the GM made that were honestly a bit unfair, such as stripping a cleric of his powers or not being allowed to play certain core races due to GM prejudice--the core races thing was the one decision of Lodge's I found to be unfair.

My opinion: A good group will compromise about game play styles when there is conflict. A good group will communicate, hopefully avoiding some of the conflict that can crop up. A good group will also know when to step outside their comfort zone for a possible greater game experience, too.

So...immersion. What do you as a player or a GM do to foster it within your group?

As noted in earlier threads, I've:

• brought props like ancient coins or tankards
• used outrageous and possibly annoying accents
• worn costume-y bits, like the Kingmaker campaign where I wore a tiara the entire time I played (if you can picture that)
• spoken in a different tone/inflection/speech pattern that wasn't related to accent
• addressed individuals in character as much as possible during play

But I figure there must be tons of good immersion building ideas out there! How do you do foster immersion in your game?

Oh, man. I stand out in any gaming session I choose to play in, chainmail dice bag or no...

Ah, the open communication question.

My take on it:
1. Sit down with her.
2. Talk to her.
3. Ask her if she's got something else going on, and would like to just maybe hang out later instead of game.
4. Decide whether you can deal with this insensitivity. (Personally I would not, especially if others are affected.)

But hey, since starting with a better group I don't put up with this sort of crap from folks. Just sayin'.

Hmm.

Writing stuff for your players requires passion. Passion is squelched by depression. Depression makes it so you don't want to write stuff, thereby squelching your passion, and then you feel bad about not running a great game, which makes you not want to write stuff...bad cycle, all around.

Advice from an art-school graduate, who now works exclusively in the cold hard world of computers:

* Take a story. Any story. Just pick one up off your shelf. Make it a short one, or just a passage you really like from that story.

Now rewrite it from the perspective of one character, or if it's a first-person narrative, a different character. Or a table. (I always liked writing as the table.) And whatever you do, don't you dare do this for more than fifteen minutes! That's part of the magic.

This should hopefully kick start some sort of creative force. And it doesn't matter if the story sucks/is total crap, because that's not what it's about. It's just about pushing through the bleah-rut.

* To hell with writing or trying to find inspiration. Read nothing but non-fiction for a few hours. Watch a terrible movie, preferably one with huge plot holes you can drive an entire gated community through, if you could pick it all up and load it on one flatbed. It's possible by this time you're throwing things at your TV. This is a good sign. Throwing things requires passion, even if that passion erupts from a person in the form of disgust.

* The hardest one: check the FLGS for their board game nights. Yes, board games. Not RPGs. From here, you can launch Nefarious Plan #3: making friends who might RP who might have schedules that are a bit more open! I once got a guy to join our group by telling him we had a board game that didn't use standard pieces and for certain bits of the game you had to play Charades, sort of. Best player I ever met...

And feel free to use APs on the alternate group.

* Ignore all this advice and don't sweat it.

If the depression gets to be so much though that it's interfering with things you used to love doing (like gaming) it might be time to do something different, generally. I don't know and can't speak to that issue very well, I'm afraid. All I can tell you is that I learned that depression doesn't enhance creativity in most folks and that art is hard. Very, very hard. As a mistress, she's pretty cruel, evil, and ungodly temperamental. She's also sometimes neglectful.

Good luck!

Does it have to be a binary?
I watch neither MLP or GoT.

But I'd say our style is "PG-13 from the late 1980's" in nature. The current group's okay with but not totally into the grimdark stuff, and no one wants to RP out any sex scenes at the table. I think. Then again, Davor got pretty hot and heavy with what's-her-face...uh, Shayliss?

Hmm.

Eh, it wasn't intended at any specific person, kmal2t. My apologies that it appeared that way. It's just a goal of mine to keep a bit more on task, considering how often I derail conversations anymore. Heh.

To me it sounds like this player is not engaged in any way with the game. We had someone like that in another group, but she only came along to "play" because her boyfriend played. In the end, there wasn't anything other than Boyfriend that she liked about game. And even then, if he wasn't paying direct attention to her, she was unhappy and disruptive. ("Oh, I, um, jump in the river and shoot myself with an arrow. Are we in combat? Huh.")

My patience level for people who profess they want to play in the same game I'm playing in but who don't actually play at all is pretty low. This means that (most likely) like the OP I'm open to learning through suggestions. How does one engage a player who seems totally uninterested?

My brother used to program the (brand new) VCR when he was 3.
It's all the same, man...all the same.

Dude. This guy's had more than enough chances. At this point, Horse is dead and it's Move On Time.

If his interest in the game you work hard to run is so low, and he's being a disruptive jerk, it's perfectly okay to tell him not to bother showing and recruit someone better to the table. Or VTT, or whatever.

He's obviously either too involved in himself to care about how his actions affect others or too acting like too much of a 'bag to be a responsible player. Which is Not Cool.

Er...this happened again (unintentionally) last game.

I could NOT for the life of me remember the major town priest of Sandpoint. Now poor Father Zantus is known unofficially as "Dr. Zaius" in our group. Whoops.

And every time one of us says "Dr. Zaius" we end up breaking out in song. (Ah, Simpsons--is there a fake musical you put out that doesn't have the catchiest tunes??)

LOL@Porkstack and Crime!

"Given the heightened interest in sword, sorcery, chivalry and cool creatures within Warner Bros with the HBO series Game Of Thrones and the ongoing Peter Jackson-directed adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit"...

Look, Mom, I'm *cool* now! >;)

Hmm. Now I have ideas for steampunk board game night. >:)

Sometimes when you complain about something, people try to help fix whatever it is that the whine is about. Whether you like it or not, DMC. LOL

Then again, sometimes people are "cheeky barstewards".

There was a thread in the Gamer Talk area that has be a bit baffled. The word "rape" was used at some point, and the post that originally used it was removed. There are folks who justify using the term around the table.

Then we have all these threads stating females don't want to play Pathfinder in the same numbers as males. We have threads where the women say the culture doesn't always make them feel included.

So my questions are: If we're going to use such charged terms that affect one gender (women) much more negatively than another (men), can we as a community expect women to want to play? Also, just because a term has been co-opted by a group, does that really justify the term being used in such a way?

Personally I find the idea of yelling "I raped its face off, take that b!%@%ez!" to be Seriously Uncool. The majority of the women I game with now and that I have gamed with previously tell me they're uncomfortable with the idea of the term "rape" being used so lightly. Especially those that have lived through the experience of actual rape happening to them.

My kid is a teenager now, and I speak up when his friends say something like, "Dude, that's so gay." I speak up when they say, "That's so Jew-y" too. I speak up when someone says "Awwww sweet it's been thoroughly raped" when critical damage is taken.

But that's me.
What's your take on this issue? And why?

By Sarenrae's frilly underveils I hope we don't have a troll infestation!
I mean...we can try and kill it with fire, but acid and fire IRL only go so far...

Short answer: no. My friends don't do that to me. They wouldn't be my friends if they did.

I'm getting far too old to play *those* sorts of games. We Be Goblins is one thing; Emotional Douchery is totally another.

I don't understand why halflings would be offensive. Any more than orcs or pixies or unicorns.

Technically, NO. You don't have to hand over your character.

I'm a billionaire. I invested in human cells. Well, okay, I started to acquire a few, stuck them together and called them "me", but regardless of the stupid name my investment kept doubling. LOL

It was asked a bit earlier what the "point" to all this is. This is the original question posed:

Still, I want to ask What are they “men” that so violently threatened Anita Sarkeesian so violently afraid of? Perhaps I am just too naive, but I do not understand.

The whole thread's derailed a bit, but I do believe the point was to answer that question.

[silly] But I like "sexualized scantily clad heroes" in my gaming entertainment! [/silly]

In all seriousness, yes, it's a lot more difficult to find beefcake than cheesecake out there. By far.

Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I prefer the people I might be interested in to be mainly clothed and articulate. 'Course, I'd also prefer to reserve RL violence for times of self defense too, but find myself playing individuals who seek out combat in some way. What's sexy to one group (scantily clad females in sexualized poses) might not be another group's definition of sexy (male firefighters with exposed chests).

I'm looking forward to the day when all people, regardless of their genetic make up, have mostly equal treatment. But then again, I like the idea of meritocracy on some level...

Men have their own problems, society is merciless with males, but do not try to mitigate women's problems.

Yes, please! Both sexes have some real issues they struggle with, and neither side's issues should be marginalized. (I do have to idly wonder though how often males consider crossing the street because a possibly threatening-looking group of women are approaching on the same stretch of sidewalk.)

Men aren't body language experts or mind readers.

But why not? Lack of mind reading items?

In all seriousness, I think the definition of "crossing the line" does vary by person, as stated before many times in this thread.

And if a guy wants to hit on me, sure, great; but if I state I'm not interested in a clear and direct manner, and he persists? He just passed into "creeper" territory in my mind. To me, that's line crossing.

Can I be a pastry pope when I grow up?

Hard to say, really.

We ended up playing the red box (ooh, Redbox versus red box, LOL) after I'd pretty much memorized the 1st edition AD&D Dungeon Master book.

I got serious with 2nd edition, though, and have committed to Pathfinder "like I's gonna marry it".

Well, I tried to let the world end...but then this bloody annoying PARTY OF ADVENTURERS just showed up out of the blue and SAVED THE WORLD. *sigh* I hate it when that happens!!

Maccabee: one of our cats does that too! Once the GM got up to go to the restroom, saying he would roll a save if needed after he got back. The cat rolled a nat 20 for him...

I'm not optimized to be an adventurer, but between Int and rogue levels I can fake it.

As long as we don't have a description of the death of McTarantino, I suspect this mythical item won't be linked with sporadic fountains of blood... :)

Nice descriptions, FaxCelestis. Very cool.

Constantly set up to fail = find new GM.

I *am* an un-optimized character!

Oooh! Oooh! The camel story reminds me of another issue we had with mounts.

Legacy of Fire campaign. The party is looking to actually get camels to cross...I forget what. We find "Crazy Ahkmed's Fine Camel E-porium". Really, the sign said that. We negotiate with Ahkmed; some of us roll amazingly low in negotiating. The fighter fumbles the Bluff check he's trying to make to get a fine camel at a good price.

Eventually negotiations end. We each lead our mounts from Crazy Ahkmed's stables.

The fighter's camel bleats in a surprisingly familiar but un-camel-like way. The camel has two cute little horns, a beard, and will eat almost anything. It also uses up more of the party's water than a normal camel. :)

In what is now Friday group, we started with a Curse of the Crimson Throne campaign. Eventually everyone decided to get themselves a horse, since we were going places outside Korvosa. Places where it'd be advantageous not to carry our own stuff all the time. Places where it would be faster to travel if one used horses.

I swear my character was cursed or something when it came to horses.

Horse I: Died in a nasty random encounter in the dead of night. None of us work up in time. Horse I dead. Nym feels terrible about not defending Horse.

Horse II: Victim of a nasty combination of Cinderlands vapor fumes and party sorceror's fireball. Horse II dead. Nym wants to slap sorceror but realizes Horse II didn't have Evasion, but still feels guilty about bringing Horse II into a bad situation.

Horse III: Nasty storm in the Cinderlands. Rocks and sand are sharp, tearing and rending Horse III! It's then that Nym shrugs and first utters, "Horse dead. Moving on."

I never did buy another horse during the CotCT campaign...

As a game unto itself, I can see the "character backstory must be ten words or less" idea being plausible or even enjoyable, as long as the whole group agrees that this should be the way of it. My philosophy: Backstory starts a character; adventures refine it.

If I write a backstory for a character and it takes hours, it doesn't save me from the impartiality of my GM's dice or the module/session adventure.

The whole my-way-or-the-highway thing? Not so cool with my group. We tend to rule by consensus, with the GM having final vote as needed.