Previous Topics
In Actual Play

12/25/2005 denagar: Free storytelling rpgs?
Hi, I'm looking for a storytelling rpg, where all the players participate. Are there any good free systems which can give some guidance? Thanks!
In Actual Play
Participants: denagar, tygertyger, Trevis Martin, nilsderondeau, WhiteRat, Joshua BishopRoby, demiurgeastaroth, Arturo G., Paul Czege, Lxndr, Dantai, nikola, Ron Edwards.

12/24/2005 jasonm: [Shab-al-Hiri Roach] Poisoner's Day
I played the Roach again last night with three non-gamers.  My wife Autumn, who is familiar with the game (she's copy editing it), has played Breaking the Ice once and…
In Actual Play
Participants: jasonm, Technocrat13.

12/23/2005 joepub: [Point of Collapse] Of munchkins and min/maxers
So, the reason my d&d group fell apart was a Minotaur Barbarian with Cleave and Power Attack, and a gigantic axe. Or, rather, the player behind said minotaur barbarian. Worst…
In Actual Play
Participants: joepub, Lamorak33, Ron Edwards, Joshua BishopRoby, Noon, abzu, Marco.

12/23/2005 James_Nostack: Request: best "actual advice" on Scenario Prep
I'm asking GM's for their own Actual Play examples of good scenario design, for a project I'm doing.  My own contribution is at the bottom.  Project details follow: I've written…
In Actual Play
Participants: James_Nostack, TonyLB, Ron Edwards.

12/23/2005 matthijs: [Descent] Playtest
[b]Context: The real people.[/b] I’ve been chatting a bit with Kaare (Negligent) about RPG theory. He and I are two of the more theory-interested tabletop gamers in Norway. When I…
In Actual Play
Participants: matthijs, Kaare Berg (Old), Olorin.

12/22/2005 dindenver: [LoL] Custom Talent system
Hi!   Every character in my game has one Talent. The system to design Telents is easily customizable and is an analog system, you can use it to create stuff…
In Actual Play
Participants: dindenver, Nogusielkt, MikeSands.

12/22/2005 jasonm: [Shab-al-Hiri Roach] Dark Goddess Regina
Another game of the Roach last night.  In case you were wondering, there was a wonderful conflict over who, among the 100% Roach-infested PCs, got to sacrifice Regina Sutton to…
In Actual Play
Participants: jasonm, Clinton R. Nixon, Technocrat13, Valamir, Mark Woodhouse, Myrmidon.

12/21/2005 Arturo G.: [DitV] Fun, fun, fun... with no fighting!
Hi,there! We had our first session of DitV last week. I was the GM and only two players. We were mainly learning how the system works. I used the first…
In Actual Play
Participants: Arturo G., Adam Dray.

12/21/2005 ffilz: [Cold Iron] Applying "know what you're rolling for before you pick up the dice"
We had another session of Cold Iron last night, and I got to apply some new rules I've been hashing out. Cold Iron has a perception attribute, Alertness, which has…
In Actual Play
Participants: ffilz, Bankuei.

12/21/2005 RDU Neil: (Champions/Hero) Stakes before Sim...
So... been playing Champions/Hero since 1st Edition.  Come a long way over the last 25 years... but still find the core task resolution, combat system to be the most flexible…
In Actual Play
Participants: RDU Neil, Brand_Robins, Ron Edwards, Supplanter, Noon, Storn, Mark Woodhouse, Alan, John Kim, Doug Ruff, Wolfen, Valamir, Paka, Tommi Brander, xenopulse, droog, TonyLB, daHob, Hisho.

12/21/2005 demiurgeastaroth: [Polaris] The Fifth Remnant: Southfork
Our group got together on Monday night for the first of a 3-4 session run of Polaris. I have a few questions about the game and our session, which will…
In Actual Play
Participants: demiurgeastaroth, Hermes3.

12/21/2005 KingstonC: [The Shadow of Yesterday] Rats, Revenge, and Revolution (part 3)
This is the third and final post describing the last act of my The Shadow of Yesterday campaign. Kamia took the vial. She swore to the sky, screamed, spit, called…
In Actual Play
Participants: KingstonC, Clinton R. Nixon, Kamia.

12/20/2005 Darcy Burgess: Stakes, Con Res and Honesty
I've had a personal epiphany of late.  Or, rather, my academic lobe has had an epiphany and I think that my GM habits lobe is standing in the dust going…
In Actual Play
Participants: Darcy Burgess, TonyLB.

12/20/2005 Lisa Padol: [Sorcerer] Our third session
Sorcerer: Third Session The description of the characters and the write up of the first session are here: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=17765.0 The write up of the second session is here: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=18035.0 Demons…
In Actual Play
Participants: Lisa Padol, droog, Julian.

12/20/2005 Paka: Creating the Scenario with the Character Sheets in Front of Me
When I first started GMing I had no idea what I had to have prepared in order to have a successful game.  It drove me nuts.  Sometimes I would have…
In Actual Play
Participants: Paka, Bankuei, johnmarron, jburneko, Michael S. Miller, Joshua BishopRoby, Brendan, Emily Care, Danny_K, Jonathan Hastings, Brand_Robins, RDU Neil, David Chunn, mneme, Storn, Adam Dray.

12/19/2005 inthisstyle: [Mortal Coil] Follow-Up Playtest: Old Gods Get Mean
So we got together again last Friday for another playtest session of Mortal Coil. This was a follow-up session to the one I wrote about last month, and we preserved…
In Actual Play
Participants: inthisstyle, gains.

12/19/2005 TonyLB: [Amber] Why won't you let me set stakes?
I'm taking Paka's advice to put the question of "What are stakes?  What is risk?  Does it imply gambling?" into the context of my own experiences with folks who couldn't…
In Actual Play
Participants: TonyLB, C. Edwards, Marhault, Supplanter, Joshua BishopRoby, Brand_Robins, Mark Woodhouse, Mikko Lehtinen, Noon, Andy Kitkowski, Bankuei, William Burke, Gaerik, Blankshield, Thor Olavsrud, Unco Lober, Storn.

12/19/2005 gains: [Mage] Cross pollination
My usual DitV game almost wasn't on last night. In fact, I expected it would just be me GMing and one player, so we discussed possible alternates for the evening.…
In Actual Play
Participants: gains, Graham Walmsley, Ron Edwards, Joshua BishopRoby, Blankshield, Noon.

12/19/2005 Bret Gillan: [Capes] Finally, a campaign
I am pumped. For the first time I will be playing multiple sessions of Capes in a short-term campaign. My friend Jere is home from college from break, so while…
In Actual Play
Participants: Bret Gillan, Sydney Freedberg, Paka, TonyLB, Jeremiah Lahnum, TheCzech.

12/19/2005 Silmenume: [Middle Earth - home brew] - A first, another group with the same play style!
What I had started to despair as the impossible has been demonstrated to me to be utterly possible!  Through a strange and convoluted series of incidents my GM and I…
In Actual Play
Participants: Silmenume, Caldis, Supplanter, Noon, Christopher Kubasik, contracycle, beingfrank, RDU Neil.

<< more previous topics

Subsequent Topics
In Actual Play

12/29/2005 Mark Woodhouse: [Shab al-Hiri Roach] The Joy of Depravity
[i]The Shab al-Hiri Roach[/i] was the inaugural game for my Sunday Short Subjects group (basically a variation of the Stealth Gaming meme - pick a day, see who can come…
In Actual Play
Participants: Mark Woodhouse, jasonm, Miskatonic, Kesher.

12/29/2005 xenopulse: [AD&D] Fun in Preparations
The following is an example of why I initially thought that the group I am currently playing with is Sim oriented (but it turned out that, when push comes to…
In Actual Play
Participants: xenopulse, Mark Woodhouse, ScottM, Noon, Vaxalon, Storn, Joshua BishopRoby, Miskatonic, Chris Geisel.

12/30/2005 Noon: [Rifts] Monster with a past; risking the chance of showing it
I'm not sure I'm being a good forgite writing posting this in a new thread, because I don't have much to add myself. But I dig the request since it…
In Actual Play
Participants: Noon, TonyLB.

12/30/2005 Darcy Burgess: [Domus] The Colour of Verbal Diarrhea
yeah, yeah.  EWWWWWWWW.....but you clicked on it, didn't you? I'm starting this thread to bat the ball around regarding an interesting behaviour I witnessed during a playtest of Domus. While…
In Actual Play
Participants: Darcy Burgess.

12/30/2005 Storn: Successful Night, but.....
Okay, I just ran one of my more successful eps.  Despite being rusty as a GM.  It was a complicated drug, law enforcement storyline involving political families but with a…
In Actual Play
Participants: Storn, Ron Edwards, Technocrat13, Joshua BishopRoby, Tommi Brander, Jared A. Sorensen, ks13, contracycle.

12/31/2005 John Kim: [Polaris] The Grasping Dark over the holidays
So shortly before Christmas, we were short on players for the Buffy game due to the holidays, and we decided to try out Polaris.  So this was myself, Bill, Cynthia,…
In Actual Play
Participants: John Kim, demiurgeastaroth, GreatWolf, Kesher, Ben Lehman.

12/31/2005 Victor Gijsbers: [Shades] The lady and the gardener
Last night, I finally had a chance to playtest the new version of my roleplaying game Shades. What is this game about? The best I can do is probably posting…
In Actual Play
Participants: Victor Gijsbers, Ron Edwards.

1/1/2006 Rustin: [DiTV -Criminal Variant] Thief Guild Enforcers with d20
I managed to incorporate some Dogslike, Forgish elements into an adventure for my gaming group last Friday, and I must say it was quite successful.  I figured I'd report what…
In Actual Play
Participants: Rustin, Storn.

1/2/2006 Paka: [PTA] The Owl and the Serpent
I am fairly damned sick of only setting up or setting up and playing only one session of Primetime Adventures but it happened again.  Friends were in town and it…
In Actual Play
Participants: Paka, RobNJ, Spiral Jacobs.

1/3/2006 Supplanter: [DITV] Bad Touch on an NPC
We finally got to play Dogs this afternoon. I GMed for Bill, with whom I game regularly, and Glen, who is a longtime gamer whom I've known for awhile but…
In Actual Play
Participants: Supplanter, dunlaing, lumpley, Wolfen, Paka.

1/3/2006 Joshua BishopRoby: [FLFS] First Playtest -- HMS Dauntless
We had three players: myself, my wife Laura, and my brother Ben.  Six if you count our three cats, one of which had her own character sheet. We played a…
In Actual Play
Participants: Joshua BishopRoby, Brand_Robins, Nathan P., Warren, mutex.

1/3/2006 verbosity: Need rules for 1700's Naval Battles & Bi-Plane Battles
I am working on a new campaign world to try out my new Riddle of Steel book, which I found on this site. So far, here is where I am…
In Actual Play
Participants: verbosity, Valamir, komradebob, MatrixGamer.

1/3/2006 lumpley: Three kinds of character creation
Me, Meg and Emily. We're like, hey, I know, let's make characters for each of our games in development, see how they each work. So we did. All three were…
In Actual Play
Participants: lumpley, Joshua BishopRoby, Victor Gijsbers, Ron Edwards.

1/3/2006 MatrixGamer: (Engle Matrix Game) Chaos on Campus - with the family
My sister in law and two of my nephews were over for the Holidays and in between washing dishes we played a Matrix Games. We played "Chaos on Campus" a…
In Actual Play
Participants: MatrixGamer, komradebob, Sydney Freedberg, neelk.

1/3/2006 RDU Neil: (Champions/Hero) First Try Stakes...
So... just a quick follow up to my previous post which drew a lot of comments.  I decided to try some version of stakes setting in my last couple of…
In Actual Play
Participants: RDU Neil, Hisho, Warren, Storn, daHob, Valamir.

1/4/2006 Tommi Brander: Personality mechanics
[url=http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=18059.from1136305846#new]This thread[/url], reading the Burning Wheel, and few other factors have made me wonder if there is any reason to make restrictive personality mechanics (instead of incentive ones). Reading my…
In Actual Play
Participants: Tommi Brander, Ron Edwards, Troy_Costisick, Storn, contracycle, RDU Neil, joshua neff, inoir, Mark Johnson, TonyPace, Noon, Tobias, Sydney Freedberg.

1/4/2006 Wade Lahoda: [DitV] Second attempt at Dogs
I'd already tried to run Dogs once.  It consisted of a single town spread over two sessions.  Play was hardly a catastrophe, but it didn't feel like it clicked, either.…
In Actual Play
Participants: Wade Lahoda, lumpley, Daermon, cj.23, demiurgeastaroth, Levi Kornelsen, Arturo G., Warren.

1/5/2006 Arturo G.: [DitV] How to play NPCs who wants "to keep Dogs away"
I have noticed that most towns have some characters involved with sins or sorcery who want the same thing: "to keep the Dogs away" (or something equivalent). Examples from the…
In Actual Play
Participants: Arturo G., Joshua BishopRoby, cj.23, Blankshield, Warren, Paul Czege, lumpley, jrs, JC.

1/5/2006 Troy_Costisick: [Cutthroat] First Playtest
Heya, Finally, I got to playtest Cutthroat.  It was hard work getting my dyed-in-the-wool Fantasy RPer buddies to play this with me, but with enough convincing I got it done. …
In Actual Play
Participants: Troy_Costisick, Ron Edwards.

1/5/2006 angelfromanotherpin: Addressing out-of-game relationships in play.
Recently a friend of mine, who had played in a year-long game that I GM'd, told me about an unexpected outcome of that game. See, one of the NPCs in…
In Actual Play
Participants: angelfromanotherpin, cj.23, Storn, Wormwood, Ron Edwards.

more subsequent topics >>