Salve and whatnot!

[Starbeard]

Hi there, everyone! Joined up at Dragonsfoot a couple months ago and here just now, after spending a couple of years lonely and gameless due to a move out of the country. I tried continuing a game or two with friends back home on different formats: campaign wikis, Skype dates, private Facebook AD&D campaign groups, but those have all fizzled quickly since most of the players were unused or uninterested in playing via post, and the time difference and my schedule make it difficult to have regular Skype sessions. So here I am! Love the site!

Sooner or later I might pick up one of my several on-and-off-again sandbox campaigns I had running before the move and try cutting its teeth here, but for now I'm happy to just play characters and have fun watching them live or die by the whims of the dice.

I started writing a short blurb of my gaming history in a nutshell, but I even bored myself writing it, so here it is in a spoiler for those who care:

Started gaming with WEG Star Wars in 1996, a couple of months later got MeRP for Christmas, and a couple years later got really into L5R and GURPS, plus about a dozen other RPGs—but avoided D&D on principle until about 2002 (you know how it went in the 1990s, with the teleological argument—'oh, don't get me wrong, I appreciate D&D for starting the hobby back in the day, but the game itself is rubbish; it's so limited in its philosophy and flawed in its mechanics that it just isn't really worth playing. Almost every game since 1980 has been an improvement'). But, being a historian by trade, curiosity got the better of me and I picked up a set of the 1st edition books at a church yard sale for 50¢ apiece, and immediately got it. Within a year I had already hunted down copies of most editions of the rules up to that time.

I still really enjoy other games as well, especially WEG Star Wars, RoleMaster, HârnMaster and GURPS. I still love the L5R system, but every time I pick up a new book and read through it I find that I'm completely disinterested in what they've done with the setting. For D&D purposes I enjoy any edition of TSR-era D&D, although I am biased toward AD&D1 and OD&D, likely for reasons of historical interest. I also dig the retro-clones, and one of these days I'd like to play in or referee a game using one of the old gaming club D&D variants, like the Complete Warlock or the Field Guide to Encounters.

That is all.

[Alethan]

I started writing a short blurb of my gaming history in a nutshell, but I even bored myself writing it...

lol.

I do that a lot when I'm writing a post for my blog - the idea is there, but I'm not getting it out - so I know what you mean.

In any case, welcome to the Unseen Servant! Hopefully you can find yourself a spot in a game or two and get your gaming fix. If you have not yet found them, some links for PbPing on the US Forum are here:

Click this for player info.
Click this for GM info.

Enjoy your time here!

Cheers,

Al

[rredmond]

Welcome!
--Ron--

[GreyWolfVT]

Greetings and welcome take a seat by the fire and tell a tale with the rest of us.

[Shonuff]

Welcome to the Unseen Servant!

[Starbeard]

Thanks for the welcome, guys!

I've just joined a game (1A: The Inheritance), and it looks like it'll be a good run. Thanks for posting links to those tips threads, Alethan, I hadn't caught those.

Hope to game with some of you soon!

[dmw71]

Welcome to the US, Starbeard. Way to jump right in.

I've just joined a game (1A: The Inheritance), and it looks like it'll be a good run.

Wow, impressive rolls. I'd say the forums here agree with you.

- Dave

[Starbeard]

Welcome to the US, Starbeard. Way to jump right in.

I've just joined a game (1A: The Inheritance), and it looks like it'll be a good run.

Wow, impressive rolls. I'd say the forums here agree with you.

- Dave

Ha! Fortunately for me, those aren't my rolls, but rolls adopted from the template provided for the adventure (Although I did roll 10 on my HD!). Otherwise I wouldn't have qualified for a paladin in a dozen years.

Usually I have about as much luck with my stat rolls as, I dunno, a really unlucky person. I think my worst was in RoleMaster (stats are rolled 01-100), where I actually got 4 of the six stats below 30, and 2 of them were both 01. I still have that character sheet around here somewhere, should dig him out.

[Alethan]

Ah! Sometimes the gimps are the most fun to play!

I ran a dwarf where his highest stat was a 10STR in a B/X game for about two years before the DM pulled a disappearing act and abandoned the game. It was my first PbP game, in fact... And look at me now!

[dmw71]

Ha! Fortunately for me, those aren't my rolls, but rolls adopted from the template provided for the adventure.

A generous template, no doubt. No worries, I'm sure the forums will still agree with you.

Usually I have about as much luck with my stat rolls as, I dunno, a really unlucky person. I think my worst was in RoleMaster (stats are rolled 01-100), where I actually got 4 of the six stats below 30, and 2 of them were both 01. I still have that character sheet around here somewhere, should dig him out.

I will always maintain that the characters with a challenge are the most fun. A glitch with the US die roller was detected around the time I generated Malak and I was offered the opportunity to re-roll. No chance! He was a blast to play.

[Starbeard]

Yeah, AD&D Paladins have some pretty restrictive ability requirements. I just put a 4D6 drop lowest equation into Anydice to see what the statistics were, and it seems that any given character has slighly under a 1.4% chance of rolling the necessary scores to make a paladin—and that's with being able to assign the scores where you want! If it were rolled straight down the stats it must be incredibly low.

And if you're using the Unearthed Arcana stat requirements, it drops down to just under 0.03%! I think every Paladin I've ever known anyone to play in AD&D was fudged, simply on the understanding that nobody actually wants to roll up 5000 sets of stats before they get the one that will let them play a paladin.

But I agree, I love playing statistically incompetent characters, especially in systems where you have to make a skill roll to cast magic. Everyone in the party scrambling for cover every time your wizard tries to cast a spell.

[Argennian]

Hail & well met, Starbeard!


Fellow Dragonsfooters are always welcome and here's hoping you get into some pbp action soon!

[Starbeard]

Thanks, Argennian! I'm already loving this site. Easily the best PBP environment I've come across!

[rredmond]

Ah. With such high intelligence you will certainly fit in well here!

--Ron--

[Starbeard]

Just wanted to tip my hat and raise a glass to you all, for being my home away from home these past 5(?!) years. This community has given me some of the best gaming I've had since I first tossed the dice.

I'm going on a much-needed hiatus to reorder my life, now that we have a jellybean to take care of. I'm not cutting cold turkey, I still have a couple of slowpoke games to wrap up, but for all intense porpoises I'm taking a sabbatical.

I'll be back, so it isn't "goodbye"; but it may be a while, so I guess that makes it a "till then." Once again, thanks for all the good times, and I look forward to more in the future. Cheers!

[GreyWolfVT]

Well then Sean "Till then it is."

[rredmond]

Baby changes things good sir! Plus, I think we all saw this coming.
Come back when things are ready.
--Ron--

[Rex]

Till then, and take care in the mean time.
Rex

[ffilz]

You're welcome in my games at any time (does this mean you're dropping out of the RuneQuest game?).

Frank