# Any pnp Roleplaying Gamers around here?



## Bob Whitely (Sep 28, 2013)

Hi all, 

As much as I enjoy digital games (Halo, Skyrim and others), I'm a far bigger fan of pen and paper RPG's, but I'm seeing walls of console and computer gamers here, so I have to ask: Who here plays pnp RPG's (tabletop and/or Play-by-Post or Skype games?

And if you are a fan, which games do you play?

To kick this off, while I've played several RPG's and have both read and owned many more, these days I'm only playing my own RPG. 

Cosmothea is a Blended-Genre Roleplaying Game and campaign setting. But that said, this thread isn't about me, or about Cosmothea. I love writing and that's why I joined, but since I saw a gaming area, it would be nice to see if there are others with a passion for pnp roleplaying around here! 

So, what games do you keep finding yourself returning to again and again? And do you play them online too, or only around a table? 

Well, have a great weekend all!


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## hopewrites (Sep 28, 2013)

Table top games are actually how I "got my start" writing. There was a group of us who played over skype. D&D 3rd, Story Teller, and the occasional FreeStyle. All play by post.

I've only done half a campaign around a table, the rest we're all online.

But I dont have time for it any more  and ended up selling all my player manuals.


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## Zahhak (Sep 28, 2013)

Hello.

I have a regular group on Sundays. We place some card/board games, but mostly DND 3.5/Pathfinder and Hero System (which I still don't even remotely understand).


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## Bob Whitely (Sep 29, 2013)

Thanks for responding Zahhak, hopewrites!

I just love card and board games (and have created a large number of them over the years, at least rough prototypes. I'll pursue some of them commercially one of these days if I can find the time to finish them off). But my favorite pastime is roleplaying. I've read the Hero System (Yes, it's very crunchy - too crunchy for my tastes), and I played the early version - Champions - also too crunchy for me, though I know some swear by Hero. 

Which do you like better, Zahhak, 3.5 or Pathfinder? If I had to play one of those 2 (I have played a good amount of just about every version of D&D, but not Pathfinder, though I own it), I'd pick Pathfinder. 

I think the odd spot Pathfinder is in, is that it is still based on 3.5, which has some issues, so where do they go from there, since they don't want to alienate anyone? 

Cosmothea covers fantasy, superheroes, scifi, etc. so I only play it. 

hopewrites - so sorry to hear you aren't playing games anymore. I can certainly see the convenience of online play, and I've been running Cosmothea online for several years (in addition to off, as I said), but frankly you can get more mileage out of a game playing offline, if you can swing it. The action is way, way faster, though sometimes with a bit less eloquent dialoguing, since players online can take their time to come up with responses. 

A couple friends and I like playing online as it is good practice for our creative writing skills. I've also used it to flesh out concepts. Like, if I'm writing a novel or short story, I can develop an adventure that touches on some of the concepts and even personalities from the story and see how those concepts work themselves out in the game. It reveals holes, helps me flesh things out, etc. 

I'm not talking about taking a roleplaying adventure and turning into a story for publication. RPG adventures don't tend to lend themselves well to the sophistication of a published story, but fleshing out concepts is another thing altogether!

Anyway, thanks for the feedback. Surely there must be more of us on this site??


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## hopewrites (Sep 29, 2013)

I've bumped into a few, but they are infrequent posters.

we tried to get a play by post freestyle going down in the Play Room. But it died.


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## DarkFiBiro (Sep 29, 2013)

This is something that I would certainly like to do but have yet to find any like-minded souls who share my interest. I was tempted to get a Call of Cthulhu rule book and see if there was any way to do it single player, but the thought made me feel sad just thinking it lol. I'd imagine they are great fun in a group.


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## jastius (Sep 30, 2013)

this site lets you modify a pnp to internet.

Roll20: Web-based online virtual tabletop for all roleplaying games (RPGs)


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## Bob Whitely (Sep 30, 2013)

Hi DarkFiBiro, 

Thanks for chiming in. PbP gaming (and Skype gaming, etc.) can certainly be a lot of fun. In addition to playing offline for 34 years, I've been playing online for  nearly 6 years. It partially depends on the group you find. People online tend to be transient, sadly. My groups have mostly been very stable, but it's not always easy to find the right players. I'm afraid I'm not really into Call of Cthulhu. I don't dislike it so much as I much more prefer blended-genre and especially fantasy/scifi blends. 

Hi jastius,

Thanks for the link. I have a friend that has made something similar, but the more the merrier! That said, I wouldn't say that such a thing is actually needed to play a pnp game online. I've played using my friend's and I've seen others, but I've also played very successfully without them. Some people just love those virtual tabletops. I'm fine either way, though I'll check that one out. Looks pretty neat. 

The thing is, there's actually quite a few differences between what it takes to run a successful online game and a successful offline game, and I'm not so sure any of those virtual tabletops really address it well. They are a cool tool, can be very handy if you are into them, but there's a lot of tricks to running a great game. PbP adventures also feel different - they just flat out play different than the exact same game face2face. But I'd still rather play them than not! My Cosmothea RPG groups have always had a lot of fun.

Anyway, thanks again for the link!


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## Bob Whitely (Sep 30, 2013)

I'm currently running 1 PbP game on my QT Games forums. I've run several at once, and have also run a special contest PbP awhile back, but I'm too busy to do that these days. 

I've run several rules uber-lite games (and I do mean uber-lite) and even interactive story-type games over the years. 

I might be willing to run a rules uber-lite (mostly character and story-focused, rather than combat-focused) game or the simple, but fun interactive story-type games around here if enough interest manifests. This site doesn't seem to be very pnp gaming-focused though. Guess time will tell if there's interest. 

Anyway, have a great week all!


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## jastius (Sep 30, 2013)

The cracked pot is the play by play adventure club onsite. its for roleplaying and there is a continued whole world kept in there. i keep saying it should be mapped so more newcomers can jump in, but the older members just don't see the need. the other reason is that it would be a massive undertaken involving scores of abandoned projects, unresolved battles and so on.. sometimes people request an adventure. such as stegian electro. but when we go to set one up the people don't show up to participate  or they quickly lose interest and drop out.  if you want to run a site character you are welcome to show up into the teapot at any time. 

for instance my character jastius, is a Valkyrie reservist for lack of a better explanation.  she has a winged horse which grazes in the meadow outside of the teapot along with several of his friends which can be called into action when necessary. there are a pack of piranhas there who have a fetish for shiney shoes. because they have feet. jastius plays soccer with them on sundays.  

since jastius is a character i developed over many dnd and other roleplaying games, i used her moniker for this forum after i discovered that finding an unused name for here was more complicated then finding an unused hotmail tag.  but you are free to adopt another name or a nickname for your playing character.


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## Bob Whitely (Oct 1, 2013)

Hi jastius, 

Thanks for sharing your character background and game info. It's always fun to hear what others are up to. As I said, I'm already running a PbP game. It's set in my Cosmothea universe, one crazy huge universe, and at times I run other games. I'm not really looking to join another or even start another. 

I just thought that if there were others around here that aren't playing a game, but would like to, I'd be willing to start another, especially one that is rules lite, otherwise, I'd rather they just join my existing Cosmothea adventure, which could use another player or two.

I've also facilitated simple games like I create a character and scene and post it. Then I start a sentence, but don't finish it and players take turns finishing sentences and starting new ones as players share the story they make up as they go, often with surprising turns, since it can keep changing.

Another variation I've done that's easy is where you can write up to 2 sentences describing what's going on, and then another player writes two and then it keeps going. In both cases, the same player can never post twice in a row and you can have as many players as you want. 

Of course I've run other sorts of games, including my Cosmothea one, with full rules (though I have layers of complexity that people can take or leave as desired - Cosmothea is a very flexible system (and pretty solid, but still under construction, hence it's a playtest), and I've run several with different lite versions of Cosmothea and other systems I've made up over the years.


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## Bob Whitely (Oct 1, 2013)

The adventure we are on in Secrets of Cathor 2 (I ran another adventure years ago in the same region, called Secrets of Cathor)... well, we're just starting the second leg of a new adventure, so it's a good jumping on spot. It's blended-genre, of course. 

There's a shadow runner and spell slinging arcane shaper who have run into a woman who passed through a gate from another world. The three of us are trying to survive on a strange, war-torn and dying world. We just escaped a city overrun by nature and dinosaurs after having met a very unusual construct and its 2 tiny mechanical companions, and now find ourselves in a far away land fighting for our lives as a sorcerer ransacks a town with a small army of walkin' dead. We are fairly sure the construct knows more than it's tellin' but so far we haven't gotten a word out of it. 

The town has a very unusual secret and we're just starting to get into it all. Anyway, lots of mystery and fun stuff ahead. That's just one world. There are lots in Cosmothea, but this particular adventure is mostly a blend of fantasy and scifi. Have fun gaming, whatever games you play. Cheers all!


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## Bob Whitely (Oct 1, 2013)

I think this forum is a bit confusing, mixing together 2 very different gaming forms - console/computer and tabletop. Sometimes I open a thread to comment on it, then realize everyone's talking about something else, because the thread title doesn't identify which one, and it feels odd to make tabletop comments in a thread where most, if not all, are talking console/computer games. Ah well.

So, anyone else into tabletop and online pnp games around here?


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## avalonimperium (Oct 3, 2013)

Hi all I got into gaming here in the uk way back when Gamesworkshop and MB games colaberated on heroquest.  I soon got into the tabletop wargaming scene and my first experience of role-play was Warhammer fantasy role-pay (WFRP).  I still have the original rulebook and some of the published adventures my favorite being Castle Drachenfels insipred by the Kim Newman novel Drachenfels.  I sold all my minis when I went to college but kept the rule books (Im one of those people who never gets rid of ny books I own and love rereading them for the Nth time).  I got back into the wargaming scene after university when I was gainfully employed and could afford the minis.  Again good old GW was what I fell for playing Necromunda and Mordheim.  I loved those games because they were so close to RP.  I joined and later ran the local games club where I took part in and later ran WFRP.  I also joined another local club and was inducted into the joys of D&D 3.5 both running and playing games.  Due to unemployment I havnt played for two years now but now im back in work I will be going back to bboth my gaming  groups and taking up where we left off.  Ive also played WH40K Dark Heresy as the tech-priest Callain Delamiter-Bergenholm and Killteam as and ultramarines techmarine.  One of my favorite games was a short session in the old white wolf superheros system which I thought was a really interesting take on the genre where random people start manifesting superpowers.

All things considered though my prefered games are WH40K and D&D 3.5 especially the world building element of being a DM.


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## K-9 (Oct 3, 2013)

Bob Whitely said:


> So, anyone else into tabletop and online pnp games around here?



late as usual ... 

if 'tabletop' means pen and paper (sorry, I'm italian and still not very good at english ) ... me! me! me! I'm the second generation of rpgamer in my family!!   
My father and my uncle started play when he was at school, I think d&d was just arrived in Italy, at that time; and so, when my twin and I accomplished our 8th year (or was it Christmas? ... what a shame!! I don't remember!! I must ask her ...), he gifted her this basic set:







sniff!!!!

In that short, magical period of my life, every birthday (and at my brother's birthday too) my parent's gave us something of rpg: Paranoia, Lex Arcana (which I think was played only in Italy), Middle Earth Role Play ... the only one he never wanted to give us was The Call of Cthuluh because that is his favourited one, and he's jealous


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## avalonimperium (Oct 3, 2013)

Oh cool I had that version of D&D too all the figures were little cardboard A frames with a picture showing the character monster or creature front and back views and the adventure started with the party all in the prison of a wizard.  In actual fact i think I still have the adventure pack somewhere, time to dust it off update and run it again methinks!


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## Bob Whitely (Oct 4, 2013)

K-9 said:


> late as usual ...
> 
> if 'tabletop' means pen and paper


Heh, yes, pen and paper. I noticed early on the description of the Gaming Forum included "paper and pencil" which I don't recall ever hearing, or at least not for a long time. To me, pnp has always stood for pen and paper, in that order, but who uses a pen to game. Even so, I found it hard to write pen and paper with that description. So I fell back on other terms I've heard, including tabletop and face2face gaming, but I guess I shoulda just said pnp! Anyway, glad to hear there's more of you around here and thanks for posting!

Paranoia - now that's a game I haven't heard mentioned in awhile. Yes, I love reading game books too - that one had fun art to boot. 

I too recall every birthday and Christmas I'd receive some game book, board game or both. Some I played and some I just read the game books. 

avalonimperium - if you enjoyed D&D 3.5, you would most likely enjoy Pathfinder, since Pathfinder was built with 3.5 as the foundation.

K-9, your English is a whole lot better than my Italian. No worries! Thanks fro chiming in all!


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## avalonimperium (Oct 8, 2013)

Hi Bob ive not heard of pathfinder whats the setting


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## Bob Whitely (Oct 9, 2013)

Hi avalonimperium,

Pathfinder isn't a setting but an RPG. They do have a few settings though, I think. They basically took D&D 3.5 SRD (which is free) and since there were so many who still liked it and 4E was NOT the same thing, but a whole new game with D&D's label (I'm not putting it down, just sayin'), Pathfinder was allowed to do what they wanted. 

Pathfinder improves upon D&D 3.5. They changed some things that didn't work well and made some other changes. But they were careful not to stray too far from 3.5. so as not to alienate gamers like WotC did. They didn't change enough for my tastes, but it was a start, and they've done a nice job within the limitations they have. 

Paizo is the publisher and they cut their teeth on Dragon Magazine and Dungeon Magazine, and many say they did a better job on those 2 magazines than WotC ever did, and I'd agree with that. 

I don't play Pathfinder, but I thought I should mention it. You can take a peek at the rules here.

Anyone wondering what Cosmothea is like, I have a fun video up with a good amount of art and an overview here. I'll be putting up another video before long. Cosmothea 5.0 is still under construction, but it's looking good so far, and we're playtesting it as we roll. Those who playtest for 1 adventure or more get credit in the rulebook. 'Nuff said. 

Surely there are other pnp gamers around here. What are you playing? Have a great day all. Cheers!


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## avalonimperium (Oct 11, 2013)

Hi bob i took a look pathfinder does seem to be an excellent package and i think it would be a good system for any new gamers.  I agree about fourth ed ive played it and no sir i didnt like it.  Besides i have all the 3.5 rule books and i cant face getting a whole new set so its 3.5 and some house rules for me.  I have been lucky enough to be one of my clubs playtesters on a 5mm D10 system by dark realm miniatures called seeds of war.  Its a great intuitive wargame with some fantastic models.  Its my first experience of 5mm and I loved it and even better I  actually win some games in this system.


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## Bob Whitely (Oct 12, 2013)

Hi avalonimperium,

Glad to hear you are having fun with that Seeds of War game. 

Yes, I think for many that enjoyed D&D 3.5 in the past, Pathfinder is probably their best bet, at least if they want to stay with a very D&Dish game (that sort of game mechanics and feel). 

As I'm spending thousands of hours revising and playtesting my Cosmothea RPG, and have spent a big chunk of change on it too, I'm of course hoping in a big way that there will be at least some who are willing to pay for a new set of rules because they want a different sort of experience than they can get with their existing game books - those who are looking for something that's more flexible, able to tackle more themes and tackle them well. Cosmothea's a campaign setting too, so if some don't want to try out new rules, I'm still hoping they'll get excited about the setting in time. 

Check out my video link from the previous post if you haven't, avalonimperium. You won't regret it - great art and overview, I think!

No worries regarding my dreams - I'm not quitting my day job, but I do feel that it is worth pursuing, come what may. 

Anyway, have fun with whatever games you play!


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## avalonimperium (Oct 12, 2013)

Hi bob thanks for the link WOW!  That looks like some epic win with a dash of awesome sauce.  Ill speak to my group once i get it back underway and see what they think of it.


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## Bob Whitely (Oct 16, 2013)

Thanks for the kind words, avalonimperium. It will be awhile before I have the second video up. I'm tackling things on several fronts right now. We have all the authors, cover painter and many other details in place, but I'm researching like mad all the other elements we need to take care of (like Kickstarter rewards, and best places to get the rewards manufactured, etc.).

Anyway, Cosmothea is coming along, but it will be quite some time yet before I'm ready for a blind playtest. We are playing it in both tabletop and PbP, but that's it for now, as I slowly work on it, in between my anthology work and preparing for the anthology Kickstarter.

Well, have fun with whatever RPG(s) you end up playing in the days ahead. Take care and have a great week!


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## Proctor (Dec 22, 2013)

Hi everyone!


First thing to know is that im hungarian, so if my english will leave some mistakes, sorry. 

So ive got a question, what is realy important to be answered for me and my mates. We are a small group of hungarian people, came here 1,5 year ago (London), and we carried a dream with us. 
A long time ago, we started to create, a pen-n-paper RPG back in Hungary. The era lays on science fiction, the world what we created already took more than three years from us, and we are still on the project. No, its not a couple of 14 yrs old kid"s project. We are taking it seriously, its not a copy of star wars or star trek, its different, more or less, but different. But probably you guys dont know, in Hungary, the RPG gaming used to be a realy popular thing, played by tenthousands of people. Hungary has its own Dungeons and Dragons as well, called M.A.G.U.S. (d20). In the time, when we started to create our own, sci-fi game, the rpg in the country was getting dead, or was already dead. When we came here, all of us were hoping, if there is a chance to find a place, a group, a community what could support us. Not realy support, but something what shows interests. And i found this site, 2 days ago, where now, i can ask this:
" Should we continoue to develop an RPG here, in english. Do we have a chance that we can make something, what can be "popular" ?. Even if its just half popular than the Vampire, ADnD, Shadowrun and others. "

Anyway, thanks for reading this, and mostly if u give some advices, answers 
Proctor out.


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## hopewrites (Dec 22, 2013)

Proctor, I have found, that no matter where you go, people are people, and the things that interest people will be the same no matter where you go in life. Everyone has hopes and dreams. Everyone has fears and secrets. 
Do I think you will find interest? Sure. If your thing is interesting, you will find that passionate people will find you. If your passion drives this thing, then it will draw other passionate people to you who will draw other passionate people to them.

My advice is to go for what you believe in. If you stop to ask if it is something you should believe in, you show that you question yourself, question your belief, and you loose momentum.
If you cannot stop these questions, then maybe it is good for you to loose momentum and look around. See where your passions are driving you. Reassess if it is a path you want to be on. Maybe take another road.

Best of luck ether way.


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## Bob Whitely (Dec 23, 2013)

Hi Proctor and hopewrites!

Good to see you both around here. 

Proctor, I only know English, so you are doing quite well in my book!

I am a game designer and am on my 5th major revamp of an RPG I designed a long time ago. I've also designed a couple dozen prototypes for card and board games over the years. Sadly, I haven't had the money to publish anything, but I'm hoping Kickstarter will help with that in the long run. I also designed a huge campaign setting. These things eat huge chunks of my time, and currently I'm about to launch a Kickstarter to start publishing books that take place in my campaign setting. I say this to give you context. I've always been a dreamer and I dream big. Yet publishing RPG's is a tricky thing and extremely time-consuming and usually expensive to do well, so you will want to be very careful moving forward. 

I think we can follow our dreams and not sacrifice our passion or momentum (or at least I consider the time commitment to "doing it right" which should improve your odds of success, not a loss of momentum but an investment in your future).

One thing you could always do, and I would highly recommend, is to study the market - what's already out there, what's been done well and where some games fall short. Read reviews of RPG's. Play a lot of RPG's and read forums about what gamers are looking for, what they complain about and what they praise and talk to other gamers beyond your group. I don't mean to stop designing to do this, if you are feeling passionate, but the sooner you do research, the more it can help your bottom line. There's actually a lot to designing an RPG, or at least a good RPG. It's far harder than designing a "homebrew".

I agree with hopewrites. If it's your dream, go for it. But every dream needs to be carefully considered and brainstormed and tailored, so you get the most bang for your buck. Your time is precious, so you want to do everything you can to ensure the best possible outcome. You need to know what your goals are and make a battleplan for accomplishing them. If you are designing it with others, you also need to sort out how you will handle the financial and credit side of things as well. It is very difficult to make money designing RPG's, though it's lots of fun.

Of course, if you are just looking to make a fun game for you and your friends to play, or to share as a free RPG in Hungary, that's another matter altogether. You can do it anyway you want to and ignore market research and much of what I said above. 

If I were you, I would design your game in your own language, have a blast with your friends, playtest it and polish it. You can always pursue publishing later, once you've had a time to sort out if that's the proper route for it and as for doing it in English, you can always hire someone to translate it into English once it is ready for publication. I wish you all the best!


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## Proctor (Dec 25, 2013)

Thanks for kind replies guys, I was happy to read them, and they were quiet "useful" to get closer to a final decision.

Bob:
We already did some research back in Hungary. We already know almost everything about the financial part of publishing, printing. We did researches about the communities there as well. What im doing at the moment is, is the same, but in the UK , at this time. Thats the point of my post above. 

I forgot to mention, but we were testing the game in our language for 2 years, and it was quiet fun. We enjoyed more than any other games, including ADnD, Vampire, Shadowrun. Probably because it was our own child  nvm... 
So the true story of this game is,: we created a world, a realy unique one. We created the rules of the game, so we could start testing it. But for some reason, it wasnt a completed, proper, publishable game. These days, it is thousand pieces of a puzzle. We just need to put"em together, and open a champaigne. But we are not doing it. 
We are not doing it, because, WE, the developers, can play with this from of the game. For us to enjoy it, doesnt need to be completed. I know it sounds weird, but im pretty sure, as a game designer, writer you know what i mean Bob.
At the moment we are seeking for a reason to finish the puzzle. We want to share it with people, we want to show it to the world of RPG communities, we want people in Hungary, in UK, (actually, anywhere) to enjoy the game, we created. We dont want money for this, but still ready to spend some to make it done. We want players to tell us " man, this world, this game is awesome, i wanna play it ". This is our dream. 
So the reason we are still not finishing our game is, we dont know if there is anyone out there, who"d be interested in this. 
I know as long as im not sharing information about the game, i shouldn"t be expecting interested people. Thats why I asked about the RPG, especially PnP gamers around here. Do they exist? Are there a lot of them? Are they interested in sci-fi, or only in fantasy? And i could keep asking more. Thats why i took place in your topic Bob (oh, yeah, sorry for interrupting it   ). 
Probably we will get back to designing, polishing it again. Which language are we gonna choose? i dont know. But its our dream, and we will finish it.


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## Westie (Feb 9, 2014)

Hi There.  I'm an avid PnP gamer too, playing games from DnD, 3/3.5/4, Star Wars, James Bond (which I run!) Traveller (where I killed the whole party except me by accident) Vampire: The Masquerade, Cthulu by Gaslight, Brave New World and many others.
I used to play every Friday night for around 4 hours with a group in my home town, but work and other things got in the way.


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