Yakoob on 15/7/2012 at 18:10

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I've only played the classic Pen and Paper Dungeons and Dragons games a few times. Sure our long and number-full character sheets and constant dice rolls turned us into human-excell-processors, but at the end of the night, it was just a bunch of geeky friends getting together to have some non-commital fun slaying imaginary ratment and downing Potions of Cheetos.

Years later, I just played Pathfinder Society at my local "rpg/warhammer/boardgame shop" and the experience was... different. I quickly learned I wasn't just making a dual-wielding katana ninja cause katanas and ninjas are cool, I was creating a persistant character with a unique identifier and an activation code I must register on the official Pathfinder website. At the end of our first game I was presented with a some sort of accomplishment sheet with my awarded gold, items and XP, officially signed by the DM, together with his online registration number. Apparently I must also input all the information online so that I can track my character progress between sessions; I need to specify the exact session ID and dungeon master ID as well so the chap gets credit for rolling some dice for four hours. Of course, none of the items I found carry over to the next game, and I am not allowed to play the same campaign again with my character since he already "cleared" it.

My initial reaction was a big WTF - Im no longer getting together with some nerdy guys to geek and sperge out over some broadsword of fun+1, I was playing a goddamn Massively Multiplayer Online Pen and Paper Role Playing Game! "This way you can use your character when you play at other DM sessions!" That's great but... I could have already done that, it's called "bring your character sheet and, oh, fuck the rules becuase its OUR game."

It doesn't surprise me, to be honest, with the advent of social medial / social games / stat trackers that every goddamn multi-player game has nowadays, and world of PnP games being a ripe market for getting some fresh gamers into the loop. It was just kind of bizarre walking into my first game thinking "we'll just have some random fun of imagination and dice" and leaving with a stack of clerical paperwork that "breaks immersion" by making me keep track of all it online. Now I wonder if DMs who actually dare to break the rules for the sake of a better experience get chastized by others for "cheating" :|

(I was also a bit disappointed by the lunch break of obsessiveness and sperging out over the game rules and coolest items in place of actual human socializing, leaving all 8 of us knowing each others characters inside-out, but hardly even able to recall each others real names. I guess the nerdy stereotypes are still true nowadays, huh).

EDIT: just for the record, the game itself was pretty fun, with the first session decent tactical combat, and the second a talk-heavy "who dun it" type of a detective adventure!

Yakoob on 15/7/2012 at 18:47

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By god, Koki, you are are polish you should understand exaggeration an sarcasm better than that.

And yes, I should find a better group than random scrubs in a game store. But no one in my friend circle is into this stuff really, so random peoples is about the only way I can play it nowadays :/

(also I didnt actually end up playing a dual-katana wielding ninja. I went with the sexy elven rogue girl because IMAGINARY TITS)

Melan on 15/7/2012 at 19:23

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You stumbled into organised play, which keeps track of stuff to keep things consistent between different GMs. Theoretically, this means you can play Killfuck Soulshitter in other official Pathfinder Society events, plus I believe there are various reward schemes and such. The problems you mention seem to be very common in the tournament/organised play scene. Bitching about game balance, the exact meaning of the rules, proper rewards for proper challenges and all that. Sometimes that's because these games become repositories for people kicked from home campaigns for being annoying gits.

If I were you, I'd just pilfer the people I found cool and interesting and get a game going without the organised play stuff. There are people out there playing any conceivable type of D&D, from 1974-style Original D&D to Hasbro's 4th edition, the new 5th ed playtest and anything in between.

DDL on 16/7/2012 at 08:26

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Sometimes it amazes me how quickly even truly retarded names can be grabbed, and how happy additional people are to be "retardedname+NUMBERS".

Also, this potentially means that people in a fucking PnP RPG are now walking around with characters that actually have numbers in them...




..actually, I'm not altogether sure whether that's an awful thought or a hilarious one. Or both.