Recent content by Venley

Only masochists need apply to play Sorcerors or Druids. Other classes can get by with some use of Willpower and some times without. Spellcasters only function by hurting themselves. So like a lowbie 1st edition AD&D wizard, you need to do a lot of roleplaying between the spellcasting.

I play other games in the same way that I eat other breads than sliced white plastic. Other games are tastier: they are my granary, soda, onion, cheese and rye breads. Sometimes I want a basic bit of toast and for that sliced white is nicest and sometimes I want a basic generic fantasy and for...

Yes, when I see folks arguing that Farmville, etc. are not worthy of being counted as video games then it feels like the same gatekeeping as in the world of rpgs. Where I have seen men who feel that unless there is crunch, it does not count. And that arriving from the improvisational theatre end...

Thank you Lylandra. That is so much my feeling too.

Forums skew to the older, whereas much of the rise is amongst the young, often coming to gaming via youtube. As an anecdotal data point, 40 years after I first started gaming, I am back playing at NoDDSoc in Sheffield. The 14 original gamers of 1979 (3 female, 1 on the committee) are now 130...

"Fantasy rolegames are often accused of sexism... This causes great problems for the hobby since it deters many women from participating. Yet women can enjoy gaming, so how do we make the games more attractive to them?... The key to a game which women will enjoy is to cut the sexual...

Anywhere from about 250 to around 5000 hours depending on the game. Other than those where we are trying something out which may be 10-30 hours or so. But proper campaigns go on for years: Al Qadim, L5R, Glorantha, Harn, Ars Magica, WFRP besides all the ancient D&D we played back in the day...

For scenarios one can utilise much of Harn. http://luschekillustrationblog.blogspot.com/ http://columbiagames.com/harn/index.html http://kelestia.com/ https://www.lythia.com/ Harn has been doing C&S well since 1983 ;) .

That could be part of the difference between what Celebrim remembers and what I do. I started in '79 in the summer vacation between 1st and second year of university. So I was already 19, already working on archaeological sites. And almost all my fellow gamers were (still are for the most part)...

Perhaps that is true for you Celebrim but I can tell you as a female gamer that a) I and the first dozen or so women gamers I knew did not come into gaming via boyfriends/fathers etc. That has more commonly been my experience of the past 20 years rather than the first 20 years. b) I have never...

In my experience the bullying/harassment was by men & boys: staring, glaring, unfriendly remarks, overfriendly remarks, unwanted touching, unwarranted 'jokes'. Perhaps different for teenagers but that was my experience of the rp scene in the '80s outside of my immediate friendship circle.

There were so many things offputting about gaming in the '80s if one were female. Yes, harder to get into as it was rarer overall, had a nerdy rep & a rep as being for boys. But also: the illustrations, the figures, the assumptions in scenarios, the way many groups (& games) were so combat...

I was in the UK, bought every White Dwarf till it became a magazine promoting solely Games Workshop games, was 27 at the time and had been playing for 8 years and did not reply to the poll. I remember being appalled at the gender percentages. While at university my experience had been 2 female...

I'm not sure that you are talking about the same thing Jhaelen. In-character discussions, eg. whether to support the building project of Lathander or Chauntea, speculations on how to market some of the local products of the PCs' manor... interesting to 2 of the PCs but not to the knight who just...

Very common with my main group. Between 2 or more players or between a player and GM. Also by email or over the phone. In fact, I just received an email this morning from one of my L5R players that's an in-character letter to her daimyo. And some write fiction for backstories or afterstories...