Gospog
First Post
I've known my wife (fluffaderm on the boards) and her family for close to 10 years now. I've been a RPG gamer for over 20.
Needless to say, there have been many conversations about my hobby and they always have been cool with it.
The last year or two, however, has seen a dramatic rise in questions (and good natured harrassment) about RPGs. So I finally threw together a really basic rules system, and pulled out the miniatures. I call the system QLM (ask Doc Midnight if you really want to know what it stands for) and convinced everyone to sit down for a "demonstration".
Assembled at the table were my wife (an RPG veteran of several years), her Mom, her two sisters (aged 22 and 19), and the older sister's husband (age 25).
With the exception of my wife, none of them had ever played an RPG of any kind (even on a computer) or seen one played. They had all seen LotR, and liked it, however, which was worked into QLM to give them a point of reference.
QLM itself is a super-simple mix of 1st Ed D&D, with a dice pool mechanic I pretty much stole from the excellent game Inspectres.
Each player was encouraged to make a character "whatever they want".
My wife made an elf ranger type character. Throwing knives and a crossbow. Pretty standard.
The younger sister, we'll call her H, was the first surprise of the evening. She wanted to be a male, bearded, old wizard. Archimedes the wizard was his name. She then picked out three spells: Magic Missile, Magic Weapon, and Healing (see QLM page 1). Done.
The older sister, we'll call her K, also wanted to be a man (I thought this was interesting). She became Bobbit the Hobbit, and opted to be "really sneaky". She carried a knife and a black-jack type weapon.
K's husband, M, decided he was Dobby from Harry Potter. But he carried a giant wooden club, and had just two spells: magic weapon and healing (See QLM page 1).
My wife's Mom, C, decided she was a magical fairy. The rules didn't really cover this, but we figured "why not?". She carried a tiny sword but opted to have no magic. (see QLM page 1)
The group signed on as caravan guards for thier friend who was moving his bar to a town three days away. On the way, they get attacked by goblins and PANIC. This was just beautiful.
My wife, having played lots of D&D, saw goblins, and immediately stated to kill them. The other players were stricken with terror! We had people hiding under wagons, attacking, and the fairy trying to Charm a goblin into doing a dance for her! The rules worked well enough (see QLM page 1) and things moved really quickly.
After a round or two, the PCs rally and chase the goblins off, but Otto, the man they are guarding, has been poisoned and needs a real doctor quickly, or he'll die!
And so they rush hm to town, and start the second part of the game. I won't list it all here, but I was REALLY impressed with the high quality of game play from these "newbies". They took a few minutes to get used to the ideas that they were not all competing against each other, and the idea that sometimes they acted in turns and sometimes not, but otherwise had no problems at all!
And they found tremendously creative ways to overcome problems, quite often avoiding combat at all costs!
At the end of the game, I got the best reward any GM can get. My players,at 9:45 PM, now fully blooded RPG veterans, looked up and me and said "What? That's it?"
Yay! We'll play again soon.
Just wanted to share the joy of "spreading the disease".
Needless to say, there have been many conversations about my hobby and they always have been cool with it.
The last year or two, however, has seen a dramatic rise in questions (and good natured harrassment) about RPGs. So I finally threw together a really basic rules system, and pulled out the miniatures. I call the system QLM (ask Doc Midnight if you really want to know what it stands for) and convinced everyone to sit down for a "demonstration".
Assembled at the table were my wife (an RPG veteran of several years), her Mom, her two sisters (aged 22 and 19), and the older sister's husband (age 25).
With the exception of my wife, none of them had ever played an RPG of any kind (even on a computer) or seen one played. They had all seen LotR, and liked it, however, which was worked into QLM to give them a point of reference.
QLM itself is a super-simple mix of 1st Ed D&D, with a dice pool mechanic I pretty much stole from the excellent game Inspectres.
Each player was encouraged to make a character "whatever they want".
My wife made an elf ranger type character. Throwing knives and a crossbow. Pretty standard.
The younger sister, we'll call her H, was the first surprise of the evening. She wanted to be a male, bearded, old wizard. Archimedes the wizard was his name. She then picked out three spells: Magic Missile, Magic Weapon, and Healing (see QLM page 1). Done.
The older sister, we'll call her K, also wanted to be a man (I thought this was interesting). She became Bobbit the Hobbit, and opted to be "really sneaky". She carried a knife and a black-jack type weapon.
K's husband, M, decided he was Dobby from Harry Potter. But he carried a giant wooden club, and had just two spells: magic weapon and healing (See QLM page 1).
My wife's Mom, C, decided she was a magical fairy. The rules didn't really cover this, but we figured "why not?". She carried a tiny sword but opted to have no magic. (see QLM page 1)
The group signed on as caravan guards for thier friend who was moving his bar to a town three days away. On the way, they get attacked by goblins and PANIC. This was just beautiful.
My wife, having played lots of D&D, saw goblins, and immediately stated to kill them. The other players were stricken with terror! We had people hiding under wagons, attacking, and the fairy trying to Charm a goblin into doing a dance for her! The rules worked well enough (see QLM page 1) and things moved really quickly.
After a round or two, the PCs rally and chase the goblins off, but Otto, the man they are guarding, has been poisoned and needs a real doctor quickly, or he'll die!
And so they rush hm to town, and start the second part of the game. I won't list it all here, but I was REALLY impressed with the high quality of game play from these "newbies". They took a few minutes to get used to the ideas that they were not all competing against each other, and the idea that sometimes they acted in turns and sometimes not, but otherwise had no problems at all!
And they found tremendously creative ways to overcome problems, quite often avoiding combat at all costs!
At the end of the game, I got the best reward any GM can get. My players,at 9:45 PM, now fully blooded RPG veterans, looked up and me and said "What? That's it?"
Yay! We'll play again soon.
Just wanted to share the joy of "spreading the disease".
