Guilty Admissions...

[Zelda Themelin]

My name is Zelda Themelin and....

- I really like powergaming and playing in character, people who make intensionally weak characters "for roleplaying reasons" irk me
- I never really have played or want to play in Eberron but I own every damn book
- I don't like Forgotten Realms or Star Wars, especially later never felt to me as universe good for roleplaying
- I don't like Planescape, but I like storyhours of people who like and write Planescape stuff
- I hate 4th edition, I also own quite a few books of it
- I really like 3d edition d&d
- I prefer to play humans, they almost never stay that way *sign*
- I like sexual themes in d&d I don't get why they should be missing from rpg:s any more than from action movies. I think it's some kinda american thing
- I really like Luis Royo's art
- Most people I've played with want me to play evil characters at some point
- I am obsessed adding theme-music into games I play or dm
- I like making unusual backgrounds for characters
- I prefer to play horror-fantasy-scifi games with eventual uber cosmic plotlines
- or modern horror games
- or high fantasy games with movie-like plot-lines
- most of people I play with hate horror *sniff*
- I totally got worked over how good idea sorcerer was and how weak character class it was (d&d 3rd)
- I collect way too many books

 

[Pbartender]

• I often wonder what people on these boards are like in real life.

Hello, my name is Pbartender, and I...

• ...love anchovies on pizza.
• ...also love pickled herring for that matter, but not on pizza.
• ...can't stand people who pretend to wash their hands after using a public toilet.
• ...have a pet snake at work.
• ...can't remember the last time I went to the dentist.
• ...once made good money singing tenor in a barbershop quartet.
• ...can't sleep more than three hours at a time.
• ...want to turn my entire front yard into a flower garden using plants native to the Illinois prairie.
• ...can't grow a proper mustache to save my life.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Hi, everyone. My name is the_orc_within, and I have a problem.

• I am sometimes ashamed of my love of gaming, and hide it from others.
• I threw away most of the gaming notes and binders from my youth during a move after college. The pain from this is unending.
• I hate spiky hair, functionless buckles and oversized weapons.
• I hate canon lawyers and stage-hogging DMPCs.
• I hate beholders, colored dragons and time stop.
• I love 3.5e, but I hate 3.5e statblocks.
• I am a cheater: I sometimes do BECMI behind 3.5e's back.
• I hate high-level wahoo play, but I love low-level wahoo play.
• I think about playing vastly more that I actually play. This keeps me sad.
• I would prefer to go on a date with a woman drawn by Larry Elmore than one drawn by Erol Otus.

 

[Mallus]

Hello, my name is Mallus --well, more often it's Scott-- and I...

• ... like hobbits fine in Tolkien. In D&D they should be waxed and then stuffed.

• ... have never played OD&D.

• ... think mapping should be left to those with a cartographer fetish. Or actual cartographers.

• ... think robots and the occasional crashed spaceship belong in D&D.

• ... used to hate puns in D&D. I got better.

• ... love parodying fantasy and science fiction almost as much as I love fantasy and science fiction.

• ... think nothing makes a game sillier than trying to be very serious.

• ... am not such a bad optimizer when I put my mind to it.

• ... think the thing D&D closest resembles is anime.

 

[Wild Gazebo]

Hello, my name is Wild Gazebo and I...

• Think Gary Gygax's writing comes off as ridiculous and pretentious at the same time.
  
• Feel that most Forgotten Realms characters are silly...but not good silly.
  
• Paradoxically, I love Raistlin from Dragonlance (I can't figure this one out).
  
• Love to create and play useless PCs...conversely, hate to DM for them.
  
• Once created a dwarven bard who only played his, carriage driven, pipe organ.
  
• Was that stupid kid who always named his PCs after the protagonist of the last book he read.
  
• Have had several reoccuring 'vanity' PCs appear as NPCs.
  
• Like creating worlds better than DMing them.
  
• Like every version of D&D and think every iteration lends something good and new...taste prefferences aside.
  
• Have bullied players into actions so that it is easier for me to DM.
  
• Have whined about DM calls in game (I know...I'm sorry).
  
• Buy game books knowing I will never use them.
  
• Gave away all (most) of my game books from 1979 to 1995 to a local game club...who then sold them instead of making a library for the club.
  
• love laughter at the game table.
  
• Hate having one evil PC in a group of good PCs. Though the reverse is just plain fun.
  
• Once made a riddle and prophecy based upon Stairway to Heaven by Led Zepplin that dominated the whole campaign.
  
• Love low level, urban based, human adventures.
  
• Once fireballed a wemic in Waterdeep just to watch him die.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Well, my name is Ari, and...

• I so misunderstood how to use modules when I was a kid that, when I first ran Keep on the Borderlands, I gave the player (it was a 1-on-1 game) the map, and just had him encounter all the rooms in the order they appeared in the book.

• I despise sandbox games. I don't want a full-on railroad, but I do want plot/story.

• Though I want my games to have both, I'd rather a night of all RP than a night of all dice-rolling.

• I believe that it's part of the players' obligation to create characters who can work together.

• I believe that a game in which PC backstories never have the chance to come up is a flawed game.

• I believe that gamers who don't read fantasy novels aren't just missing out, but are running inherently inferior games. (Don't hate.)

• I feel that people who use WoW terminology during a D&D game should be taken out back and shot.

• I believe that failure to describe what you're doing in combat--IOW, just calling out a power name/number--is poor RP.

• I believe that every edition of D&D does some things better than every other edition, and not a one of them is the Platonic Ideal of what D&D "could be."

 

[lin_fusan]

My name is lin_fusan, and I:

• Wince every time my girlfriend mentions in public that I play roleplaying games.
• Would rather admit in public that I watch hardcore pr0n than admit that I play roleplaying games.
• Enjoy creating pages upon pages of backstory for my campaigns, even if players only encounter a third of it.
• Enjoy complaining that my players only encounter a third of my backstory.
• Love mapping the old school way with graph paper.
• Can't get a gaming group going to save his life.
• Think I'm an awesome roleplayer, but freeze up in unfamiliar, public gaming sessions.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I don't feel guilty about any of this stuff (or anything in gaming), but I suppose the real point is things that you do that other people might expect you to feel guilty of ... So:

1. I think Jar-Jar Binks was rather minor in the list of things screwed up in Star Wars, and collectively that list has made it impossible for me to take even remotely seriously any Star Wars gaming session ... or people getting worked up over Binks.

2. I don't consider humor or horror very interesting as gaming genres in and off themselves. I prefer them as "spices" applied to some other genre. Playing a horror game is like putting a little pasta and marinara on your garlic dinner.

3. I think that many things people say are "impossible" in gaming are actually statements of, "We tried that once. Didn't know what we were doing. It didn't work. If we can't do it, then obviously no one can." This is the only explanation I have for why people routinely assert that things that happen at my table are "impossible".

4. Conversely, sometime you just gotta know your limits. It might be possible for me to learn to do good, dramatic voices as a GM, but I'm not sure the years of ridicule from my players over the unintentially bad ones would be worth it.

5. I've lost all patience with modern fantasy authors confusing "character depth" with, "cramming 150 pages worth of story into 600 pages of angst." Before being allowed to publish again, all such authors and their editors should be made to read everything Steven Brust has ever written, including the deliberately long-winded stuff, and explain how and why it works as it does, in an essay that uses only 1 and 2 syllable words. The strain of doing that might kill a few of them, but I can live with it ...

6. I think novelty is vastly over-rated in actual game play (not so much when reading gaming materials for fun). I've seen players have quite a good time playing humans, dwarves, elves, etc. versus goblins, trolls, etc.

7. (Forgot one.) I have an unreasonable bias against psionics in fantasy gaming.

 

[jdrakeh]

My name is James, and I:

• Prefer to explore D&D settings using The Window.
• Hate the Monk class in all editions of D&D that it has appeared.
• Hate the Cleric class in all editions of D&D that it has appeared.
• Hate pun/joke names in D&D (whether characters or places).
• Was thrilled that Gnomes weren't in the 4e Player's Handbook.
• Dislike almost everything Gary Gygax wrote, except the OD&D and AD&D core books.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

I am DocMoriartty, my real name is irrelevant, i:

- Have played since oD&D, but only followed all the rules since 3.0 mostly out of group laziness in the rules.
- Hated the very concept of Spelljammer
- Love the Ravenloft setting though I have never played in it even once.
- Do not currently play in a game due to quitting my last group.
- Love tweaking new characters for hours to create the right balance of skull and flavor. Creating a psion character can increase this 3 fold.
- Read a bit of 4E and never found an ounce of interest.
- Used to enjoy painting minis but was only ever average at it.
- Guilty of always including the "Lusty Boar Tavern" in every campaign I have ever DMed.
- Believe pizza is the ultimate gaming food and should be made the only legal gaming table meal.
- Sold all of my gaming books over the last couple years. Now everything I have is in digital format.
- Love reading campaign setting guides.