Good times around the table top
That Legal Research paper is outta here! Turns out that when I checked it out yesterday, I was much closer to being done than I earlier realized. I worked on it for about another hour-and-a-half yesterday, and I was done before noon on Sunday. Nice! It's not technically due until Wednesday, so I'm going to hang onto it for a day or two -- do one more read-through with a clear head, and make any last-minute adjustments that seem necessary. I am apparently Queen of the Hyphen today!
Dr. Mysterio, Il Bosonova, and Mr. Smash, at it again!
Since I finished up so early, that left our afternoon and evening open to have our friends, Mac & John over to table-top with us. Ian's running an Aberrant super heroesvillains campaign for us. This is a really fun game! I don't believe I've ever played in such a continuing fashion with such a small group -- just the four of us. It's easy to get together, combat moves quickly, it never gets too loud, everyone is included -- it's really nice, actually. Mac, John, and I decided to play super villains instead of heroes for a change of roleplaying pace. We're specifically "criminals but not douchebags" by nature, as we thought that would be the most fun. We thought the campaign would be a lot of bank robberies and that sort of thing -- and it started out that way. Then it turned out that the alleged good guys are really pretty dicky, and doing some shady stuff, so we're more like anti-heroes who hate both "The Man" and his agents, "the pigs." For instance, our team took a collective disadvantage that we have to stop and leave our calling card at the end of every caper. We chose gold spray paint -- we paint the criminal codes for whatever crimes we've committed at that scene. Natch, we record this for display on our Dr. Horrible-style video blog for our fans! The roleplay is amusing in its silliness!
Last night I put my finger on something which is really a nice feature of this game. I knew I liked it, but I couldn't quite quantify just what I liked so much about it until Sunday evening's session. My character - Dr. Mysterio - is a mentalist. I have this inexpensive little power which is a Psychic Link for our three team members. Ian is extremely generous with the way he lets us use this. He lets us have these long, drawn-out mental conversations which take virtually no real time. During combat rounds, in time which is really like a few seconds, or fractions of a second or something, we have these long, elaborate conversations, often about strategy or planning. It's very different from a system such as Pathfinder, which is what we usually play together, wherein conversation is limited to 6 words during one combat round. We've discovered that this little "cheater" ability we have ends up creating a wonderful balance between our love of combat and action, as well as our desire to actually roleplay and interact. We get the best of both worlds! Our favorite sessions seem to have been ones like last night wherein it was All Combat All The Time with a good variety and number of enemies, fun results in the dice rolls, but we still had lots of interaction among us and roleplay. This also helps tremendously in keeping everyone's mind in and on the game rather than wandering off into side conversation or activity when it's not your turn. That further keeps the game moving quickly, and helps interactivity.
I kind of miss Pathfinder - and I am indeed still thinking of doing my own campaign - but I'm having a great time with this group of friends. Super heroes were my first love for roleplaying, so it's good to "get back home," as it were.
Okay, off to Walmart at lunch to grab a few essentials!
Trace
Dr. Mysterio, Il Bosonova, and Mr. Smash, at it again!
Since I finished up so early, that left our afternoon and evening open to have our friends, Mac & John over to table-top with us. Ian's running an Aberrant super heroesvillains campaign for us. This is a really fun game! I don't believe I've ever played in such a continuing fashion with such a small group -- just the four of us. It's easy to get together, combat moves quickly, it never gets too loud, everyone is included -- it's really nice, actually. Mac, John, and I decided to play super villains instead of heroes for a change of roleplaying pace. We're specifically "criminals but not douchebags" by nature, as we thought that would be the most fun. We thought the campaign would be a lot of bank robberies and that sort of thing -- and it started out that way. Then it turned out that the alleged good guys are really pretty dicky, and doing some shady stuff, so we're more like anti-heroes who hate both "The Man" and his agents, "the pigs." For instance, our team took a collective disadvantage that we have to stop and leave our calling card at the end of every caper. We chose gold spray paint -- we paint the criminal codes for whatever crimes we've committed at that scene. Natch, we record this for display on our Dr. Horrible-style video blog for our fans! The roleplay is amusing in its silliness!
Last night I put my finger on something which is really a nice feature of this game. I knew I liked it, but I couldn't quite quantify just what I liked so much about it until Sunday evening's session. My character - Dr. Mysterio - is a mentalist. I have this inexpensive little power which is a Psychic Link for our three team members. Ian is extremely generous with the way he lets us use this. He lets us have these long, drawn-out mental conversations which take virtually no real time. During combat rounds, in time which is really like a few seconds, or fractions of a second or something, we have these long, elaborate conversations, often about strategy or planning. It's very different from a system such as Pathfinder, which is what we usually play together, wherein conversation is limited to 6 words during one combat round. We've discovered that this little "cheater" ability we have ends up creating a wonderful balance between our love of combat and action, as well as our desire to actually roleplay and interact. We get the best of both worlds! Our favorite sessions seem to have been ones like last night wherein it was All Combat All The Time with a good variety and number of enemies, fun results in the dice rolls, but we still had lots of interaction among us and roleplay. This also helps tremendously in keeping everyone's mind in and on the game rather than wandering off into side conversation or activity when it's not your turn. That further keeps the game moving quickly, and helps interactivity.
I kind of miss Pathfinder - and I am indeed still thinking of doing my own campaign - but I'm having a great time with this group of friends. Super heroes were my first love for roleplaying, so it's good to "get back home," as it were.
Okay, off to Walmart at lunch to grab a few essentials!
Trace