I learned how to play tabletop rpgs with D&D, but I learned how to run them with TMNT & Other Strangeness.

My wife went to the trouble of learning 3.X, so that is the official version at our table. She has no interest in learning another ruleset. She even chides me for bringing Pathfinder material to the table, but like I said, it makes my job easier.

I think it only takes 3 people to play Arkham, and you could do it with 2 in a pinch.

Actually, don't. Don't ever do this. Ever.

I don't do full sandbox, but I try to keep some things in the air. Prep work has become a lot easier since Pathfinder started cranking out their "Codex" line of NPCs and monsters. If I don't have to build an 8th level Bugbear ranger for this scene, but still have stats handy for one, then I don't have to spend too…

So did I! That didn't help me get a girlfriend any more than playing D&D repelled girls, of course. That shit was just on me. But college was a different story, at least.

I think there has to be a mix - you want a plot, not a story, and that plot has to be flexible enough to adapt to whatever random thing happens at the table that night. Somebody might not make it to the game. Somebody else's dice may be on fire. Somebody else may look at the plot hook, sniff, and go shopping for spell…

Yay! I miss spoiler spaces for terrible movies I will never see.

Delta Green, man. Delta fucking Green.

I spent way more money on HeroClix than any sane man should - working at a comic store at the time just enabled me rather fiercely - but that's not what I want out of a D&D session, is all.

I'm living proof!

Also, sometimes how the dice fuck you over or make you preposterously invincible. One of the things no one can plan for is the randomness of the dice.

I stayed away from 4E for that reason - I want to roll dice and make Monty Python references. I've never used miniatures in D&D and balked at the idea that they were necessary to play the game.

Should we just start posting characters or does someone want to actually come up with a campaign idea beyond "you meet in an inn"?

When my wife started DMing, having never really played before, she started throwing monsters at us that I'd never encountered before. In nearly 30 years of slinging dice, I'd never run into a Sphinx before she used one.

Isn't it weird how a game designed to be played around a table with at least 3-4 people has become linked to the stereotype of loners with no social skills?

I've tried to listen to podcasts of people playing, too, and I just get lost.

Bummer.

Needs an asterisk somewhere…

Or Roy's.