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May. 6th, 2004
Warning: Geek Factor 5, err... 11
May. 6th, 2004 11:16 pmWhen I moved from Texas to the Pacific Northwest, I had been divorced for several years and living alone. Much of my free-time was spent then, as it still is now, gaming (as in pen & paper gaming ala D&D, not casino gaming) for both the social interaction and the creative and imaginative activity it can be when it is at it's best. One of the great benefits of the RPGA Living campaigns is that when you move you can still keep playing--unlike home games, to which my friend ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
royalbananafish can attest.
Unfortunately, not all the campaigns had active player communities locally. So in order for me to actually get to play Living Force--the RPGA's Star Wars RPG campaign--, I had to travel to cons far away when I could and play the games online otherwise. By online, I mean via AOL AIM chat for 6-8 hours at a stretch for what is normally a 4-5 hour slot face-to-face.
I was fortunate to find an active group that plays online often, and I quickly became a regular in their events. Some of them are on the East coast, but the majority of them live in different states and only see each other at major cons. Without them, I would have only gotten to play the campaign rarely, and locally I'm the primary judge running these events so I'd have ended up missing out on a lot of play for my character.
In a way, this group has become a 'home' group experience as I've been playing with the same players and the same characters for over two years now. Online roleplaying is less distracted by the reality of seven people sitting around a table rolling dice, and we've developed a rapport between our characters that feels like "family". There are a few characters I play with almost every game, and others that I play with occasionally whose games are run by one of my regular playing companions. We've all shared our moments of cinematic glory, near defeat, shared threat, frustration, and relief. In character we often spend an hour or two at the start of each session chit-chatting, inquiring about relatives and friends, and generally gabbing like mad. We as players know each other's characters very well and that comes through in our IC conversations. We've saved each other's butts over the years, and seen each other at our best and worst.
This campaign has a very low death rate, particularly compared to the D&D RPGA campaigns, partly because unlike those fantasy settings character death is permanent. The Star Wars d20 RPG is cinematic and while it is possible to get vapped by a really big blaster cannon, in practice the scenarios rarely run serious risk of killing characters. So, it came as somewhat of a shock when last week I received the following IC message via e-mail:
( read more )
royalbananafish can attest.Unfortunately, not all the campaigns had active player communities locally. So in order for me to actually get to play Living Force--the RPGA's Star Wars RPG campaign--, I had to travel to cons far away when I could and play the games online otherwise. By online, I mean via AOL AIM chat for 6-8 hours at a stretch for what is normally a 4-5 hour slot face-to-face.
I was fortunate to find an active group that plays online often, and I quickly became a regular in their events. Some of them are on the East coast, but the majority of them live in different states and only see each other at major cons. Without them, I would have only gotten to play the campaign rarely, and locally I'm the primary judge running these events so I'd have ended up missing out on a lot of play for my character.
In a way, this group has become a 'home' group experience as I've been playing with the same players and the same characters for over two years now. Online roleplaying is less distracted by the reality of seven people sitting around a table rolling dice, and we've developed a rapport between our characters that feels like "family". There are a few characters I play with almost every game, and others that I play with occasionally whose games are run by one of my regular playing companions. We've all shared our moments of cinematic glory, near defeat, shared threat, frustration, and relief. In character we often spend an hour or two at the start of each session chit-chatting, inquiring about relatives and friends, and generally gabbing like mad. We as players know each other's characters very well and that comes through in our IC conversations. We've saved each other's butts over the years, and seen each other at our best and worst.
This campaign has a very low death rate, particularly compared to the D&D RPGA campaigns, partly because unlike those fantasy settings character death is permanent. The Star Wars d20 RPG is cinematic and while it is possible to get vapped by a really big blaster cannon, in practice the scenarios rarely run serious risk of killing characters. So, it came as somewhat of a shock when last week I received the following IC message via e-mail:
( read more )