Dungeons & Dragons

[Guest Dreadlord]

Does anyone on here play, or have you played, Dungeons & Dragons? If so, which edition and campaign setting? Let us discuss what Wheel of Time D&D would be like

[Guest leebarr]

there is a WOT role playing game. It's much like D&D and fun to play

[trakand_01]

Being a lover of rpg's and also WoT i did try to play the PC version of the game but due to the lack of any sort of practice round, got a)slaughtered and b)very motion-sick within about 5 minutes.

 

I also got confused, I appreciate that the game is only loosely based on the story, but at who is the player? Who is the man on the cliff, firing at me? Presumably Moridin or someone but i'm not sure!

[Dhaos]

The Wheel of Time Roleplaying game that Leebar refers to was published by Wizards of the Coast and is based off of the 3rd Edition D&D Ruleset.  I think it was released after Lord of Chaos, though it might have been after the next book or two.  I say this because I'm pretty sure the information in the book only covers up to Dumai's Wells.

 

I've only played a single session under the ruleset- I was DMing, and this was a few years back.  It seemed to work alright, though if you do pick up the book and are generally familiar with D&D, I'd consider porting some of the D&D 3.5 improvements back into the book.

 

Has anyone here done any Roleplaying in the WoT universe with another system?  I've always thought that the Shadowrun magic system (Spellcasters don't have spell slots; instead each spell has a chance of exhausting them, and they can keep casting until they make themselves unconcious) might be an interesting way of modelling channeling.  So anyone have any house rule sets here?

 

Also, has anyone run a game during the Age of Legends?  One of my friends suggested I try that using the WoT RPG mentioned above, but it would be a lot of work to set that up.

[Darth_Andrea]

I just checked the Wizards Of The Coast website and can't find a thing about the WoT game. Other than mentions in other articles mostly the stuff they have talking up the D20 system. So I assume it's been discontinued.

 

 

 

[glow=Green,1,500]Darth_Andrea[/glow]                 

[Guest Dreadlord]

That about casters being able to cast until unconscious sounds a lot better than the caster system in D&D, spell slots limit the caster waaaaaaay too much. Its like saying a warrior can only swing his sword once a day; considering the combat stats of casters there should be something abit better than spell slots. Iv always thought that. Magic Points would have been good, like hit points which are expended when you cast.

 

Personally Ive never played a RPG set in Wheel of Time, it sounds good except for one thing. Balefire. If someone balefired someone and it undid, say, 3 rounds of actions, how would you keep track? The DM would be under pressure to remember everything that happened in that 3 rounds. Considering some D&D groups (some of the best in my oppinion) consist of a DM and about 8 players, balefire could be the DMs worst nightmare

[Dhaos]

Darth_Andrea, I believe you are correct.  The WoT RPG was probably discontinued.  In fact, I just checked eBay- looks like people are trying to sell the main book for $75-$100.  Yikes!  You might be able to find it from a smaller online Roleplaying book place for less though, if you look hard enough.

 

Dreadlord, I totally agree with you.  Spell slots in the book they put out are handled a little better than in vanilla D&D- You can overchannel- use a spell slot for a higher-power Weave, but you risk unconciousness, death, or burning out- but they're still fundamentally limiting.

 

Balefire would both be the bane of a GM- and something really interesting to run.  I guess at the very least you'd have to keep track of each character's Hit Point total, per round.  Or maybe it would be the damage they deal to others?  In any case, a character throwing around balefire would probably stop the game for a few minutes, while the GM figures out what the hell would happen. 

 

But it sure would be a lot of fun to put together the altered cause-and-effect chain after a player does that.  Especially if you throw in some unintended consequences. =D

 

As for having 8 players- either you've got a very talented DM, or you have people who can keep things on track!  I've found that with more than 5 player characters things can start to get very slow...

 

[Alexius]

Balefire would both be the bane of a GM- and something really interesting to run.  I guess at the very least you'd have to keep track of each character's Hit Point total, per round.  Or maybe it would be the damage they deal to others?  In any case, a character throwing around balefire would probably stop the game for a few minutes, while the GM figures out what the hell would happen. 

 

But it sure would be a lot of fun to put together the altered cause-and-effect chain after a player does that.  Especially if you throw in some unintended consequences. =D

 

As for having 8 players- either you've got a very talented DM, or you have people who can keep things on track!  I've found that with more than 5 player characters things can start to get very slow...

 

 

Balefire is very nasty in-game (as in hard to cast), and can burn up to TEN DAYS out of the pattern! Admittedly, casting at that level requires either a big circle or a sa'angreal, but it would make a GM's life hell. I think you just have to make it up as you go along.

 

The game also has some interesting insights on other weaves, if it can be seen as canon. For instance, it is very difficult to sever a channeler of the opposite gender, hard enough to require the full circle of 13 led by the Amyrlin, an angreal or some overchanneling (enough to get a headache, but not enough to burn out). This does not apply to severing someone of the same gender. Also, it is possible to "re-heal" someone who has been stilled and healed, so they get their full power back.

 

However, all this should be taken with a hefty ladle of salt, given that it says severing and shielding are unrelated, when the books say the weaves are near-identical.

[Guest Dreadlord]

Indeed big groups do get hard to handle sometimes, yet in the group of 8+DM we did it was great. The party had everything it needed-a cleric, a paladin, a wizard, 2 thieves, and plenty of fighters. It was ace, we did everything tactically yet still managed to have great fun. That game set my D&D standards and believe it or not, even though it was a big group and hectic sometimes (out-of-character more so than in, lol) Ive never played a game anywhere near as fun as that one

[Darth_Andrea]

While were on the subject, I would like to mention that one of the co-creators of D&D passed away tuesday.

 

 

Taken From The Associated Press

This is an undated photo provided by the family of Gary Gygax,

who co-created the fantasy game Dungeons & Dragons and

helped start the role-playing phenomenon.

 

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

MILWAUKEE - Gary Gygax, who co-created the fantasy game Dungeons & Dragons and is widely seen as the father of the role-playing games, died Tuesday morning at his home in Lake Geneva. He was 69.

 

He had been suffering from health problems for several years, including an abdominal aneurysm, said his wife, Gail Gygax.

 

Gygax and Dave Arneson developed Dungeons & Dragons in 1974 using medieval characters and mythical creatures. The game known for its oddly shaped dice became a hit, particularly among teenage boys, and eventually was turned into video games, books and movies.

 

Gygax always enjoyed hearing from the game's legion of devoted fans, many of whom would stop by the family's home in Lake Geneva, about 55 miles southwest of Milwaukee, his wife said. Despite his declining health, he hosted weekly games of Dungeons & Dragons as recently as January, she said.

 

"It really meant a lot to him to hear from people from over the years about how he helped them become a doctor, a lawyer, a policeman, what he gave them," Gail Gygax said. "He really enjoyed that."

 

Dungeons & Dragons players create fictional characters and carry out their adventures with the help of complicated rules. The quintessential geek pastime, it spawned a wealth of copycat games and later inspired a whole genre of computer games that's still growing in popularity.

 

Born Ernest Gary Gygax, he grew up in Chicago and moved to Lake Geneva at the age of 8. Gygax's father, a Swiss immigrant who played violin in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, read fantasy books to his only son and hooked him on the genre, Gail Gygax said.

 

Gygax dropped out of high school but took anthropology classes at the University of Chicago for a while, she said. He was working as an insurance underwriter in the 1960s, when he began playing war-themed board games.

 

But Gygax wanted to create a game that involved more fantasy. To free up time to work on that, he left the insurance business and became a shoe repairman, she said.

 

Gygax also was a prolific writer and wrote dozens of fantasy books, including the Greyhawk series of adventure novels.

 

Gary Sandelin, 32, a Manhattan attorney, said his weekly Dungeons & Dragons game will be a bit sadder on Wednesday night because of Gygax's passing. The beauty of the game is that it's never quite the same, he said.

 

Funeral arrangements are pending. Besides his wife, Gygax is survived by six children.

 

 

[glow=green,1,500]Darth_Andrea[/glow]       

[Guest Dreadlord]

Harsh, I remember his name from the core books and also from D&D Online Stormreach. RIP Gary Gygax, you brought us many good times