Roleplaying
Here you can find descriptions, links and characters for various games that I've played. Since I moved out to Boston, I've been keeping a quote board of fun things said in game.
Shadowrun is a game by FASA, though now that they're going out of business Wizkids LLC will be taking over the product. Wizkids was started by one of the founders of FASA, so hopefully this bodes well for this game we both love... We played it at Carleton for many years.
My two characters for this game were Shadowserpent, a decker, and Taggart, a street samurai. Both characters remain to this day two of my favorites. Taggart liked to blow things up. Her specialty was C12, and on at least one occasion she set the timer for shorter than other members of the party could get out of the way... She was sad when Dirge no longer became her drinking partner due to his change and loss of humanity (owing to GM-induced negative essence).
Shadow, on the other hand, by the end of the two years I played her for, was an extremely good decker. She loved her boa constrictor, which had an entire room in her flat to itself. She also loved toys, and got together with Overkill because he tended to spend all his money on things like his "entertainment wall". To this day, I hope to play her in the final episode of our GM's three-parter that he wrote...
Call Of Cthulhu
We will be starting Nocturnum in February 2005.
In Boston, we played in a few Cthulhu games. This is a game where many quotes were generated, my favorite being the scene with Katya and Elizabeth in the plane. We played Masks as well as Mountains of Madness. Cthulhu is published by Chaosium, Inc.
Characters for Masks included George Smythe (Wesson), an archaelogist who eventually sold his soul to Nyarlothotep in exchange for fame and a post at the British Museum. This caused him to spiral down into despair, the guilt consuming him until he nearly committed suicide, being saved from that fate only by being blown to bits accidentally by Katya. Um...
He was followed by Jeanette, a psychologist the group decided to hire to help them cope with their... issues. Initially disbelieving and trying to help them overcome their delusions, she eventually realized that indeed they were telling the truth (when she saw a critter). Her one sadness was that she Adrian never let her help him, despite all her efforts. She had a bit of a crush on him, and his death combined with what she saw off the coast of Shanghai caused her later to research more into the dark doings...
Characters for MoM can be found on the webpages above.
I hope to run a game based on Fantasy Flight Games' Nocturnum sometime next year.
The Cthulhu Hymnal has many great songs for the clinically insane.
Nobilis
I played in three games of Nobilis while in Boston. The second game followed the first one by about five years game-time, and we all played the same characters, with some changes enforced by our Imperator, Alak-Mu, or worked on by the PCs themselves. My character, Wakadja the Thunder Bird, has for example worked off her "poor aim" flaw, after missing pretty much everyone she tried to hurt in the last game...and nearly hitting her brothers and sisters with a solar flare. The third game, we designed new characters, and I am playing Death (Didi) as styled after Neil Gaiman's Sandman character. More information about plots and characters themselves can be seen on Amy's roleplaying website.
In Salt Lake, Charles ran a Nobilis game of his own. He's also created a Nobilis FAQ with some handy information for those who haven't been able to get the book yet. The first edition is out of print but the second edition has finally come out! It's bigger more complete and very pretty.
Charles and I are running a PBeM game of Nobilis. It is set in a Jules-Vernesque world, here on Earth with some colonies in the rest of the solar system. We have to put some resources online.
We originally started to take the mechanics of this game and incorporate it into one-shots in between chapters of Nobilis. The intent was to use this for Cthulhu later on - we all like the system much better (We wound up using the system for Mountains of Madness). It incorporates something I like from ShadowRun, the "related or general skill" rolls but is far less complex than ShadowRun mechanics. Here is a character I made for this set of mechanics, for a spy game which included unnatural things. UA is published by Atlas Games and has an official website (not run by Atlas Games) at unknown-armies.com where you can find a fillable PDF character sheet. Charles will be running a new game in the UA setting coming soon, with the MSP group.
(Big Eyes, Small Mouth)
This is an anime roleplaying game - it's geared toward pretty much any anime you've ever seen, put out by Guardians of Order. They provide a PDF character sheet for download as well. Currently we are playing in the Greshland Chronicles, a (sort of) short game set in a fantasy-type world of Charles' devising. My character, Kerani, is a former-miner-turned-heroine.
I just finished running a Discworld; my first full campaign. Check out the website for more info. Discworld is published by Steve Jackson Games.
Feng Shui
An action-movie roleplaying game, including anything from Die Hard to Kung Fu Hustle. Originally published by Daedalus Entertainment, it is now a product of Atlas Games. They have a PDF character sheet available as well. We did one campaign set in a world with airships similar to Miyazaki's Castle in the Sky or Girl Genius with flavors of Western films, ninjas, pirates, ninja-pirates, sorcery and the supernatural creatures. We intend to continue the story...
PBeMs that I have played in, or am playing in:
Lastly, when I was in grad school I didn't have the time to run a game, and I didn't know anyone else who has the time. Thus, I entered the world of Play By E-Mail games. These PBeMs let me game while not taking too much time. Since these are all via email, it's reasonably easy to keep logs of what happened online.
I ran a game of Phantasy Conclave, or more correctly, a generic fantasy game, which wound up having somewhat comedic elements, largely due to the characters/players I had. Unfortunately, I won't be able to put the game files back online until we're hosting our own site.
I began to run another game in the same world in which space explorers from Earth crash-landed on the planet. Arthfall didn't last long, however, due to lack of player posting. The one neat thing was that Epsilon Eridiani, the star which I had designated as the destination, was found to have planets around it shortly after the game started. For the same reason as Phantasy Conclave, game logs such that exist will have to wait.
10. Can have a sidekick.
9. Occasional discrepancies in hair and eye color explainable as careless writing.
8. Never have to go to the bathroom unless it?s necessary to the plot, which it rarely is.
7. Can ask Zoe out to dinner, if I promise not to say the magic word that turns her into a camel.
6. Can (unlike real human beings) wear a superhero costume without looking ridiculous.
5. Eligible for advantages which require an Unusual Background.
4. No longer have faults, merely dramatic flaws.
3. Can trademark own name.
2. Cannot be harmed by ordinary weapons.
And the number one advantage to being a fictional character:
1. TOLD you I was too good to be true!
--Steve Jackson
A Haiku written for healing my JID elf mage:
"Kaliel is hurt
like icecicles that melt in spring.
Make her better please."
