Vnlr: Why yes, actually :D

Our first campaigns were with a very ancient edition of the Black Eye (Oog des meesters?) I believe it was a German system. Then we did a mini campaign with The Masquerade while off in Sweden, which is the first one I narrated and DM'ed.

After that we did D&D 4.0 for a few years, followed by trying a few other settings/systems such as Fading Suns (great with some tweaks) and A song of Ice and Fire which we actually used for a Lord of the Rings 1st era campaign.

When a new player joined up he advocated 3.5 and we played that for a short while, and it was mostly fine with me but the other players preferred 4.0 so about a few months ago we made the move back, which went rather smoothly even for the 3.5 player who didn't have prior experience but who was rather predisposed (since apparently it was garbage).

GhostwriterDoF: Aye! I'm doing the cold brew coffee thing, Less acids and oils in the brewing with all the caffeine. :)

How's the music composing coming along?

pimpmonkey2382.313: Problem with the 3.x line is it's more about power gaming than anything and figuring out how to exploit the skills system to do just that. Rather than working together to solve problems 3.x is basically "Lets see how powerful I can get just my character!"

Vnlr: I prefer it warm but not-quite hot and 1 volume of coffee with 1 volume of milk (half-half), no sugar.

I tried writing some tidbits but nothing great came of it. Someday's it just won't work out so I let it be. I finished a few Baglama pieces for my brother yesterday and they turned out to be satisfactory (which is what I mostly aim for).

I have been reworking that string sextet a bit more though.
Vnlr: Well, at level 8 the new player did have a character with caster level 40 and a spell selection thrice the page count of his character sheet .... Which was kind of new and not entirely welcome to us ;)

pimpmonkey2382.313: Yeah the min/maxing in that system is annoying. Granted I do own some of the 3.x systems (star wars, pathfinder, etc.) But I hardly, if ever, use them.

Vnlr: Well, I can work with D&D 4.0 well enough. Besides, I feel that rules should be secondary to narration and player interaction with the world at all times. And all of the party except the new person like the power-based system from D&D 4 quite a bit better than 3.5's, especially with the rather freestyle twist with which we do combat encounters.

Naturaly, the 3.5 person cannot have his omnipotent mage anymore which kind of upset him at first; apparently D&D 4.0 takes all of the creativity out of your character?

Oh well, it's a bit of a non-debate, taking my time now to scroll through the numerous bashing posts on blogs.

Hearsay has it that D&D has never been a really great system to start with. Which is why I wanted to give Runequest or Earthdawn 3rd a try sometimes.

pimpmonkey2382.313: It actually did have a great system to start, especially with 1947 Original D&D and then basic. :P It just got more convoluted with advanced, etc. Though if you're looking for story over mechanics, D&D is definitely looking in the wrong place. Might be more comfortable with something using the D6 system or World of Darkness. :P

Vnlr: World of Darkness was nice indeed. It was the first campaign I DM'ed and I think I might do better with it if we tried it again. I still have the Vampire: Masquerade rulebook from 2002. Might look back into that at some time.

As I said, D&D is passable, but as we use it it is stripped so bare only the framework and a bit of combat content and magic items are left at all...

I don't think I know the D6 system. I know D&D, The Victory point system for Fading Suns and the entirely D6-based but-probably-not-what-you-mean system from The game of thrones RPG.

I read that Runequest is a viable early alternative and uses percentile dice which I have no experience with whatsoever, and I can't for the life of me remember the way masquerade worked (been too long) :p

pimpmonkey2382.313: A stripped down D&D is basically 1974 original, or the Basic/Classic line. :P Other than you don't have to do that work yourself. lol D6 is what the original star wars versions ran on, very fast paced mechanics and really little that you have to remember, etc.

Vnlr: I see, i just put in a bit of minimal effort to look it up ;)

I must say that we mostly use existing systems and lift those into different resembling settings rather than reverting to so called generic RPG engines (is that the correct english term?). Having a player in the group who is about finishing his studies in Physics and maths with flying colours helps with balancing stuff when you add something flashy.

To be honest, the time we win with light and stripped houseruled rules for combat and such we totaly lose again because of eloquently describing every goopy visceral detail and taunting between the PC's and NPC's. ;)

Which is just as good of course ...

pimpmonkey2382.313: The absolute best D&D product I have ever seen, in all of my years of playing has to be the Rules Cyclopedia. It's the mid 80's version of classic/basic. But has everything up to masters. AND has a ton of completely optional systems, etc to make them as stripped down or as complicated as you want.

Vnlr: I prefer it warm but not-quite hot and 1 volume of coffee with 1 volume of milk (half-half), no sugar.

I tried writing some tidbits but nothing great came of it. Someday's it just won't work out so I let it be. I finished a few Baglama pieces for my brother yesterday and they turned out to be satisfactory (which is what I mostly aim for).

I have been reworking that string sextet a bit more though.

GhostwriterDoF: Well, on hot days the cold brew coffee is a nice touch and change of pace
that satisfies the taste buds and the body temperature. heh!

I know what you mean about not forcing the creativity. Have had to take a few
weeks off here and there from my books so as not to get burned out. Even doing
the editing needs a bit of creative flow. But the pages are getting filled, little by little
and that's what counts. :)

Vnlr: Sounds like fun ... I might look into that. But I guess, seeing its age, that it is rather hard to come by these days?

Vnlr: So, you are a writer by trade? That I did not know :)

...

EndreWhiteMane: Squee!