Curious about FG - noob and old guy

[Longrath]

Hello there.

I'm an old guy. House, Lawn, kids old. Red paperback TSR basic ruleset old.

My PNP RPG days died mid highschool. Sports, parties, girls and DnD didn't blend well. One was exclusive of the other. So there PnP ended. After university... and I suppose marriage, my CRPG days started with IWD, and NWN. Since then I've invested in various MMORPG, or CRPG games. NWN was the closest to tabletop.

Recently I discovered FG2. I have to say I'm intrigued. I imagine being able to go around with a laptop, instead of a backpack full of hardcover books, a bag of dice and a pencil case, like my youthful days. Or heck, stay at home after the kids are asleep.

So I was wondering if there are other fogies kicking around that run campaigns that would be a good place for a know nothing about FG2 guy could get started.

My ideal play time is one evening a week GMT-5 from 8:30-11:00 or 11:30.

[Griogre]

Welcome to the forums Longrath. You should post up on the Guild House message board saying what game you would like to play as well as when you are available.

I would say a good deal of the people using FG are also people with families and very little time to game. Personally I started playing D&D in the mid 70's and there are a lot of people here who have been playing a long time too. I still have some of my old characters. :)

https://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m222/Griogre/Sar.png

Using FG is very easy to anyone who has ever played in a face to face RPG game. If you are trying a game that you are not very familiar with then its always easier to play in a lower level or powered game and people tend to be more forgiving about people not knowing the rules backwards and forwards.

[Longrath]

Thanks,

Yes. It's been many many years since I opened a rulebook, so I will definately not know the rules at all, much less backwards and forewards. 3rd edition came out just as I was giving up PnP. I think we may have put in a year on it. Maybe less.

Just out of curiosity. Is Rolemaster / Iron Crown Enterprises a ruleset on FG? I don't remember what the actual game was called. We just called it ICE.

[Griogre]

Foen worked extremely hard to recently complete the Rolemaster ruleset which is availble now in the FG store: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/store/product.xcp?id=DGA080

[Longrath]

fight-ING?

Is that a really early one?

[Griogre]

In the version of D&D I started playing with Fighters were originally called Fighting Man (or men). I ran out of space on the class line so it's missing the second word and I never bothered to update the character sheet class to fighter.

[Foen]

Welcome Longrath!

I didn't start quite so early (probably c1980) but followed the same basic path: PnP before college, then graduation/marriage/houses/jobs etc, then CRPG (I really quite liked IWD, but first found CPRGs with an Atari game called Dungeon Master). I tripped over FG about three years ago, and have really enjoyed playing, GMing and building games for it.

Please shout if you need any help.

Stuart

[Foen]

Oh, and I forgot to say, my vintage is slightly betrayed in the games I've converted for FG:

Rolemaster Classic
Call of Cthulhu
Labyrinth Lord (a retro clone of Basic/Expect/Companion/Master D&D)
Traveller Classic

I'm currently working on Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying, which will easily run RuneQuest 2nd edition. A good place to look for rulesets (game conversions) is the FG Wiki (https://oberoten.dyndns.org/fgwiki/index.php/Category:Rulesets), run by Oberoten.

Cheers

Stuart

[Oberoten]

Welcome Longrath!

I didn't start quite so early (probably c1980) but followed the same basic path: PnP before college, then graduation/marriage/houses/jobs etc, then CRPG (I really quite liked IWD, but first found CPRGs with an Atari game called Dungeon Master). I tripped over FG about three years ago, and have really enjoyed playing, GMing and building games for it.

Please shout if you need any help.

Stuart

Mhm yes. Dungeon Master was a glorious game. ... Chaos Strikes back was a TERRIBLE follow-up to it. More useless than a bag of porridge knives.

- Obe

[Kalan]

Seeing some of the responses on this here thread actually make me feel young :D

Though it is comforting to note that my "life path" hasn't deviated much from the others here - played a fair bit though Elementary and Junior High, then moved to the hicks where there wasn't any gaming. Then got back into it in college, then real life in the way of work/marriage/moving to Denmark interrupted things.

I got involved with FG fairly early on (gah...lookin at when I joined the forums...2005...sheesh), and was the driving force at the time in getting Savage Worlds brought to life for FG.

Today I'm fairly active in the gaming scene here in Denmark, and can proudly claim editing credit on a few releases from Savage Mojo (https://www.savagemojo.com/tiki-index.php), most noteably their soon to be released, Garden of Athena: Dogs of War (which was written by one of my good friends here in Denmark) for their Savage Suzerain line.

I'm currently running several FG games, including a Dark Fantasy Savage Worlds campaign, and an Eberron 4ed campaign. I'm thinking about running a Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space demo as well in the near future.

Anyhow, I've hijacked the thread long enough! Welcome aboard! And I hope you manage to get back into this wonderful hobby of ours! :)

[Zeus]

Welcome Longrath!

I didn't start quite so early (probably c1980) but followed the same basic path: PnP before college, then graduation/marriage/houses/jobs etc, then CRPG (I really quite liked IWD, but first found CPRGs with an Atari game called Dungeon Master). I tripped over FG about three years ago, and have really enjoyed playing, GMing and building games for it.

Please shout if you need any help.

Stuart

LOL, another Dungeon Master fan. Yay Foen. I remember first playing that on teh Atari ST and then the Commodore Amiga.

If you fancy some retro Dungeon Master then take a look at this (https://dmjava.free.fr/original/index.htm)

You can also grab the pak files for the follow up game, Chaos Strikes Back as well as User created levels etc.

[Doswelk]

Cor I'm a young'un too then!

Started with this: https://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:3Mi1_eFKI3eqCM:https://paizo.com/image/product/catalog/TSR/TSR1011_500.jpeg, then moved onto AD&D, managed to keep life/marriage and RPG working together!

Now play Savage Worlds over the internet (and face-to-face) from time to time :D

Always happy to help UK/European players (hell anyone who wants to connect to GMT run games in fact!)

[Oberoten]

I had that one as well. And the blue one to go with it.

Awesome times were had... and a lot of 1st level characters that got killed by giant ants, we Dust-Gulched the nest I remember.

- Obe

((Dust Gulch is from KenzerCo's knights of the Dinner Table, basically the players throw new characters at the town until everyone is dead. ))

[Longrath]

Indeed,

That and the blue "advanced" (wasn't it?) set were where I started. We were thrilled when they AD&D was hardcover. No more boxes.

[Doswelk]

Red - Basic
Blue - Expert
Green - ?
Black - Master
? - Immortal (only hand the red and blue).

Have got the D&D Cyclopedia though.

[Foen]

Green is Companion, and I think Immortal was Gold but don't have that boxed set. The series is sometimes called BECM or BECMI D&D.

On a related note, the Labyrinth Lord (https://oberoten.dyndns.org/fgwiki/index.php/Labyrinth_Lord) ruleset is very similar to D&D, and my Beckham (https://oberoten.dyndns.org/fgwiki/index.php/Beckham_Extension) extension takes it the last step of the way.

Stuart

[mr_h]

Green is Companion, and I think Immortal was Gold but don't have that boxed set. The series is sometimes called BECM or BECMI D&D.
Stuart

I believe Immortal was a yellowish/gold, yeah.

*still has an original red book for D&D in his closet*
**found the original chainmail rules at a garage sale years ago for 25 cents....**

[The Cruachan]

Well i'm pleased to find out that I am in fact not the only one that's old enough to know better. Only just started with FG.
On the original D&D box sets remember that all the demi-human races maxed out at around level 10 give or take a couple of levels, so didn't really advance much beyond the Blue "Expert" Box.
Times certainly have changed since then.

[Longrath]

So? Any other baldies, fairly new to FG want to run a weekly?

[gm_spiral]

It's good to see other old gamers. I fondly remember the red Basic boxed set with the cheap blue plastic die. I recently joined this community and hopefully will be able to find a good group.

See my thread in the other subforum for more information:
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11817

:)

[The Cruachan]

Will take a butchers at the link.

Just one final note on the old box sets, you mentioned the cheap plastic dice.
Ah! the joy of getting your, included in the box, white wax crayon and filling in the number recesses on each die with wax.

Makes you feel quite nostalgic....lol.

[Helios1001]

Damn Cruachan,

I was just going to mention the crayon, recently picked up Labyrinth Lord in PDF, it made me feel all nostalgic, wish I'd still got those boxed sets.

Anyway I'm looking forwrd to the retirement home for a second golden age of tabletop gaming (lets hope our arthritis isn't so bad we can't roll the dice!:) ).

[Phystus]

Geez, as if I didn't feel old enough....

My intro to D&D was the original Basic set (purple box, blue book). When I got mine TSR was having trouble sourcing dice, so instead of dice you got a laminated sheet of "randomizer chits". They had the number range (1-4, 1-20, etc.) on one side and the number "rolled" on the other. You were supposed to cut them out and put them in cups to draw from when you needed a dice roll.

You also got a coupon to send back to get a set of dice when those became available. I did so of course, but the dice I got were incredibly crappy, and the corners chipped almost immediately. They were inked, though.

Ah, nostalgia indeed!

~P

[The Cruachan]

I'm truely amazed Phystus, I didn't realise that you could get online using a
Babbage difference engine. As a gent of such distinguished vintage as youself would surely have no truck with something as new fangled as a personal computer device.

Note: Phystus will know about Babbage but any young 'uns can use the interweb to look him up.

Cheers. ~P

[ddavison]

Damn Cruachan,
Anyway I'm looking forwrd to the retirement home for a second golden age of tabletop gaming (lets hope our arthritis isn't so bad we can't roll the dice!:) ).

I never thought of this possibility. I'm still a long way off from retirement, but wow that would be nice. Just sit around and play RPGs all day long and eat your tapioca pudding. It beats the heck out of watching Jeopardy and The People's Court. :)

[Phystus]

I'm truely amazed Phystus, I didn't realise that you could get online using a
Babbage difference engine. As a gent of such distinguished vintage as youself would surely have no truck with something as new fangled as a personal computer device.

Note: Phystus will know about Babbage but any young 'uns can use the interweb to look him up.

Cheers. ~P

Bah! When I was a boy we used an abacus. Uphill. Both ways. And we were grateful! :D

I am old-school, though. I'm still running XP. :)

And yeah, RPG's in the retirement home FTW! I've played with folks in their 60's, and ones who are that old now, so it won't be too many years before it happens. Should be some good campaigns going by the time I get there! :)

~P

[gm_spiral]

Well, the elderly often live in their own worlds. Why not make it an interesting one filled with dragons and magic?

:D

[Oberoten]

Mmmmhm... Retirement.

I kinda like that word. ... only 28 more years to go then.

- Obe

[Spyke]

They keep moving the goalposts here in the UK. I don't know when I'm due to retire...

Spyke

[Doswelk]

They keep moving the goalposts here in the UK. I don't know when I'm due to retire...

Knowing my luck 5 years after i die! :p

[Brenn]

Wow this thread has brought back some memories. I purchased Gamma World in 1981 and soon after the Red D&D boxed set. Until recently I still had both but a tornado took out the storage shed they were in (Mena, AR- The metal in this tree is primarily from my storage shed (https://image-photo.weather.com/15/7F/full/157F5541-D9FB-4B87-9B31-7A593598C8ED.jpg)).

It's funny, I hadn't even thought about these items being lost until now. They recovered three of my four high school yearbooks and a very old Complete Works of Shakespeare. That's pretty much it. I really don't care too much about losing the roleplaying stuff though, none of it was in good condition and it's value was purely sentimental. I still have the memories.

I think you'll find many of the people here are of a generation with you. I personally only game with the same group of folks that I have been for 20+ years (though much less frequently than we did all those years ago), but you shouldn't have too hard of a time finding a game around here. Welcome to the community!

[GunnarGreybeard]

I'm an old guy. House, Lawn, kids old. Red paperback TSR basic ruleset old.

My PNP RPG days died mid highschool. Sports, parties, girls and DnD didn't blend well. One was exclusive of the other. So there PnP ended. After university... and I suppose marriage, my CRPG days started with IWD, and NWN. Since then I've invested in various MMORPG, or CRPG games. NWN was the closest to tabletop.

So I was wondering if there are other fogies kicking around that run campaigns that would be a good place for a know nothing about FG2 guy could get started.
Hehe! I could have been the one to write that as I am pretty much in the same place in life having followed a similar path.

I found FG many years ago (2008) and it kinda dropped off the radar but I am back now with a renewed interest. Reviewing the tutorials Xorn did made it sound so much easier that I had first thought.

Having said that it has been many eons since I last played any RPG's (other than NWN). I spent most of my time as DM and used a homebrew of Harn for the world setting, AD&D for the Characters and Magic and RoleMaster for the combat. Probably not something easily modeled in FG without extensive ruleset building. :(

Spent a lot of time playing Twilight 2000 as well and have been looking into whether there was a ruleset in development or available for that.

[Longrath]

Hopefully some of you are looking for a campaign.

check out:

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11817&page=3

[Phystus]

Wow, Twilight 2000. That brings back memories. We never got a very long campaign going with it, all the players found the setting too bleak. But it was a cool system.

"Who's on the Mark 19?"

~P

[mr_h]

Wow this thread has brought back some memories. I purchased Gamma World in 1981 and soon after the Red D&D boxed set. Until recently I still had both but a tornado took out the storage shed they were in (Mena, AR- The metal in this tree is primarily from my storage shed (https://image-photo.weather.com/15/7F/full/157F5541-D9FB-4B87-9B31-7A593598C8ED.jpg)).



And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what happens when an Air Elemental rolls a natural 20.

[Brenn]

Wow, Twilight 2000. That brings back memories. We never got a very long campaign going with it, all the players found the setting too bleak. But it was a cool system.

"Who's on the Mark 19?"

~P
I was a player in a long running TW2000 game. That was one of the most memorable campaigns that I have ever been a part of. Scenes from that game still come up in conversation often 18 years after the game's finish. We had only one armored transport and we carried all of our munitions store in it- with "The Powder Keg" spray painted on one side and a bulls eye on the other. It went up in the finale... I think that at the end every player was on his second or third character. IMHO one of the best near future settings ever to be put to game.

[Brenn]

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what happens when an Air Elemental rolls a natural 20.

You got it- one big *** air elemental. I went back for a visit over Thanksgiving (I live in California now) and was amazed by the destruction- I could see so far from the house where I used to live, there's just no trees left. Nothing better than mother nature to humble you and make you realize that as a species we are individually insignificant.