Inspired by my previous post and its related conversation in the geek group, my friend Andrew and I have been talking, as we so often do, about our RPG experiences. He said I could share this one:
Our college group wasn't big on subtle roleplaying. The anecdote that best exemplifies our attitude comes from a random night encounter.
The mage was on guard, heard a rustle in the woods outside the camp, and immediately unleashed a fireball.
"You aren't going to wait to see who it is?" asked the DM (different guy; we rotated). "What if it's one of your friends?"
"They can take the damage," replied the mage's player.
End of encounter.
There are times to take RPGs seriously (or so I've heard) but it's time like these that I look forward to the most when I play a tabletop RPG. If you listened to the Penny Arcade D&D podcasts (JIM DARKMAGIC FOR THE WIN!) you heard something remarkably similar to my friends and me playing . . . well, just about everything, really. That's sort of the whole reason we play games, isn't it?
I'm going to PAX this weekend, where I'm sure I'll engage in quite a bit of the video gaming. I'm especially looking forward to playing Rock Band 2 with the Enforcers, but more than anything else, I'm excited to spend some time in the Original Wireless Gaming area, which I missed last year. It's nothing but classic RPGs and hobby games, all donated and run by volunteers. Last year, there were opportunities to do a one-shot dungeon crawl, and I can't wait to get on the list for one of those if they're doing it again.
