Things we have learned from playing RPGs
- Treasure chests can only hold one or two items at most. People can hold a near infinite amount of items.
- If someone in town tells you that they heard a rumor, it's true.
- Dungeon monsters and traps will only attack or effect the hero and the people traveling with him/her. If you're just an unimportant person, you can go ahead and run through the dungeon, temple, forest, desert, cave, or other place teeming with evil unharmed.
- You should always walk behind waterfalls, because there's always something hidden back there.
- Animals, in general, will attack you relentlessly as you travel from one place to another.
- Most people stay in the same exact spot all day long.
- Everybody in every part of the world speaks the same language.
- Sleep is the only absolute necessity of life. You can travel all over the world and fight as much as you want, and there is never a need to eat, drink, or go to the bathroom.
- Most houses in the world only have one room.
- After dealing your arch enemy an apparently fatal blow, don't think you can rest easy. He'll probably transform and become stronger.
- You may see beds everywhere, you may be able to get into them, but you won't be able to sleep unless you pay money.
- The world is flat.
- You can carry 99 tents, 99 potions, and 99 Phoenix Downs, but you cannot carry 100 potions.
- Items in treasure chests, even in someone else's house, are yours for the taking.
- Your job is to defend a world that has less than 100 people and a limitless amount of monsters.
- Store owners have the right to keep getting rich from the hero, even though the fate of their world rests on the hero's shoulders.
- All methods of transportation, be they subway, airplane, boat or bus, are usually free.
- When you get injured by a sword, or other weapon, blood will not pour out, only numbers.
 
This, and more funny things we have surely learned, at the original source.
Purchasing some out of print RPG books
Thanks to my friend Vicente now I'm doomed too and I've started buying old and out of print pen&paper RPG books.
To test it, I've bought two books, Megatraveller and Cyberpunk 3rd edition.
Megatraveller (1986!!!) is a space sci-fi RPG with heavy focus on the creation of characters, settings, worlds, and even spaceships. Characters have to choose a profession as background, you can design your own space (and have space fights), and in general get as deep as you want.
I learned about this game playing the old Amiga games (Megatraveller I and II), and I recall having seen this boxed set (contains three books plus a huge hexagonal star chart) when I was quite young, so I couldn't miss this opportunity :D
Cyberpunk 3rd edition is the other book. As can be seen in the photo, I alreaady own the 2nd edition in spanish. In fact I didn't knew there was a semi-recent new revision (2005), so why not giving it a try...
From the intro and first look, seems that the complex rules of Cyberpunk 2020 have been simplified and streamlined a lot (the game was quite hard to learn and play, and also very easy to die after all the effort demanded for setting everything up).
I need time to read them but looks like I'll be searching for more old RPGs...
Roleplaying sessions are back: Alternity
Thanks to my friend Vicente, last sunday we had a 4 hours roleplaying session of Alternity, a sci-fi RPG from the late 90s.
At first it looked to me as a crossover between Cyberpunk 2020 and the Star Wars movies, but I was very wrong: The game uses a more or less simple d20 throwing system based on modifiers (which usually means additional dice, from d4 to d20 always, but sometimes a pure +/- modifier).
Combine that with 3 ranges of ok roll results (normal, good amazing) and an interesting combat system (with three levels of damage, and stun hits always present no matter how good the armor is), and you get a nice mix to enjoy futuristic adventures and alien combats.
The play itself was like a mini-adventure (that we managed to finish, albeit some catastrophic rolls :) and was quite funny (being 7 people allows for variety of decisions, opinions and ideas).
The only "negative" point was that the adventure had some similarities to a past Warcraft RPG adventure we played.
The setting and some of the races brought to me the sensation of being playing Mass Effect: the weren are so similar to the krogan, the psyonic magic...
Really fun and nice playsession, now the idea is to keep at least one session per month (one each 3 weeks would be great if we all can make it).
Oh, and as an extra, here is the image of the 8th misterious player... She didn't say anything but was willing to play:
Roleplaying Session IV: WoW Campaing started
Two weeks ago (yes, I've been lazy, but I'm having small vacations ;) we had another roleplaying session, and went back to WoW RPG.
We've started a campaign, continuing with our characters from the previous one. We've been "trained" to level 3 and given a +1 weapon (same type as we had before the leveling) to keep up with the difficult of the new campaign.
The mission is having to escort a caravan from Ironforge to Azshara (in Kalimdor). The merchants said there were no plans for attacks, but in case it happen we would get an extra gold bonus for the danger.
The caravan contains 6 wagons, some merchants (2-3 per wagon), and two additional bodyguards (an explorer and a rogue), hired too to protect the goods.
We departed from Ironforge, and the first day went without problems. We did shifts to always have at least 2 people guarding the encampment (a circle made with the wagons with a fire in the middle).
Everything was calm until two big bears tried to stole and eat food from one of the wagons.
We killed them before any significant damage to the caravan was done.
Location of the bear attack at night
The second day we crossed the tunnel to Wetlands, increasing our speed and changing shifts to be longer and with more people awake.
At noon, while I was sleeping, the caravan got attacked by a tribe of orcs.
We counted 9 warriors and one shaman. I got up and started dressing my armor (putting on a breast plate is not fast nor easy), while my friends started fighting the orcs.
The battle was very hard, and two of us fall asleep because of the shaman spells, but the invoked wolves of our druid saved the situation and the shaman finally fled (and escaped), all nine orc warriors dead.
Location of the Orc attack to the convoy
On the third day, we managed to arrive to Menethil Harbor, and took some rest on the local inn.
The adventure will continue...
WoW Boardgame first session
This weeekend we had a different roleplaying session, we played for the first time (except for my friend Luiso) the World of Warcraft Boardgame.
We had a great time but the first play can get thought because of the complex rules (until you get the mechanics, then is quite fast to play).
The game needs a BIG table, not counting the Burning Crusade Expansion!
It uses a lot of dice too
Monsters are classic WoW ones, and the detail level is great.
Game quests get harder as you progress
Gaming time will shorten in future plays, but for the first time we spent a full morning (4 hours) and we stopped half-way the game's 30 turns length.
I am really amazed how similar is the game to the computer MMORPG, you really feel as playing a boardgame equivalent and not "another boardgame".
If you want, the rules are in PDF format freely available for download:
Next weekend we'll continue with the WoW RPG roleplaying sessions!
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