T is for... Tabletop Roleplay!

I expect by now, you're getting a pretty good picture of how geeky I am. This is the sixth post in the A to Z on a nerdy topic...

My love affair with tabletop roleplay began in sixth form, when my boyfriend-at-the-time got me playing Dungeons & Dragons. If ever there was a cliche for characters played in a roleplaying game, my friends and I had them all covered. Every single one of us had a character background that included one or both of our parents having been horribly murdered by some evil creature, and us being driven to hunt them down and seek revenge. So we had an Elven Ranger (me) hunting down a red dragon, a human Paladin hunting down some sort of evil cleric, the half-elven cleric's mum had been killed by orcs and so on. It was very silly, but we had a lot of fun.



I drew this picture of my elven
ranger from that first D&D game



When I went to university, I played a lot more tabletop. Mostly D&D still, but we did have a Vampire game going for a while. I always preferred D&D though. I joined in a game that had been running for years, so I started at 21st level. Everyone else in the party was a multiclassed character, as the game had originated with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (the second edition) where multiclassing was encouraged. But me being me, decided to min-max it and take 21 levels of rogue. My character could steal anything. From anywhere. I had the greatest fun, especially when we got to the very end, the big boss fight with the Big Bad Evil Dude who had been the antagonist for the entire campaign, and I killed him. The rest of the players were a bit put out, as they'd been looking forward to it for years!

And here's a pic of my human rogue
(was in better shape than the
other one when I scanned them in!)

I had a break from tabletop for a number of years, but more recently we've been playing with a group of local friends. We started with Vampire, which was a lot of fun. Then we played Werewolf. We've tried out GURPS, with a game based on Firefly. We've played a bit of D&D, in the Eberron campaign setting. More recently, we've tried out the Amber Diceless Roleplaying System, a game based on the Chronicles of Amber, and we're currently playing a game based in the futuristic setting devised by one of our group for the fiction he's been writing. Future plans include a game of Dark Heresy, which is based on the Warhammer 40,000 universe, and a return to some of the old favourites. Jamie is also keen to run a horror game, the Call of Cthulhu. We rotate who runs the games, so that everyone gets a chance to play. Although, I do not enjoy running games, so as of yet I have not volunteered (nor am I likely to).

Roleplay night is a great way to stay in touch with our friends who live locally, as it makes us make time in our busy schedules to see each other. I get a lot of crafting done too. The only real downside (and even then, it's not really a downside) is that tabletop roleplaying and snacking go hand in hand, so if we are not careful we end up eating far too many crisps, sweets and cake each week!