Birthday and homebrews
Filed under Soapbox on August 30, 2005
Keywords: Dungeons and Dragons, house rules
Today is my birthday (one of Erik’s gold stars to whoever can guess my age), and I wanted to post something that wasn’t an overt solicitation of good wishes. Fortunately, I just had another interesting PbP experience, and as I haven’t had a gaming rant in a while, felt it would be great to share.
One of the RPG links I list is for the D&D Online Gaming Play-by-Post forum. I’ve been hanging out there for a year and a half. In that time, I have been part of two games, one of which the DM left shortly after it started, and the other I detailed in a past blog entry. I’ve “applied” to at least two others since, but wasn’t accepted.
I recently applied to a third game that the DM touted as “a game for the more serious roleplayers.” He planned a series of tests where applicants write out how their character would respond to different scenarios. It’s an idea I used back in the day when I planned to run a Neverwinter Nights server.
He also mentioned a homebrew XP system that allowed characters to purchase abilities as a replacement for the current class/level system. I feared a steep learning curve, but it sounded interesting so I held off judgment and sent in a request for the first scenario.
After returning my response, I received a message from the DM that I was accepted. I went to the game thread and noticed three others had been accepted already. Over the next couple days, the number kept growing until it reached a point where we had too many players for a single party, even if we were back in the old 1E/2E days. The DM announced he was going to run multiple parties, possibly with one of them evil.
My first reaction was a sense of dread in the pit of my stomach. I have yet to see a well-run, multi-party campaign with only a single DM. Still, I wasn’t ready to give up. The DM hadn’t posted his “house rules” yet.
He did today.
As I feared, the XP system was quite complicated, and appeared to have some holes in it. Several players piped up immediately with questions. That was not the worst, though. Under his rules for posting etiquette, he had the following:
“If the game turns out well, I reserve the right to turn it into a book and sell it. You may indicate that you do not wish to receive a share of the royalties for co-authoring such a book at any point, by taking part in the game.”
I game to have fun. I don’t mind house rules–I have some fairly extensive ones for my own homebrew setting–but if you’re going to change something that works, it better be easy to learn and not break. Adding a contractual clause about copyright to a game is definitely another way to remove the fun for this author. When I read the above, I got a sour taste in my mouth.
The quality of games I’ve been a part of at D&D Online Games has been disappointing so far. I guess it’s a testament to my RPG addiction that I still go there looking.
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August 30th, 2005 at 9:52 am
Happy 25th birthday, Kam!
August 30th, 2005 at 10:02 am
It was a pretty happy birthday. I’d been married for about two months by then, with fond memories of our honeymoon in Hawaii still fresh in my mind.
August 30th, 2005 at 10:53 am
Happy 5th anniversary of your 28th birthday!
August 30th, 2005 at 11:00 am
Gold star to Myrddin.
August 30th, 2005 at 11:34 am
Happy birthday, Kameron!
I’ve never played PbP before, but I’ve played homebrew systems on IRC (chat) before. The quality there is mixed too, but I’ve eventually found a good group of people I’m comfortable with. If you keep looking you should find a DM you like.
(And Japanese seafood sounds yummy. ^_^)
August 30th, 2005 at 1:03 pm
Yeah, I think I’m getting crotchety in my old age. I like my games just so, and don’t have much patience for those that ain’t just so.
Well, if the company is good, I might have a little more patience. 
August 31st, 2005 at 5:19 am
Happy birthday, Kam! Enjoy the sushi and beware of games that smell like rotten fish.
August 31st, 2005 at 6:39 am
Wow. Talk about a lucky guess.
August 31st, 2005 at 8:10 am
Sorry I missed it yesterday, Kam.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
August 31st, 2005 at 9:33 am
Missed the announcement yesterday, but happy belated birthday!
Yeah, online gaming — have never had too much luck with it. People easily misinterpret, because it’s so impersonal, and the smileys only do so much.
August 31st, 2005 at 9:52 am
Yeah, apparently the DM meant the whole “make it a book” thing as a joke. Supposedly, per his response to my departure, the second line I quoted contained some sort of irony that signalled this. I had thought it was just poor sentence structure. I guess, being an author, I’m a bit more sensitive to the issue.
August 31st, 2005 at 9:43 pm
Happy Birthday Kam !
You still play any PC or console RPGs other than Neverwinter Nights? I play a few, but it’s not the same as playing Bard’s Tale, Phantasie, or Gold box! Those were the days.
August 31st, 2005 at 9:55 pm
Hey, Preston. Thanks for stopping by. I saw Jeff registered on the forums a little bit ago, but he still hasn’t posted anything.
I actually ordered the Gamefest collection of classic FR CRPGs off eBay the day before my birthday. I’m going to run them off a x86 DOS simulator. I recently played an NWN version of Pool of Radiance, and was disappointed. The designer stuck closer to the module TSR put out based on the CRPG than the game itself. I also play Icewind Dale every once-in-a-while, though the last time it appeared all my saved games were corrupted.
Hey, what happened to OPosse?