by Happygun » Wed May 09, 2007 11:32 pm
I consider myself a gamer - neither casual nor hard-core. It's more than a hobby for me but my life doesn't revolve around it.
I never got into White Wolf. The reason, in all honesty, being the reputation of the games and the players. An unfair generalization, I know, but in any case the concept of playing angst-ridden creatures of the night (or furry ecoterrorists, or psychotic pookas, or…) never appealed to me. This is somewhat ironic given my preference for systems that emphasize roleplaying. Despite this, D&D is and will probably remain my favorite tabletop RPG. I started playing 2nd Edition when I was still in grade school and was present for the official release of 3rd Edition at GenCon. These days I play a 3.0/3.5 hybrid of D&D called “D&D Edition Pi” developed by an acquaintance of mine. It combines all the best aspects of the two “editions” into one friendly package. I’ll admit D&D isn’t flexible or adaptable as, say, GURPS, but its popularity makes it easy to find other players.
I’m a fan of board games and traditional card games as well. Favorites include Settlers of Catan, The Arkham Horror, The Order of the Stick Adventure Game, Munchkin, Chez Geek, Grunt, Greek, and Goth, Fluxx, Kill Doctor Lucky, and ZOMBIES!!! I had a brief dalliance with Warhammer before the cost of maintaining the affair became unbearable. I still paint miniatures for my D&D games and am, in fact, quite good at it.
As for a PitW game, you’d be better off eschewing a formal rules system in favor of a freeform RPG. I suppose GURPS could work, but governing character advancement and power would be tricky. See, when a human in the PitW universe is transformed into a werewolf he gain a massive amount of power. Natch. The disadvantages he picks up do not even begin to offset the advantages. Yet any 25-point schmuck can go furry if injected with werewolf juice. Sarah is the perfect example. The only cogent explanation, point-wise, I can come with is that she was already high level – probably in the 300 to 400 range – and at character creation invested most of her points into a Secret Advantage. The GM simply determined the Advantage was along the lines of “If she ever happens to become a werewolf…”
EDIT: A thought occurs: Peter and Sarah take summer courses at They'd fit right in.