Three Questions: Round 2 (resisting the urge to write "Electric Bugaloo")

2008 May 12
by Dante

Since the last one of these went so well, I thought we’d have a nearing-midweek Three Questions and see how it does in Prime Time. The rules are the same… treat this like a blog quiz, feel free to redistribute or just answer below by adding a comment.

Please notice: if you do choose to answer these questions on your own blog, drop us a line and let us know… we’ll collect the links that arrive, some of the more colorful comment responses, and some of our own insights for a later post to be completed Whenever We Feel Like It (probably soon).

Without further adieu, the three questions:

  1. What is your go-to character class, and why?
  2. Have you ever played a pen and paper RPG remotely via the Internet, and how did that go for you?
  3. Has someone ever been expelled from your gaming group, and why? (Change names to protect the innocent! We will not be held accountable for any skullduggery!)

Take whatever space you want to answer… the intertubes are large and wide and can withstand the extra kilobytes of text.

Remember, with answers come insight!

6 Responses leave one →
  1. Tim permalink
    May 12, 2008

    1. Cleric. Groups always need one, and if there happens to be two it takes some of the load off. There are so many options with the spells and domains that it’s easy to find a niche.

    2. No. Only done down-time stuff, but not full blown gaming. It just doesn’t seem right to me.

    3. Never expelled anyone, but myself and a few friends were let go from a group because for some reason we didn’t like re rolling characters every other week and were vocal about wanting to stick with the ones we had.

  2. Sandrinnad permalink
    May 13, 2008

    1. Ranger. Not entirely sure why, it’s just the class I feel most comfortable with. In non-D&D games I tend to head towards linguists &/or fighter-y types who can stay in the background.

    2. Not really – just some background details, downtime stuff, a little roleplaying reaction to character-specific events. It worked out decently well for what it was.

    3. Expelled? Not as such. Games have been put on hiatus for extended periods of time while other games are started, played through, and ended though (sometimes with different players, sometimes not – people who are impossible in one game can sometimes be just fine in another)

  3. Doug Hagler permalink
    May 13, 2008

    1. The oft-reviled Bard. I like universalist, dabbler classes because I’m a dabbler myself. It also means I can fulfill a lot of roles and take up slack in a group. But when I play a game with classes, and there’s a Bard, I pick that (even in EQ, when I played, or LOTRO, where my main is a Minstrel)

    2. I’ve played a long-term Vampire the Requiem game over instant messenger. I’ve also had a lot of games where extra stuff took place over the internet – downtime, side-stories, writing backgrounds, foreshadowing and so on.

    3. Yup. Its never pretty, and doesn’t happen much. I wouldn’t do this to someone whose friendship I valued a lot, because it tends to be a friendship-killer to ask someone to leave a game they’re in with you.

    The reason in the first case was that the person was obstructionist and offensive to the other players. The second case was because the player kept complaining, and eventually I just said “Look, the other players are happy with the way the game is going. Here are some ways you might have a better time. But I’m not going to change what is working for everyone else.” He didn’t want to work on solutions, so that was sort of that.

  4. brcarl permalink
    May 13, 2008

    1. Fighter. Yes, boring as heck. But they’re simple and easy to run. Given the choice I’d pick something with more flavor, but you asked for a fall-back, so…

    2. I play in two different PbP (play-by-post) games over at myth-weavers.com. Very fun, some excellent exposition, but combat takes FOREVER. My tabletop group also has a forum set up at plothook.net and a wiki at pbwiki.com, but we use those mostly for bookkeeping and a little between-session role-play stuff.

    3. Never actually booted somebody, but we’ve all complained about one or two folks. I’ve booted myself from a group or two. I think the best way to avoid this awkward situation is to have good ground rules defined for establishing a group, and a method for people to test out the group (and the group test out the player) before making anything “final.”

  5. May 13, 2008

    1. Fighter. Nyissa and Scylla, my two favorites, were both fighter types who had interesting back stories. One always needs a fighter chick with a “dance of death.”

    2. Nope, never played a real RPG over the intarwebs. Just WoW.

    3. Yes. You know the whole stinky stupid gamer stereotype? Yeeeah. We had one and his fiance. This guy was a sociopath in training. Seriously. His wife was just ~ stupid doesn’t even begin to describe it. They would buy pizza on Saturday and still be eating it on the Thursday after.
    The straw that broke the camel’s back, however, was when he went up to my husband at their work and began screaming at him for “picking on his character.” After my husband treated him like the nutcase he was, (i.e. walked away to go to work) he called ME and started griping me out and threatening me/us. “Well, I was expelled in third grade for stabbing someone with a pencil…” and it was just stupid. So we kicked the pair of them. He still brings it up and gripes about it to someone we both know…and this is about 6 years ago now.

    Sherri/Keltic War Badger

  6. Princess Noin permalink
    May 17, 2008

    1. Cleric. A great fighter, healer, menace to undead, all-around great class.

    2. Weekly. Our group lives in different states, so this is how we work around it. We use Ventrilo for voice chat and MapTool, available at rptools.net. It’s free and super easy to learn and packed with amazing options. If you can’t be in the same room, this is the next best thing.

    3. I have never had to ask anyone to leave. I have been kicked out before. The DM wanted to recreate his childhood D&D experience and expected us to play along while he ran his exceptionally powerful PC through the adventure. When my husband resisted, he got tossed. I stuck around for a few weeks before they got rid of me, too. The DM accused me of trying to murder his PC. One other player quit voluntarily because she worried the game was hurting her friendship with the rest of the group. The other three players were happy to continue. It came down to extremely different styles of play. It got uglier than it should have, though. We all shared responsibility for the ugliness…and it was a good lesson in the importance of communicating what kind of game its going to be at the beginning.

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