Good News...

So a couple of nights ago I received word via chat on Google + that an old players of mine is returning to the area.  He asked if I had room at my table for him once again.  I immediately told him that there is always room at my table for him, as he's always come up with good characters, but more importantly, he's a damn good roleplayer.  That counts for about 1,000% of what I like in my players.  I've read legends of the types of players Ed Greenwood has had in his game, and I've always wished that I could get a similar group of individuals in my game.  I know it won't happen, but it doesn't make it any less enjoyable when a good roleplayer (re)enters my game.

Last night I had my biweekly Marvel Super Heroes game.  It's been a very good experience for me to DM a game that isn't 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder based.  I've come to realize I was getting burned out a little (more than a little?) on running the same system for 13 years now.  Adding to that, running a different genre game than fantasy has been fun as well.  The only problem I've had (even if just in my own head) is trying to keep in mind the difference in technological eras between when the MaSH (as my old friend Dan Skog and I called it) was originally written, and when I am playing it now.  The game was written nearly 30 years ago.  Reading about the things in that game, and comparing that to what exists now, keeps me on my toes.  In the first game session, and introduced (on the fly) an NPC called the "Wordsmith."  They host a video blog on YouTube.  Adding in that touch during the game made me think of how far we've come in 3 decades.

The MaSH game is good and fun.  It is simple. It's very fast-paced.  What I think I may like most about the game is how easy it is to create a character.  Don't get me wrong with what I say next.  I have thoroughly enjoyed playing/running 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder.  But to create a character, or NPC, seemingly takes too damn long.  Trying to determine feats to take, or archetypes, or spells just adds up too much time.  I've yet to see, in the last five years, it take less than one hour to create just one 1st-level character.  I don't think it could be done if you just allowed the Core Rulebook of whichever system you used.  But I had a players show up for the first MaSH game session and have his character ready to go in 15 minutes.  And that was while he was eating.  Granted, he had the power he wanted for his character in mind already, but even then, if he would have rolled randomly for powers, it may have added an additional 3 minutes to the creation process.  But just that ability to literally jump right in and get going was so refreshing.

I've tried to "pace" each session akin to a comic book.  So each session (3 so far) has been itself self-contained.  The storyline has carried over from one session to another, but so far it has just been one "event" to occur each session.  In the first session, the group gathered together to face a robot that had gotten loose on an Air Force base and threatened a nearby international airport.  The second session had the death of an NPC close to one of my players, and the destruction of part of the facility owned by one of my players, as well as the destruction of a private jet owned by a player.  Those last two acts were caused by the same individual who has only been seen by a few eyewitnesses and security cameras.  But I've already created enough of a villain that my players can't wait to see him.

Last night the group gathered to fight off a group of armored individuals who were robbing banks.  One of my player's nearly died after being ambushed (and falling nearly 100 feet), and he also nearly killed one of the robbers by what was a rather excessive use of gravity.  But they did succeed in the end.  And now we get to play up them seeing themselves all over the internet, having had their exploits recorded by everyone at the crime scene with a cell phone.

Speaking of technology, I love Google +.  I have learned and read so much more of substance on it rather than Facebook.  I would love to get rid of Facebook, but too many friends are on there solely and not on G+.  But G+ has one major hangup, at least for me.  Maybe it's just my computer, but Hangouts suck on it.  I've tried gaming with a friend who lives 60 miles away via Hangout, but he's had difficulty hearing the session and interacting.  It wasn't the first time we'd tried it either, and none of those times did it work well.  Last night however, I had another friend listen in via Skype, and we had no troubles whatsoever.  It looks like Skype is going to be the winner of the tech debate for gaming over the internet, at least for me.