Gaming in NYC

[drcpunk]

Tonight, ebartley, jlighton, and I discussed what rpg game we should play when we want to get together with mnemex, but he runs a bit late.

One idea discussed and abandoned was The Princes' Kingdom. One reason it was abandoned was because it uses so many dice.

"We have lots of dice," I pointed out.

They pointed at the table in the sushi place where we were eating. It wasn't a small table, but it had lots of food, dishes, soy sauce dishes, water glasses, and tea mugs.

And, I realized that this is one of the complications of NYC gaming as we do it.

We are four adults who can find time to get together, but not necessarily at any specific time or any specific place. If we're not going to someone's residence, this leaves restaurants and places like Starbucks. Oh, and gaming as we walk on the streets of NYC, when it is nice, when it is raining, when it is cold, when it is snowing, when it is boiling hot.

Our strategy of die bubbles -- small, but not microscopic dice in the bubbles one gets from vending machines -- works fine if we're playing OTE. 6 dice, I think of 8 mm, where there's one of color A, two of color B, and three of color C work very well.

Feng Shui is pushing it, but between die bubbles with 3 dice of different colors, and colored plastic rocks for shots, and we're good.

But just try to play D&D 3.X like that, or DitV/TPK, and the physical considerations become an issue.

Comments

[mylescorcoran]

Does that particular group require dice-based systems, or would some resource management (e.g. Nobilis) or diceless game work?

Large dice pool games (like Exalted)and games like D&D with a variety of different dice are probably out, but d20 based games like True20 (only one d20 needed) and d10 based games like Fuzion-system could work. On the indie front Trollbabe is ideal.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

It depends. We tend to default to OTE. But it's significant that if I want to try out a new game, I'm more likely to get agreement if it's something that can be played on the walk and in restaurants.

[ckd]

A PDA with a dice-rolling app?

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Dogs in the Vineyard requires that one not only roll fistfuls of differently sized dice, but also, that those dice stay on the table. I push forward two of my dice and say what I'm doing, you push forward dice to match or exceed my total, then you push forward more dice that I have to match. Repeat as needed. So, die rolling apps aren't as useful.

And anyway, it's not as much fun as pushing dice forward to See and Raise.

[avram]

SHERPA is a simple Fudge-like game designed to be played while hiking. For a randomizer it uses a stopwatch. You let the stop watch run while playing, and any time you need a random number, you hit the lap or stop button and read the last digit (generally tenths or hundredths of a second). This can be used for any system that runs off of single d10 rolls -- you could adapt the R Talsorian system to it.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

I know that this would work, but... somehow, it doesn't feel the same without dice. Or cards.

I realize that this makes little sense.