Today I got some junksmail in my smailbox instead of the Transsexual RPG which I was expecting via airsmail.

It was 1998 when I was introduced to tabletop D&D. There was a cafe below our dormitory where there were all kinds of tabletop games available. At first me and my friends were only interested in some strategy games where you could invade others with roll attacks. We were about 8-10 friends changing depending on the day. When I won the strategy game 10 times in a row one of my friends offered to play D&D. I had no idea what it was but i jumped right in. I was always seeing some crazy people in a dim room who were wearing weird costumes. We played almost for a year. I even wrote some scenarios and when it was my turn to be DM. In our games DMs were also players. I miss those days but strangely I have little memory of the games we were playing except the ones i wrote myself.

Sorry if I wrote out of subject. I felt sentimental for a moment :).

in 150 years, D&D forms will look like this:


Name: ______________
Gender: [] smale [] fesmale [] other
...
Armor: Chainsmail - AC pi*4.3
(they use pi a lot in the future)

I've never really played a lot of D&D. The little bit I played was way back when (except doing a test round every new edition or so). To put that into perspective: I started learning English with my brother's D&D rule books (or was it AD&D, I don't remember) when I was 4 or 5.

That doesn't mean I haven't played a lot of RPGs. From the top of my head I remember playing The Dark Eye, Star Wars, Call of Cthulhu, several World of Darkness systems, several Savage Worlds settings, several Fate settings, a couple homebrews, A Song of Ice and Fire and quite a few very obscure Indie RPGs.

My friends and me (although I don't do that much) run a German P&P fan website which is one of the oldest around (it went online in 1999). We have over 1000 reviews up (granted most of them older and not all of them RPG-related :P), several Fandownloads for existing systems, several downloads of our own systems (some of which are also available as print-on-demand), a podcast, a Youtube channel and miscellaneous small stuff. It changed a lot over the years. Mostly due to time issues and the fact that some of my friends started to work for publishers (Hence the older reviews. They simply are not allowed to do them anymore.).

I also visit several conventions every year. Not to mention our own convention (together with a LARP group) which takes place twice a year.

So as you can see I'm quite invested in the hobby. (I'm also female, just to get rid of some cliches that women don't enjoy this kind of stuff.)

And just to throw it out there: There's also some P&Ps based on video games. For example the Dragon AGE RPG or the Deponia one. (The latter is unfortunately only available in German. Also sorry, but I didn't have a better link.)

I recommend for first timers the amazing D&Dcember that my favorite youtuber Projared did last year.

Reviews, tips, funny stories it has it all.
Check his channel and look for the last videos he did or his latest playlist

The playlist:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLO7ChEvlE6ffgIsRG5fuvwWIu16BTa6JM

Haven't played much (community is small in Estonia)

We have played in the setting of Eberron (3.5ed) and for a long time we dabbled in Werewolf the Apocalypse and Hunter the reckoning (did i get the names right?)

Sounds about right. They're from the original World of Darkness.

Very very good games, beautifully crafted and writen and great system.

Shadowrun: because everyone needs 30d6.

I'd like to try out darwin's world that I just bought not too long ago, and will probably buy the dragonlance setting for 1E here soon.

Or you could play 1e AD&D at high levels. A fireball cast by a 30th level magic user will do 30d6 points of damage. Of course, game balance has already broken down completely by this point, which is one reason why not many people play at this level.

Incidentally, Wizards of the Coast actually printed one epic spell for 3rd edition that does 305d6 damage called Vengeful Gaze of God:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/spells/vengefulGazeOfGod.htm

Of course, I don't see the 419 Spellcraft DC being hit through balanced means. (I actually consider the DC too high for what it does, especially when a similar DC could provide a boost to a stat of about +305, but then again the Epic Spellcasting system isn't exactly balanced to begin with.)

Also, don't forget that that spell does 200d6 damage to the *user* as well.

Been a while since I've looked at my 1e books but doesn't it only officially go up to about level 20?

According to Wikipedia, that standard cap of 20 didn't appear until 2nd edition; 1st edition tables went to different levels for each class.

Also, many of the tables are easy to extrapolate to higher levels. Of note, two 1e AD&D cRPGs, Pools of Darkness and Dark Queen of Krynn, actually let you advance to level 40. From what I have read, this is actually not that unusual. In fact, the lower levels were played so much more that the higher levels didn't get as much exposure, and as a result, there hasn't been as much balancing done at the higher levels.

I believe this changed during 3e/3.5e, but many groups still prefer lower levels, to the point where there is a houserule system called E6, where normal leveling stops after level 6.

One question: Does anyone know of any TRPGs in which playing a pure healer is viable and fun? Specifically, there should be a decent selection of healing abilities, and healing in combat should be viable and balanced at all reasonable levels.

Before anyone mentions it, healing in Dungeons and Dragons is too weak until higher levels, when clerics suddenly get a powerful spell that (in early editions, anyway) is a full heal.

Also, if possible, I would prefer a system where healing is not tied to religion.

I have only played 3 p&p, all many decades ago. Loved them all. But one of them will be 'c' soon enough yay! :)

-Dungeons & Dragons (early 80s, same time as AD&D 1st edition, I got the red box as a present)
-West End's Star Wars
-Cyperpunk 2020

The SAGA System gave quite a bit of freedom in what spells you could cast, and what they would do, though few settings used it.