All kinds of games

I've never heard of DSA - what do the letters stand for, btw?

I've never done role playing before. I don't think I would be very good at it. I like some online games though:

MondoZoo
UniCreatures
Ribkite
MyMiniCity
CreatureBreeder
and several more I can't remember right now.

I also got hooked on Plants vs. Zombies and, of all things, Spider Solitaire! I couldn't believe that last one - always thought it was boring, but I am so hooked! lol!

Oh, i'm playing "die Siedler"too, which world are you on? I'm in "Bernsteingarten"
And of course i'm playing DragonCave. But that's it with online games.
We play some board games (Siedler of Catan,ect.) in the family and i loved watching my sons playing Zelda and Final Fantasy on the PS 2/3.
I feel like a stalker....

DSA is available in English too. ts called The Dark Eye there,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Eye
DSA is originally a pen and paper roleplaying game, but there are lots of novels too, some computer games
Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny (Das Schwarze Auge: Die Schicksalsklinge)
Realms of Arkania: Star Trail (Das Schwarze Auge: Sternenschweif)
Realms of Arkania: Shadows over Riva (Das Schwarze Auge: Schatten über Riva)
The Dark Eye: Drakensang (Das Schwarze Auge: Drakensang)
The Dark Eye: Drakensang: The River of Time (Das Schwarze Auge: Drakensang: Am Fluss der Zeit)
The Dark Eye: Drakensang: Phileasson's Secret (Das Schwarze Auge: Drakensang: Phileassons Geheimnis)
The Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav
Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny (2013 remake)[3]
The Dark Eye: Memoria
The Dark Eye: Demonicon (Das Schwarze Auge: Demonicon)
The Dark Eye: Blackguards[4]
Drakensang Online [5] (Which doesn't have anything to do with DSA except the name)

There's a trading card game too and some tabletop games.
I started palying with 1st edition back in the late 80s. It was rather simple and easy to learn and adventures whre mostly dungeon crawls. Up to the 4the edition which is coming to an end it came to be very very complicated. I have over 20 rules books and sourcebooks.
Rules are very much like in computer rpgs which originally took their rules from pen and paper games.
You have things like dexterity, constituion etc, talents were You can get points for and You usually roll a 20 sided dice.
I'm not good at explaining, sorry.
With our style of playing, we concentrate more on story telling and character development that on fighting etc.
THis http://www.krahfik.de/wordpress/?p=343 shows my playing style and it has link to a test.

We are making our own character images in 3D. (We sell images too, if anybody wants too)

This is what I play
http://www.bigfishgames.com/download-games…e&osdetect=true
You need to download it and it's free as long as you don't spend real money on items. You don't have to!
Basically it's a hidden object game with quests.
It's never ending. I'm at level 126, I've seen people on the forum say they're in the 300s and it gets updated it every now and again with new quests and new locations to explore. It can get frustrating as you move on, some of the quests seem impossible but you may get a surprise helping hand.

You can play it offline.

Quote from idril

This sound very complicated to me, sorry. Isn´t it tedious to look up all the rules?
How do you tell your stories when playing? I don´t get that. Do you write them down or just tell each other? What happens if you have to interupt your game? How do you "save" the current status till next time? If that´s possible...

SO glad you said that - so I'm not the only one!

Quote from blobber

This is what I play
http://www.bigfishgames.com/download-games…e&osdetect=true
You need to download it and it's free as long as you don't spend real money on items. You don't have to!
Basically it's a hidden object game with quests.
It's never ending. I'm at level 126, I've seen people on the forum say they're in the 300s and it gets updated it every now and again with new quests and new locations to explore. It can get frustrating as you move on, some of the quests seem impossible but you may get a surprise helping hand.

You can play it offline.

I will have to look into this one you mention, blobber! Thanks!

How about Plants vs. Zombies? I just love that one!

Quote from idril

This sound very complicated to me, sorry. Isn´t it tedious to look up all the rules?
How do you tell your stories when playing? I don´t get that. Do you write them down or just tell each other? What happens if you have to interupt your game? How do you "save" the current status till next time? If that´s possible...

It sounds more difficult than it actually is. After some time You know all the rules You need, you have some tables to look up results or You can look them up in a book You should have close by.
It works like this: You have a group of players, they have chosen what character to play, thought about their characters background, abilities, looks etc. and have their stats ready.
The GM starts the whole thing off by giving You some kind of introduction. One rather cliché one is: "You are in a tavern, there's only one table left......" so you happen to sit altogether..
Well..cliché ;-). The characters may meet in any place or the GM might start a session by bringing them together.
In general.. the GM plays "everyone else" plus the environment. He or she is acting out the non player characters, describing what your surroundings look like etc etc.
PLayers describe what they are doing, having the GM react. They talk in character among themselves.
Fights and success in using skills is usually decided upon by the roll of the dice. But You might be in a group that relies far more on good roleplaying, that is acting in character...
It all depends on the style of the group.
My SO and me don't have a group right now, so just the two of us play. That works too, but it can be quite strenuous.. still a lot of fun.
Interrupting is possible. You just have to remember where You left of and start from there the next time You play. Usually You pick a moment where the group is resting for the night or maybe just arrived in a new place and hasn't started anything there, but basically You can stop anytime.
Sorry if I'm not good at explaing the game mechanics *g*
http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0001.html might give You a real hilarious look at rolpelaying *g*.
Or maybe DM of the rings?
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=612

Dragon Cave is my "main" game I play all the time (obsessed? ME? )
But I also play Order of the Griffin sometimes, it's a breeding and genetics game. The creator studied biology I think, so it's really well done, but it has one great problem... you can only have 20 Griffins. So basically you can't play if you don't keep releasing the Griffins you spent months breeding, and you get a really sad message every time you release them too.

I used to play a text-based role playing game/society simulator called Cantr II but it became way too time consuming. Great game though, also a good way to practice if you want to be a writer.

Other games I like are Quake 3, Portal 1+2, Minecraft, Battle for Wesnoth (a turn-based fantasy strategy game) and lots of games on kongregate...

Quote from dustpuppy

and lots of games on kongregate...

What is kongregate?

A website (kongregate.com) where you can play little games for free. You can make an account, then your progress and achievements will be saved, or just play as a guest without account.

Someone asked about the complexity of table pen-and-paper RPG's and "how you tell your story". In my experience, there are two very, very different and distinct types of RPG's. The kind I played in the 70's when I was in college (AD&D) used pen and paper and dice. The group was led by a "DungeonMaster", who had a book and map that he either bought or made himself. You had a character you made by rolling dice to determine your base stats (strength, agility, magic, defense, etc.). You kept track of your character on a card, including "experience points" you gained through adventuring and your stats increased by dice roll every time you gained an experience level. Your character had a race and a class, and each race and class had advantages and disadvantages. Elves had higher agility and magic but low strength, Humans had more strength and endurance, but less magic, Dwarves were immensely strong and intelligent, but not very agile, etc. Every enemy you met also had these attributes, and to defeat him you had to roll high enough on the dice. The DM would act as moderator, set the scene, tell the story, and you and your party would make decisions based on the situation. "You are in a cavern with myriad passages. Ahead you hear the sounds of a feast and merry-making. These are the Orcs who raided your city, you remind yourself. You're tempted to drink deeply of some of the casks of wine strewn about the torchlit passage. What do you do first?" I might say, "Roll the casks of wine into the door, forcing it open and mowing down the Orcs nearest the door to gain some fighting room for my party." Then we would roll dice to see if the door got knocked down, how much damage the Orc party sustained and how much bonus we got for surprise attack. Then each of us would have adversaries to battle with dice rolls to determine the winner. You got experience points, gold and loot for rewards. This is the type of game that the console RPG's (Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, etc.) are based on.

The other type of RPG has only surfaced since the internet started up. This type of role play is people pretending to be other types of people in different lands or times or even animals instead of people. This is basically a fiction-writing workshop done on forums, with the members being part of a group story-writing thread. I find most of these stories to be quite long (three or four times the length of this post), with the majority of sites requiring long posts. There are lots of rules about what you can and can't do on many sites (some allow graphic content and descriptive "mating" between the players, some don't). I've seen these sites, but never could get interested in them. To each his own, I guess. I never was comfortable taking someone else's character and writing about my character interacting with theirs or having them use my character in their story in ways I didn't think fit the character's personality.

The point being there is no "story" to tell about your character in the tabletop games. It's purely strategy, logic, ingenuity and luck. Your "story" is how long you've managed to survive, how many levels you've gained and how many great skills and cool equipment/loot you bring to the party with you. If you're talking to a fellow player at a party, you might talk about the most awesome victory your party ever pulled off, but that's more like talking to a friend who also played high school basketball about your best game ever. Character gets killed? Create another and move on. Sometimes it's a fun challenge to start over.