Dungeons and Dragons and Table Top Gaming

[Relic]

I've gotten back into DnD during the various lockdowns this year, and am currently running a couple of 5e campaigns, one in person and one online using the brilliant Roll20 website. 

Anyone here play? If so, does anyone want to DM an online campaign? 

[Lightning Lord]

I've never played but have wanted to for years. I did a bit of Earthdawn back when I was a teen and two sessions of DnD in high school before other friends decided it wasn't for them. Now, I spend a lot of time watching Critical Role.

If anyone signs up for DMing, I'd be interested in joining if the time different works out (I live in SE Asia, GMT+7).

[Relic]

2 minutes ago, Lightning Lord said:

I've never played but have wanted to for years. I did a bit of Earthdawn back when I was a teen and two sessions of DnD in high school before other friends decided it wasn't for them. Now, I spend a lot of time watching Critical Role.

If anyone signs up for DMing, I'd be interested in joining if the time different works out (I live in SE Asia, GMT+7).

I'm at GMT +1 and i MIGHT be interested in DMing a newbie campaign, but i'd rather play since I'm already DMing twice a week.

Critical Role is pretty cool, i like how the players all role play heavily, it's what I sort of aim for when playing a PC as well. Matt Mercer is a fine GM, as well. 

[Lightning Lord]

4 minutes ago, Relic said:

I'm at GMT +1 and i MIGHT be interested in DMing a newbie campaign, but i'd rather play since I'm already DMing twice a week.

Critical Role is pretty cool, i like how the players all role play heavily, it's what I sort of aim for when playing a PC as well. Matt Mercer is a fine GM, as well. 

I am currently watching the recent episode on Youtube. I have their Twitch subscription, but the timing rarely works out for me. Then this came up and I felt I had to post. I like the group a lot and yeah, they focus a lot on role play. I love when they do stupid shit that they meta-know will work out badly, but in-game it seems to make sense. They also don't do that all the time, which is fine. It is still a game and should be fun.
Some of my new coworkers are interested in DnD, too, and we've talked about starting a campaign IRL. However, everyone's time/place is really messed up right now and it's hard to get on the same page.

 

[Relic]

4 minutes ago, Lightning Lord said:

right now and it's hard to get on the same page.

 

the hardest part of D n D is getting 4 - 6 adults in the same room at the same time week after week =P 

[Lightning Lord]

6 minutes ago, Relic said:

the hardest part of D n D is getting 4 - 6 adults in the same room at the same time week after week =P 

I know. It would be easier if our school were in-person. Since we're online, every scatters to locations I don't quite want to make public

[Martell Spy]

I'm a pretty long-term D&D player, but I know people that have played longer. I don't really play online though, I just prefer the in person experience, as huge of a hassle as it is to pull off, and impossible with the pandemic raging. I started in 1991, or possibly 90. Did 2nd edition, 3rd, 5th, and briefly 4th. (horrible edition)

My main group was formed by friends in high-school and late junior high. I'm the only one of the people that founded the group still playing though and only 2 of the people that joined in high school are still playing. People came and went. One of the founders died at 43 a couple years ago. Another of them joined the Marines right after high-school and moved to Hawaii. Never saw him again. We play 5th edition because the younger players insist on it. I was the main Dungeon Master in the old days, but I retired and prefer playing now and one of the players from high-school now hosts and DMs most games. We shut the game down during the pandemic, then played outside a while, then played inside as it got cold, wearing masks. However, we shut it down again due to the huge virus spikes and Governor's order against gatherings.

The 2nd group group was formed by a bunch of guys older than me and some of them started in the 1970's. One of the old guys is the brother of one of my friends from high school and that is how I got in to this group when I was 16. These guys are around 50 years old, 60 in one case, but there's now a bunch of young players too, as sons and daughters join and sometimes bring friends. They refuse to play any D&D that is not 2nd edition. However, they play a lot of 20 die system Star Wars. (Ironically, pretty much the same system as 3rd edition D&D which they refuse to play) They also play some weird games like Twilight 2000 and Car Wars which was fun to try out. 

Probably won't be gaming until spring comes at a minimum. The old guy group is playing though. I'm kind of purposely not going as they are playing too much really and I don't think masks are used.

Edited December 13, 2020 by Martell Spy

[Poobah]

Oh interesting thread!

I'm actively playing in one game at the moment online using some virtual tabletop software called Foundry which seems really good, though I know the DM in question puts a ton of work into making it so. We're running through Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, though from what I understand the campaign has been heavily modified to make it actually good because by all accounts that module is a total shitshow.

Sadly my current IRL game has been on hiatus since Covid hit since there's 5 of us from 4 different households so meeting indoors would be a no go and that game had scheduling difficulties at the best of times when it was an excuse to all hang out and drink and have a nice meal together - shifting it online or trying to work out some crazy outdoors social distanced thing just never worked out. I really miss that group and game so I'm hoping we manage to get it back together next year at some point, everyone's great and the DM is one of my oldest friends and she puts in so much effort into making our sessions a blast. 

I would like to DM at some point but right now I'm not sure I have the resources/experience to do so online, or the reliably available spoons for such an endeavour to be honest.

[Relic]

14 minutes ago, Poobah said:

We're running through Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, though from what I understand the campaign has been heavily modified to make it actually good because by all accounts that module is a total shitshow.

 

Curious about how it was modified. I own the module and it is...well...its rough. In general I've found the WotC modules to be greatly lacking. I own W:DH on the Roll20 site, I was thinking of running it for my IRL group, but after attempting to make sense of the module I abandoned it and went in a different direction. 

Did you have to pay to use Foundry?

[Poobah]

1 hour ago, Relic said:

Curious about how it was modified. I own the module and it is...well...its rough. In general I've found the WotC modules to be greatly lacking. I own W:DH on the Roll20 site, I was thinking of running it for my IRL group, but after attempting to make sense of the module I abandoned it and went in a different direction. 

Did you have to pay to use Foundry?

My understanding is that our DM bought the software: he runs it on his home server. Next time we talk I'll ask him about it for ya.

I think he's partly homebrewing and partly using The Alexandrian's Remix of the module - I remember seeing it on reddit back after the module was released and discussed it briefly with him. Since I'm playing atm I haven't really looked in to it any further tho since I don't want to actively be seeking out spoilers. We also ended up taking a side-trip into a dungeon (the blue alley) from dmsguild.

[Werthead]

I haven't played D&D for eleven years, which is kind of crazy considering I don't think I went more that 3-4 months without playing a game for the fifteen years prior to that.

The issue at the moment is my gaming group got completely burned out on D&D (before I rocked up) and several of the members pointblank refuse to play it ("for now" but that "for now" has lasted five years so far). We've done a lot of Star Wars (the OG 1980s version, since the WotC versions based on 3rd and 4th Edition D&D were both poor and the recent edition is hugely overpriced) and Deadlands (my favourite RPG of all time), some Shadowrun and are currently debating doing either Cyberpunk Red (tying in with Cyberpunk 2077's recent release) or the new Modiphius Dune RPG which should be out in the New Year. I definitely want to run a Fallout P&P campaign when that comes out next summer.

We were going to run the Alien RPG but one of the group decided at the last minute they really didn't want to do a horror campaign and noped out. I also picked up Tales from the Loop but I'm not sure if the guys in the group who are a bit more power-gamery can handle playing teenagers who have to think and talk their way through problems rather than blasting/hacking their way through them.

[Fez]

I've been DMing a 5E D&D campaign online with friends for about 16 months now. It's been fun. Started as a way to keep in touch as folks moved about the country, and was a good distraction to keep going during the pandemic. It's the first time most of us had played, and the first time I DM'd.

After seeing so much of what 5E has to offer, I've decided that I like it, but I think I'm interested in some of the other tabletop systems. I think I'd prefer something with fewer rules, fewer spells and gear, and more focused on the role-playing. And also, hopefully much faster-paced combat since players wouldn't need to look up abilities and spells so often to remember what they've got.

Also, as rewarding as DMing has been, I think I'd prefer being a player in the future.

[Poobah]

 

[Durckad]

I've been DMing D&D pretty consistently for about twenty years now. At least since the start of 3rd Edition. I started back at the very tail end of 2e, though we switched DMing duties more regularly back then so I got to play almost as much as I DM'd. I've pretty much only run games for D&D, 2e, 3e, 3.5, Pathfinder, now 5e, though I did once run a Call of Cthulhu one-shot and I had a very brief Warhammer Fantasy game that I ran, mostly because my players for most of this time have only been interested in playing D&D. Which is fine, 5E is fun and it's relatively easy to DM for and it certainly isn't the nightmare that 3E and Pathfinder could be, but I do wish I had been able to run more Warhammer games. That was a fun system.

Right now I'm running two 5E games, one that's just getting started and one that's around 14th level and is in the process of wrapping up, both on Roll20, which is kind of nice as playing remotely seems to have reduced the amount of BSing that goes on around the table. Most of the players are people who I've been playing with since High School and even though some have moved away and started families, we can still get together once or twice month for a couple of hours to kill orcs and engage in some good-natured murder hoboing.

[Guy Kilmore]

I have been in and out of Table Top RPGs for around 30 years now.  I am currently DMing a 5e game over Discord.  It was an in person game, but we moved there once the pandemic hit.  It is going strong, I just started a new game in my homebrew world.  The longest game I ran was in Pathfinder going from level 1 to 20, it took I think around 3 years or so, but it was an epic, crazy journey.

I have run Dragon Heist, it requires a lot of GM adapting/improvisation to move it along, but it is a fun module.  

I am also a huge fan of Critical Role, I used to catch it live, now I catch the VODs over the weekend.

Lastly, if people are looking at trying something new and less crunchy, I tend to do DnD for a bit, then dip into something else for a bit.  Shadowrun is really fun, but SUPER crunchy, if you are going the other way FATE Core is a really fun abstract system.  I think running it made me a better DM with it's mechanics.  Powers and abilities are based on Tags which are really narrative descriptors, like if you are in a DARK, ABANADONED Warehouse that is ON FIRE.  Dark, Abandoned and On Fire are the tags that you could use to influence the game with your character abilities through the use of FATE points.  It really encourages joint story telling.  I have a friend that is attempting to start up Ars Magica which is a more narrative troupe style of game set in Mythic Europe.  It feels kind of fun.

I am curious to try Monster of the Week.  I also have Tales from the Loop and I am curious about it as well.

Once I settle into my new job and figure life out, I may, may be interested in running something online.

[Werthead]

22 hours ago, Fez said:

I've been DMing a 5E D&D campaign online with friends for about 16 months now. It's been fun. Started as a way to keep in touch as folks moved about the country, and was a good distraction to keep going during the pandemic. It's the first time most of us had played, and the first time I DM'd.

After seeing so much of what 5E has to offer, I've decided that I like it, but I think I'm interested in some of the other tabletop systems. I think I'd prefer something with fewer rules, fewer spells and gear, and more focused on the role-playing. And also, hopefully much faster-paced combat since players wouldn't need to look up abilities and spells so often to remember what they've got.

The Fria League games sound like they'd be more up your alley. They have a high roleplaying and puzzle-solving focus and less emphasis on combat. They are also very focused on the roleplaying experience with entire rule systems based on roleplaying, rewarding good roleplaying etc. Their highest-profile games are Alien (and it's worth noting that Alien is the basis for the RPG, not Aliens as such, although the rules try to adjust for it), Tales from the Loop (basically Stranger Things: The RPG, although it came first) and Mutant (post-apocalyptic SF with human/animal hybrids, particularly in the Year Zero sub-line; there's also a splendid video game based on the RPG).

Modiphius are the other dominant CRPG producing factory of the moment, who rose to fame with their highly mutable 2d20 system which they perfected in games like Age of Conan and Star Trek. The system is highly adaptable for high-crunch, high-combat (with Age of Conan) or a more puzzle-focused, diplomatic roleplaying setting (like Star Trek). They have a whole slew of licensed new RPGs coming out in the near future: Dune, Fallout and Homeworld are all out in 2021, and they recently did a great RPG based on the Dishonored video games.

For a high roleplaying focus - though your players have to be okay with 1) almost certainly dying or 2) going completely insane - Call of Cthulhu is still a very solid game. Some people hate it though, when they realise they can't shotgun Cthulhu in the face to complete the adventure.

There's a new edition of Deadlands (the Weird West RPG) coming out imminently (in the next two months) which has been my favourite RPG since 1996. The new edition is based on the Savage Worlds ruleset which is a highly flexible, universal system used for lots of different games (sort of a more modernised equivalent to GURPS, although GURPS itself is still kicking around, although it is showing its age a bit).

I recently picked up both The Expanse and The Witcher RPGs and the rules for both are solid, more lightweight than D&D but crunchier than most RPGs around at the moment.

Cyberpunk games do tend to have a lot of systems (understandably, as they have a lot more angles to cover). Cyberpunk is a bit more focused and tighter than Shadowrun, which has always perennially been a fantastic setting and premise (epic fantasy creatures appear on Earth in a cyberpunk future) in desperate search of a good rules system.

[Relic]

13 hours ago, Guy Kilmore said:

 

Once I settle into my new job and figure life out, I may, may be interested in running something online.

Do itttttt!! Or, if someone wants to DM for me, I can return the favor. 

[ljkeane]

I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone who plays D&D so I’ve never really had the opportunity to play. I suppose I could have  found a club at Uni if I’d actually gone looking for it. It does sound cool though. 

[Relic]

4 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone who plays D&D so I’ve never really had the opportunity to play. I suppose I could have  found a club at Uni if I’d actually gone looking for it. It does sound cool though. 

Have you watched an of the now millions of vids on youtube of other people playing? If not -

 

 

[Guy Kilmore]

Critical Role is horribly addicting.