D&D 5E Discussion

[Ninjerk]

The first person I taught to play D&D after I bought the Basic Set in 1987 was my younger sister (we were 13 and 10). She still plays today, as does her daughter (age 12).

I don't get to game too often now, but it's most frequently with husband & wife pairs. Sometimes the wife is actually the longtime player, with the husband tagging along.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I ran a couple of sessions for my wife and our daughters (ages 5 and almost 8). My oldest had been asking me to teach her to play D&D for a few weeks.

They couldn't get enough of the game. The kids anyway. My wife does enjoy playing though (5e or 1980s Basic; she really didn't like 4e).

My youngest got right into it. I described two goblins emerging from a cave and asked "what do you do?" Without missing a beat, she stood up on her chair and shouted "KILL THEM!!!"

I'm so proud of her.

So how long until you make her play Ultima Underworld?

 

[Sacibengala]

The first person I taught to play D&D after I bought the Basic Set in 1987 was my younger sister (we were 13 and 10). She still plays today, as does her daughter (age 12).

I don't get to game too often now, but it's most frequently with husband & wife pairs. Sometimes the wife is actually the longtime player, with the husband tagging along.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I ran a couple of sessions for my wife and our daughters (ages 5 and almost 8). My oldest had been asking me to teach her to play D&D for a few weeks.

They couldn't get enough of the game. The kids anyway. My wife does enjoy playing though (5e or 1980s Basic; she really didn't like 4e).

My youngest got right into it. I described two goblins emerging from a cave and asked "what do you do?" Without missing a beat, she stood up on her chair and shouted "KILL THEM!!!"

I'm so proud of her.

You are in heaven man, salute!

 

[Magellan]

Have any of you guys ever tried play by forum games?

I 'discovered' them just over a year ago and have been really having fun. I know it's not quite the same, but what you lose in personal social interaction you do gain in slightly more in-depth role-playing (there is definitely more verbose dialogue and such than vs an in-person game). Also the time commitment is much less, most games only ask for a commitment to post once per weekday, so the time commitment is literally maybe 5 minutes per day. I've been playing on RPGgeek, and found some great groups (99% of the people are awesome) to play just about every game you can think of, D&D 5e in vanilla and Adventures in Middle Earth versions, Tales From the Loop, Pendragon, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Starfinder, Force and Destiny (Star Wars), etc.

 

[Andhaira]

Have any of you guys ever tried play by forum games?

I 'discovered' them just over a year ago and have been really having fun. I know it's not quite the same, but what you lose in personal social interaction you do gain in slightly more in-depth role-playing (there is definitely more verbose dialogue and such than vs an in-person game). Also the time commitment is much less, most games only ask for a commitment to post once per weekday, so the time commitment is literally maybe 5 minutes per day. I've been playing on RPGgeek, and found some great groups (99% of the people are awesome) to play just about every game you can think of, D&D 5e in vanilla and Adventures in Middle Earth versions, Tales From the Loop, Pendragon, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Starfinder, Force and Destiny (Star Wars), etc.

rpol.net is the best pbp forum on the net, period.

 

[Magellan]

rpol.net is the best pbp forum on the net, period.

Cool man, I’ll check it out. Thus far I’ve only used RPGgeek. What sets rpol.net apart?

 

[nikolokolus]

Have any of you guys ever tried play by forum games?

I 'discovered' them just over a year ago and have been really having fun. I know it's not quite the same, but what you lose in personal social interaction you do gain in slightly more in-depth role-playing (there is definitely more verbose dialogue and such than vs an in-person game). Also the time commitment is much less, most games only ask for a commitment to post once per weekday, so the time commitment is literally maybe 5 minutes per day. I've been playing on RPGgeek, and found some great groups (99% of the people are awesome) to play just about every game you can think of, D&D 5e in vanilla and Adventures in Middle Earth versions, Tales From the Loop, Pendragon, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Starfinder, Force and Destiny (Star Wars), etc.

I've been running a play by post Magic World game (effectively Chaosium's Stormbringer with the Moorcock bits filed off) here on the Codex for something like 2, maybe 3 years? With six players. It's definitely a slow burn, but it does give me ample time to respond to player actions and riff extemporaneously.

When we wind that down in the next month or so, I'm planning to do a wide-open "West Marches" style PbP with some kind of megadungeon at the center and drop-in, drop-out style play. Probably Barrowmaze mixed with The Midderlands and some kind of retroclone or DCC RPG.

Oh yeah, I guess if anybody is interested, PM me and I'll try to loop them in when the time comes.

 

[Magellan]

I've been running a play by post Magic World game (effectively Chaosium's Stormbringer with the Moorcock bits filed off) here on the Codex for something like 2, maybe 3 years? With six players. It's definitely a slow burn, but it does give me ample time to respond to player actions and riff extemporaneously.

When we wind that down in the next month or so, I'm planning to do a wide-open "West Marches" style PbP with some kind of megadungeon at the center and drop-in, drop-out style play. Probably Barrowmaze mixed with The Midderlands and some kind of retroclone or DCC RPG.

Oh yeah, I guess if anybody is interested, PM me and I'll try to loop them in when the time comes.

Sounds pretty cool. DCC in particular is completely awesome.

 

[Andhaira]

rpol.net is the best pbp forum on the net, period.

Cool man, I’ll check it out. Thus far I’ve only used RPGgeek. What sets rpol.net apart?

Everything really, it was built solely for pbp playing. No adverts, and site is completely free. Has a LOT of stuff that is very easy to use; for instance, in every game PCs are incorporated with their character names rather than board names. Each PC has his own sheet, and seperate pages for character descriptions. Ability for private messages within posts so the GM can tell specific PCs what they see with those perception checks that no one else can; built in dice roller in the site with ability to customize for nearly every RPG on the market, including FFGs Star Wars rpgs. GMs have a lot of tools to monitor and run their games.

Check it out, you'll never want to pbp anywhere else again.

 

[Zero Credibility]

When we wind that down in the next month or so, I'm planning to do a wide-open "West Marches" style PbP with some kind of megadungeon at the center and drop-in, drop-out style play. Probably Barrowmaze mixed with The Midderlands and some kind of retroclone or DCC RPG.

Oh yeah, I guess if anybody is interested, PM me and I'll try to loop them in when the time comes.

Sounds interesting, Playground could certainly use more stuff like that, and I definitely want to try some pbp.

 

[nikolokolus]

When we wind that down in the next month or so, I'm planning to do a wide-open "West Marches" style PbP with some kind of megadungeon at the center and drop-in, drop-out style play. Probably Barrowmaze mixed with The Midderlands and some kind of retroclone or DCC RPG.

Oh yeah, I guess if anybody is interested, PM me and I'll try to loop them in when the time comes.

Sounds interesting, Playground could certainly use more stuff like that, and I definitely want to try some pbp.

If you're interested I can loop you in to the sort of unofficial "prep" conversation.

 

[Zero Credibility]

All right, count on me. Though I only found out about DDC 15 minutes ago, and what very little I've learned since strikes me as weird and awkward. Unless I'm looking at the wrong bloody thing.

 

[nikolokolus]

All right, count on me. Though I only found out about DDC 15 minutes ago, and what very little I've learned since strikes me as weird and awkward. Unless I'm looking at the wrong bloody thing.

DCC RPG weird and awkward? No. No man. Shit, no man.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Well, I only looked at the stuff for 15 minutes, but what annoyed the hell out of me right away was character creation. Half the enjoyment in playing roleplaying games for me is creating a character, usually I think of a concept and background and try to come as close to it as rules allow. And this system allows that about as much as a random character generator does. Roll stats in order is bad enough, but the real kicker is roll for background as well. Ugh. The only thing you can actually chose is one of the three alignments, and a name, surprised that wasn't random as well. Oh, and a class later on, unless you rolled one of the racial backgrounds, in which case fuck you, you are playing a halfling class I guess? Few things will kill the fun for me like trying to play a character I fundamentally don't like.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Sure, change roll in order to roll and assign, and change roll for background to choose or roll for background, that would help (the whole race-as-class thing is still awkward, but ok). But that's a job for the DM, not a player. And the game seems to make a deliberate point in not giving you choices, because it's supposed to be old school, from simpler and better times when players knew how to play, when we were young and when dinosaurs roamed the earth. At least that's the impression it made on me.

 

[Zero Credibility]

I am running a serious campaign R I G H T N O W where I gave players point buy, allowed them to pick whatever class they wanted and gave them multiple options outside of the core book, the party is a Blood Witch, a Murder Machine, A warrior, an Elf, a Half Demon and a Dwarf.

Now that sounds better.

 

[catfood]

If you like having control over how your character turns out then DCC is most likely not for you. It's a game specifically designed to avoid the munchkinism of 3e. That said, like the poster above mentioned you can house rule point buy if you want more control. Personally I love rolling dice at character creation and seeing what is in store for me and having to work around my strengths and weaknesses.

 

[nikolokolus]

Well, I only looked at the stuff for 15 minutes, but what annoyed the hell out of me right away was character creation. Half the enjoyment in playing roleplaying games for me is creating a character, usually I think of a concept and background and try to come as close to it as rules allow. And this system allows that about as much as a random character generator does. Roll stats in order is bad enough, but the real kicker is roll for background as well. Ugh. The only thing you can actually chose is one of the three alignments, and a name, surprised that wasn't random as well. Oh, and a class later on, unless you rolled one of the racial backgrounds, in which case fuck you, you are playing a halfling class I guess? Few things will kill the fun for me like trying to play a character I fundamentally don't like.

If your primary joy in an RPG is carefully building a character then, no you probably wouldn't like DCC, but there is a sneaky unwritten rule you're missing. Because you start out with a grip of 4-6 zero level characters, there's usually one "favored son" in the bunch. Clever players in the character funnel (the 0-level adventure designed to winnow out the weak and unfit) will usually treat the other shittier characters as cannon fodder and do their best to insulate "favored son" to the end. There's no guarantees of course, but it's a pretty smart strategy, that works more often than not.

As for more flexibility in character creation, there's no hard and fast rules that a GM can't modify to taste. For instance, there's a ton of fan made zines like 'Crawl' that add in a bunch of new classes and provide alternate rules for non-humans to play as something other than just Dwarf, Elf, or Halfling. As for building your character in DCC, the rule of thumb is always "Quest for it." Want to become a specialist with the longsword? Find the great sword master in the Iron Hills and have him teach you. Want to find that one spell that you really want to learn? Bring a rare green lotus flower to the Mad Monks of Kwantoom and maybe they'll let you look at their vast library of ancient books. The game just has a very different aesthetic than most modern gamers are used to. It works a lot better in practice than you might think, but it's not for everybody.

EDIT: not to say there's anything wrong with carefully building characters either. My favorite system is probably chaosium's Elric!/Stormbringer, and that's all about allocating skill points.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Yeah, building a character (at least at the start of the game) is a major source of fun for me, not so much for minmaxing some combat beast, but just to bring that character closest I can to some image I have of him. Didn't even notice that rule of starting with multiple characters, I guess that makes the zero-level start have some point to it other than for laughs. Not much of a fan of gonzo storytelling I'm afraid.

Anyway, I've been looking into some other forums for pnp play as well, and there is quite a bit of activity I see. I already had a account on Mythweavers for their sheets, so I looked at what they have to offer. There's certainly some interesting games looking for players, but what some of the GMs are asking for is just... there are official applications, with precise formating and images and styling and backgrounds and writing samples and grading of every element. I've been to job interviews that were less strict than this.

 

[nikolokolus]

Yeah, building a character (at least at the start of the game) is a major source of fun for me, not so much for minmaxing some combat beast, but just to bring that character closest I can to some image I have of him. Didn't even notice that rule of starting with multiple characters, I guess that makes the zero-level start have some point to it other than for laughs. Not much of a fan of gonzo storytelling I'm afraid.

Anyway, I've been looking into some other forums for pnp play as well, and there is quite a bit of activity I see. I already had a account on Mythweavers for their sheets, so I looked at what they have to offer. There's certainly some interesting games looking for players, but what some of the GMs are asking for is just... there are official applications, with precise formating and images and styling and backgrounds and writing samples and grading of every element. I've been to job interviews that were less strict than this.

DCC is just one of the options on the table. If there are strong objections to it from people, then that's why there are other systems that will be voted on.

If you really want to join another PbP game, you might give http://www.unseenservant.us/forum/index.php a look. It's pretty low-key and friendly from what I remember.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Oh, don't sweat it, I'm just bitching as usual. I took a look at unseenservant, but there's not much open on it right now. RPGgeek is pretty slow as well. Rpol seems like a place to watch, there's even a couple of GURPS games recruiting at the moment. Just can't figure out if it's even possible to read / spectate games in progress there.

I wish there was more stuff like this going on here in the playground, this place used to be much more lively.

 

[Magellan]

My initial thought with DCC's random characters was pretty negative, but as soon as I tried it I fell in love with it. It's shockingly fun (IMO) to work around what fate has given you.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

If you have problems with that can't you just ask GM to let players chose some things from the RNG? Picking stats would probably break the game, but why not professions, races and backgrounds?

 

[nikolokolus]

If you have problems with that can't you just ask GM to let players chose some things from the RNG? Picking stats would probably break the game, but why not professions, races and backgrounds?

It wouldn't break a thing, it would just be different to how it was designed, which the designers explicitly state they know you're going to do just that.

DCC RAW does have a very distinct feel to it that is worth experiencing at least once -- the unexpected occupation, race and class combinations make for some very memorable game experiences, that you'll never have if players go ala carte.

 

[Lhynn]

So i was making a character now that a friend will be DMing. I went with monk and was surprised to find how shit the subclass selection was. With a single Exception.
Long death monks, its amazing, its thematically fitting and its tremendously useful to the party. Sadly i wont be playing it because my DM think a level 1 monk is too strong, so ill be swiching to a crossbow expert fighter. Still i felt it was quite a find, and ill be sure to try it in a future campaign.

 

[Prime Junta]

Rejoice Codex, for your prayers have been heard. Elves will be able to grow a peen or boobs or both during a good night's sleep.

http://comicbook.com/gaming/2018/03/14/dungeons-and-dragons-genderfluid-elves/