B&B DnD or P&P RPG, potentially? Apparently Definitely.
  • So there's at least 9 people displaying an interest, but without feedback on the questions I either need to make decisions... or give you more time to read and decide.

    Boded for IMPORTANCE

    I am leaning towards simplicity. Which is: Use D&D 5e, chop you up into two groups based on available days/times, and run two short, one shot style campaigns to make it fair. I am also thinking about writing/heavily modifying a pre-existing one as opposed to just running something verbatim, that way i'll know it better.

    Do we still have a B&B Dropbox?
  • I’d love to do this.

    Love me some critical role and have pondered, more than once, whether to do exactly what Tempu has just done.

    Unfortunately, I just can’t make the time commitment. Good luck, lads and ladies.
  • Maybe in the future eh?

    Part of this is the fact I am very likely to have an entire month of fuck all to do thanks to work, so I might as well do something constructive! I want to run The Sprawl for some pals in the same manner, but they all know their onions for role playing so I feel it's better to practice doing it online with a system I know so I can feel out the foibles of writing/running a campaign over voice etc

    Also I think people'd dig it
  • Yeah.

    I think running a pre-made is a good idea for new groups, and I’d always lean towards 5e as a system. I know a lot of people like PBtA but I find a lot of the alternative systems either incredibly light, or kinda gimmicky. 5e has issues (balance once you hit the teen levels is gone, unbalanced action economy for bosses etc.) but it’s also a very robust system which does pretty much everything and does it well.
  • Nina
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    I was still studying Tempy! (well, I only listened to half of one of those Adventure Zone podcasts when walking to the supermarket. Never been so disappointed when I realized they don't sell single lollipops)

    5e sounds fine to me, I would honestly accept anything that you've summed up in the first post. What's a one shot though? If you happen to have a link to something on YouTube or Twitch that would be helpful for someone new to this than please send it to me.

    Guess it would be a good thing if people posted their availability too, like I said, I can do Thursday to Friday from 9pm onwards. The only Friday I'll be out for sure will be around the weekend of July 21st. Not sure when you want to start this and that might not even be a problem.
  • A one-shot is a self contained story designed to be played and completed in one (or perhaps two) sessions. It gives you a complete story and lets you experiment with characters and skills, and are “easy” to finish compared to an ongoing campaign which can go for months or years before fizzling our.

    They’re a lot of fun and a great way to learn D&D.

    I think I might link some D&D stuff here at some point for those who are interested, to give them an idea of how to play.
  • In answer to Temps:

    Time availability I can do weeknights, I don't think weekends are good choice because people always have stuff to do. I'm usually free from 20:00. I would also just make it a once a week thing max.

    "Let me tell you, when yung Rouj had his Senna and Mansell Scalextric, Frank was the goddamn Professor X of F1."
  • Brooks wrote:
    I'd be up for the next one if this one isn't a disaster. Never early adopt, folks.

    You miss out on that first week enthusiasm while the potential hasn’t been ruined by reality though.

    I’d be up for it!

  • I think I might link some D&D stuff here at some point for those who are interested, to give them an idea of how to play.

    Feel free. I have a bit of a DM speech that I give when I sit down to start because I have my own philosophy of what makes a good experience, and how I want my players to approach the game - don’t ask the DM if you can do something, say that you want to try it instead etc.

    But really I need some like, firm locks first.

  • Going over what type of game it is at the beginning is deffo the right way to do it - let’s people know what they’re in for.

    Do you do any of their rolls for them, out of interest? I know that some DMs like to roll the players stealth / perception / insight rolls because a player wouldn’t know if they’re well hidden or not...
  • Paul the sparky
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    Someone hit Revel up, he'll not want to miss this caper.

    Will there be updates in here so all us cunts can see what we're missing?
  • @cinty I’ve toyed with it once or twice.

    The stealth thing offloads a lot of stuff to the DM and it can be good for the right group? It’s not often great for ‘theatre of the mind’ stuff, but I can see it being good with a grid and figures to better confer a sense of location and risk etc

    Perception is the toughest. Unless someone is roiling a Nat20 on a perception test I am generally pretty vague about stuff unless they specify what they want to look for. If they’re looking for secret doors, I want them to

    1) say that
    2) tell me where they’re looking

    None of this “I roll for secrets” whilst they’re stood in the middle of the room.
  • Cool. How specific do you make them get? If they head up to a wall and say they wanna check the wall for markings, would that fly? I could imagine it getting a bit “guess what the DM is thinking” otherwise...
  • Well, I am a kind DM. I have only played with relatively new folk, and my job is to facilitate them having a good time. Nothing is fixed, which is the beauty of DnD. I've had multiple dungeons that have had secret doors in, the trick is trying to make them obvious without being obvious. 

    In Death House, there is clearly a secret doorway as the kids taunt the PCs from the attic but you can't reach it. There's another more obvious clue which plays on a good horror movie trope too. In Mines of Phandelver, there's a less obvious one, but it's all about trying to let the players build a mental map to figure out that there should be more between places they've explored.

    As for the specificity, I am happy for them to say they're investigating a wall if they've clocked that there should be something in that direction given their mental cartography, their knowledge of the land, their class/background, and a whole bunch of things. It's really malleable though, which is why it's so much fun. The party had 3 people who see in the dark and only one who couldn't, due to racial traits. I kept making him pull blanks on decent-ish perception rolls in the dungeon, because he was taking the defacto leader position of the party and I wanted the other players to get involved more, and roleplaying gives you lots of excuses and reasons to push player influence around... like not being able to see good in dungeons. When players get a bonus because something the character they designed can specifically do, well that's good DnD.
  • After about 3 or 4 sessions two of the four really wanted Magic Items. Sadly DnD's generation system for Magic Items is boring. No one really wants a +1 Sword. So I had to design a set on the fly during one session, based on the background Phandelver gives about some lost civilisation. 

    The fun then stemmed from the fact that I let them pick 3 out of the available 7 I had made, despite them all being fairly useful to various members (Fighter, Ranger, Wizard, Sorcerer) and then I only really gave them the physical description of the items as opposed to the rules, just to keep them on their toes.

    They're bellow, for ruleheads. They're not great, but... they're magic. Which was more important.
    Spoiler:
  • ...dat Helmbreaker. Fuuuuuck.
  • I was reading Beserk at the time. Some RPG nerd on a discord told me it was bad because no one would ever lose permanent HP. Don't think the guy had played 5e because our fighter had more HP than he knew what to do with.
  • I'm LTTP but I'm interested. Always wanted to give it a try but have no idea if I'll like it so that one-shot things seems right. If there's still enough space that is.

    I'm good for a weekday, once a week max also. Enjoyed the D&D session in Life is Strange Before the Storm, one of my favourite bits of the game in fact.

    If I don't like it, can I make my character run away in a yellow-bellied rush of tail-tucking terror, never to return again?
  • Definitely interested if the timings work out.
  • Temps, I'd suggest doing the one shot first with the groups and then gauging if those players want to commit to something larger and longer term.

    I'd like to give that a go and make sure I can commit etc before saying 'hey sure I'll do a year long campaign'
    I'm falling apart to songs about hips and hearts...
  • That's what i'd said at the top of the page, yep!
  • I would definitely be interested, but fear I would be a bit unreliable in terms of availability, so I'll just add my voice to those offering encouragement from the sidelines for now.

    (Also I don't really know what I'm doing.  A friend recently persuaded me and my wife to join their D&D campaign which was/is the first time I'd played.  I still spend half the time checking how things work, and generally faffing about.  This is balanced by the other half of the time where, as a bard, I sit there making up songs about dragons and owlbears set to the tunes of obscure indie pop-songs.  I'm not sure which I would find more embarrassing to share with the wider world...)
  • Gotta love people who role play bards and actually sing them sweet tunes.
  • I will not be a bard.
  • I would be barred if i did that.
    "Like i said, context is missing."
    http://ssgg.uk
  • No jokes - at high levels bards are basically god-tier. I mean, high level 5e is all demigod level characters, I suppose, but druids and bards just take the piss.
  • Tempy wrote:
    That's what i'd said at the top of the page, yep!

    Yeah but now it looks like my idea. Management 101 temps.
    I'm falling apart to songs about hips and hearts...
  • Shotgun being Stoph's half-elf, half-cyborg ninja love interest.
     

    This is getting better and better. 

    I warn you all, I'm a bit of a D&D virgin and am destined to inadvertently wipe my party out. I'll be like Clint on The Adventure Zone.
  • I understood none of the weapon descriptions doing 12d e +8 or whatever it was.
    (is that 12 damage and 8 energy damage like stamina or something)?

    I once played space hulk boardgame about 25 years ago and loved it.
    Would have loved to be able to repeat something simular.
    I hate discord though and see people possibly more keen.

    Just hope we get transcripts or updates in here.
    Good works tempy.
  • @Tempy
    Just a suggestion but you should have a look at Tabletop Simulator (currently half price in Steam sale), that way you could have a virtual board. It has just about everything you could imagine on the workshop including some of the boards etc. for variations of the game you mentioned in the OP, you can easily download new models and set the game up how you like. For those who don't have the game or can't run it you could stream the board to twitch or youtube.

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