Role-playing games

Glad to hear it! What sort of character did you create?

Well we didn't quite get to that.
Mostly we talked about expectations, why we were looking for a group, and what kind of campaign-thing to start running on the 19th (and of course which game edition; we decided on 5e).
There was one other person who didn't make it to the meetup but might still join, but so far it's one older lady (40-ish) whose house we'll meet at, an older guy (also 40-ish) and then two other guys around my own age.

Honestly things we're a bit awkward at first. It was an extremely hot day, though the evening was cooler, so we sat on the patio at this coffee-shop.
(Incidentally, one of the places at which I used to garden.)

Anyway, the main difficulty after introductions was avoiding that dynamic that can happen with groups of strangers where most people's first instinct is to agree with whoever is talking.
This really keeps the group from accomplishing much of anything. Only the most basic and obvious choices are made, and all it takes to wrap up discussion is one person saying "everything is covered" or that they have no objections to anything.
It's a strange thing, how groups can work like that. If we compared the small group to how the human brain works, then awkward unproductive meetings are like someone trying to buy a new car or shop at a bookstore while recovering from nitrous oxide. You're just kind of dumbed-down, honestly. Your brain is so busy trying to work out your relation to these other people that you aren't able to contribute the good ideas you have and listen to other people instead. You give up some of your individuality, including your individual preference, in an ultimately unsatisfying trade for group identity that doesn't work out in the long run.

The two older players were much more talkative but the two my age leaned toward that typical group submissiveness at times. I tried to ask good questions and have us go around the table on important points, (like what kind of fantasy we liked the most, I was kind of alone in my love for Tolkien.  ) and eventually we all loosened up and things progressed nicely.

With hindsight the whole thing seems pretty easy! You just need to find people with similar interests. It's like here on Forumshire. We're all really different people, but an appreciation for Tolkien and a, mostly, shared abhorrence for the Hobbit films brings us together.

P.S.
I'm a bit nervous about how far from the high fantasy of Tolkien the others will want to go. I tried creating a half-elven bard here at home for practice, and even that idea was kind of hard to get around: that I couldn't place this character's back-story in Middle-Earth.
I just hope noone makes a Drow or Tiefling or Dragon-born or something for the group.

P.P.S.
I exaggerate somewhat; I'm not that big of a fantasy snob really.
I guess as long as there aren't any Scottish dwarves I'll be alright.

...No offense to Scottish DnDers of course.
Removed from authentic Scottish accents, some people really butcher the delivery, that's all.
I mean it's just uncomfortable all-round, I think.

Anyway, for our first adventure-thing the current DM has decided on a preset sort of campaign based in the Forgotten Realms. I've never heard of it before, but apparently it's a rather well-known setting.
Actually I just looked up the wikipedia page for it and I've heard of the creator, Ed Greenwood. Well, I saw him in a recorded DnD game at a festival once anyway: that is to say, in a video on youtube.

Has anyone else played a campaign in the Forgotten Realms before?

Not for years- thats an old one- that was on the go as a new D&D thing when I was in my late teens
Also spawned a lot of pulp fantasy books, the Dragon Lance series.

Interesting, I guess the reason we're using it is because two of the players are about your age Petty.
Must be some DnD nostalgia going on here, what with three of our group being entirely new to the game. The veterans are harking back to their own beginnings.

Well it's only two days away now. My stupid copy of the fifth edition handbook still hasn't arrived.
However, I figured that, since I had already purchased a legitimate copy of the book, that it was morally alright to get a digital copy by dubious means: just so I can join the group this Sunday with a clear idea of the class choices and the actual rules. (I've learned this Castles and Crusades version through and through, so the greatest challenge will be switching over to DnD!)
Anyway, I'm off to dinner.

Let me know how you find playing 5th edition- my own group are in discussions at the moment over which version to use- as DM I see no need to go above 3.5 and as I dislike even a lot of additions in there (feats in particular which are way too overpowering and unbalancing) I really see no reason to go above 2nd edition.
And whilst I have only glanced over the 5th edition payers handbook (the DM guide I dont think is out yet, so not sure how you can have a game using 5th ed without it) and I really disliked the over simplification of skills, but mainly the removal of skillpoints when leveling up for players to allocate- as I have always felt as a DM that leveling up and deciding where to put skill points is something players enjoy. Removing it seems bizarre to me therefore.

I just deleted a massive post I had been working on.


Anyway the gist of it was that I talked at length about the Bard class and how I mostly liked how it was coming together and that I had never heard of Skill Point allocation for skills.
It's basically a mechanic (one that basically just modifies d20 rolls) that allows for greater specialization within a class, right?
It seems like a rule that you could add back in if you really wanted it, possibly. But it sounded rather unnecessary to me. There is a mechanic in 5e DnD that gives you 2 points in on ability, or 1 point in 2 abilities every few levels (4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th levels for bards, for example). On top of that there is a Proficiency Bonus that universally applies to all the rolls concerning actions you are proficient in. This is a number that slowly increases from +2 at lvl one to +6 at lvl 20 (at least for bards that is).
Using that you can easily calculate (this example is for Bards):
Spell Save DC (difficulty class for your target to roll against, unless I'm mistaken here):
8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier

Spell Attack Modifier: your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier.

I suppose physical attacks would work very similarly with:
d20 + your proficiency bonus (if applicable) + your Strength/Agility modifier.

The rules are detailed but pretty straightforward thus far. I hear a lot about "feats" but haven't yet gotten to that part in the handbook so we'll see how I feel about them then.

P.S.
My favourite tip so far from the book is that I can find out any of my Ability (or is attribute?) modifiers by using this and rounding the answer down: (X-10)/2
So if I have, say, 16 Strength >> (16-10)/2 >> 6/2 >> +3 STR modifier.
I thought it was pretty nifty anyway!

P.P.S.
There, I pretty much recreated the post I had lost.

I've read 176 pages of the PHB in the last day and a half. I'm overloading on the game details.

Quiet around here of late.

Well not that anyone seems to be interested of late {{{!!!}}} but the game went quite well!
It took a very long time to get our characters all sorted out and named and backstoried and what-not, but I really liked the way the 5e PHB had us set up our characters backstories. It included several suggested backstories that could be changed as we liked but helped us focus and, more importantly, easily let the other players know what kind of character we had created.

We did get in about half of a chapter's worth of the Dragon Queen thingy campaign that we're playing through. At this point we defeated a couple groups of kobolds, captured a human cultist and rescued a woman and her husband and kids.

I like the 5e stuff so far Petty. I am new to RPGs, but I'm not having much difficulty understanding what checks to use where and how my skills work. I like my class as well.
I'm playing a half-elven Bard who currently is equipped with some leather armour and shortbow and dagger (and Lute, of course!). I've only used one spell so far (Sleep, put about 3 kobolds to sleep; I suggested we let them lie but the gnome convinced us to kill them: he's Chaotic Neutral).

My one main contention with the game is that I don't know how to roleplay well yet and I miss many opportunities for character development and general enjoyment, and the DM is a little boring at times when it comes to combat.

The most exciting moment we had so far was sighting a dragon in the distance setting a town alight, and apart from that we haven't really gotten very exciting descriptions of things.
As you'll know from the RTD game I love the power of description to evoke a mood and the lack of that in the game is frustrating.
Things will improve, I know, so I'm really looking forward to next week!

P.S.
I had a moment of doubt as to the general animal knowledge of the DM after she described a sheep as weighing about 600 pounds (~270 kilos).
I've heard of large sheep, certainly, but not domesticated ones that large.  
It's but a small thing, perhaps a slip of the tongue.

I have issues with character background stuff in the new version. It informs starting stats to much in my view, and it is something in the past was a part of world and character creation. The DM would create the world, the player pick a race and what sort of character they have in mind to play, then the DM and player would work out a back story suited to the created world.
The new way seems far too restrictive on imagination for my liking, its like having presets in a computer game.

For example if you get the chance to read the story based on the game I put up here you will see that the characters all have backgrounds integrated into the world so they are a part of it. And the backgrounds inform the actions of the character even when not known by the rest of the players.

I lament the lack of this creative process in the new one for plumping for a prewritten default background.
Yes you can tweak, but whats tweaking compared to complete freedom to create?

Well both methods can be used. For the initiate, I find the pre-constructed "builds" very helpful!

For our purposes, the DM used a pre-made campaign as we none of us knew eachother yet. So we knew where our characters could come from in the Forgotten Realms world, and as we created them all at the same time we were able to go back and forth between us as to how we knew eachother and so forth.
The only limiting factor was the fact that three out of five of us were new to RPGs.

Well both methods can be used.- Forest

Problem is they cant, not really. The new backgrounds inform the skills so much that any purely invented one would be a lot of extra work for a DM in trying to work out how it would effect skills now.

In fact I have some biog problems with how skills work now full stop. It all seems dumbed down- you get athletics covering what used to be loads of skills from climbing to swimming.

Well selecting the individual pieces of gear would not be a problem (apart from taking a while), otherwise from that you could simply give the player two proficiencies relating to whatever background they had, and then perhaps a feature or two: nothing too powerful of course, just something appropriate to the theme of their past.

"Dumbed down" is one way to put it, but couldn't we also say that it is "simplified"?

I do see the problem with specific skills like swimming that clearly require an actual knowledge of how to swim, not simply a general athletic ability. Perhaps the DMG will expand on ways to work out that problem for characters?

Its not imposiible, but its unnecessary extra work and number crunching (the least interesting bit of the game).

But its not the only problem I have with changes to skills- you dont get skill points like you used to when you level up. From my experience as a DM one of the things players really enjoy is allocating their points when they level up, they look forward to it, plan how they will spend their points when they do level up. And when there were loads of skills to choose from it really counted.
Now if you have points on athletics you can climb equally as well as you can swim, jump, sprint. And because there are so many fewer skills to stop players becoming over balanced very early on they have effectively taken skill point allocation out at leveling up.
That seems like a mistake to me as players have always liked leveling up their character and choosing skills and specialising in skills.

The familiar is certainly comfortable and good.

There are some nifty changes, however.
For example, the Advantage-Disadvantage die roll rule. Where for some situations (if, say, you are flanking an enemy) you can roll two die and take the higher number (or the lower, if you are at disadvantage). This rule allows for a quick and easy way for the DM to say, well, I'm not going to change the Challenge Rating, but you must roll at disadvantage here.
And feats are only an optional rule. Their implementation is such that they are only acquired every 4 or 5 levels, instead of gradually increasing.
And I forget the name for it, but monsters tend to be a threat to heroes for a longer period of time. That is, even if you out-level them by a great amount they still have a chance to actually do some harm to you.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Its not imposiible, but its unnecessary extra work and number crunching (the least interesting bit of the game).

I don't quite get this thinking here, as you were just saying that working out where you wanted to put your skill points as you leveled was something that players you play with really enjoy. I mean, either 5e is too simple, or else it's overly number-crunchy: it can't be both!

(But if you're saying that the game makes you either feel dumb or have to crunch too many numbers, well then that is something else.)

The familiar is certainly comfortable and good.- Forest

Its not just about the familiar being comfortable and good, its also about being an old crabbit bastard

I do like the advantage/disadvantage rule (it basically saves DM's having to fudge as many rolls!) and I am glad feats are optional so I can optionally get them to buggery out my games.

Regards skill points- its dumber for players. less options, less points to allocate, less points when leveling.
But its more work for a DM now if a player creates a unique invented background, as the DM has to work out which bits of the background will now effect current skills.
It also seems to encourage players to invent backgrounds that they think will get them most skill points, rather than creating a background for the purposes of role playing a character.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:The familiar is certainly comfortable and good.- Forest

Its not just about the familiar being comfortable and good, its also about being an old crabbit bastard

But of course!

Pettytyrant101 wrote:
I do like the advantage/disadvantage rule (it basically saves DM's having to fudge as many rolls!) and I am glad feats are optional so I can optionally get them to buggery out my games.

Regards skill points- its dumber for players. less options, less points to allocate, less points when leveling.
But its more work for a DM now if a player creates a unique invented background, as the DM has to work out which bits of the background will now effect current skills.
It also seems to encourage players to invent backgrounds that they think will get them most skill points, rather than creating a background for the purposes of role playing a character.

Min-maxers, as they are called, are indeed a plague upon the rest of us. As far as invented backgrounds go, it's more of a matter of which skills to be proficient in (which ones you can add your proficiency bonus to (+2 at lvl 1 for everyone)), rather than how many points you can eke out of it.
I was certainly happy with the background my character had, but I did feel a little bit manipulated concerning the details of his relationship to others. He has a sort of "Folk Hero" background in the village he came from, which I liked for a bard, that he can commiserate with the undertrodden. However, if I had another go at it, with another character, I would probably step out on my own a little more and shape their backstory more to something I imagined on my own.

I do still think it is a very good tool for new players. As the handbook says:
"Each background presented later in this chapter includes suggested characteristics that you can use to spark your imagination. You’re not bound to those options, but they’re a good starting point."

There is half of a page of text dealing simply with the fact that you may want to customize your character even further, perhaps with the setting of your campaign or the details of the other players characters in mind.

There are 14 different backgrounds, several of which include variants like: instead of being a sailor, you could have been a pirate; or, rather than a member of a guild you may have simply been a guild merchant or member of a group of shopkeepers or caravan traders; or perhaps instead of a criminal you were a spy.
All fourteen backgrounds include 8 suggested personality traits, 6 suggested ideals, 6 bonds and 6 flaws (you pick one or two of each). Some of them also include further customization such as criminal specializations or an entertainer routine.

It could hinder the advanced player from creating their ideal character (not in an obvious way that I can see though), but this is an easy-to-use method that stimulates players to communicate clearly with eachother on what kind of characters they are playing. For my part I also like how the background we choose has such an immediate effect upon our abilities and gear in a way that goes a step further than class.

I thought these DnD "Achievements" were pretty great. I found the link on Reddit.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hi5k5tcy4ulurvy/achievement%20list.pdf?dl=0

Last night's game went pretty well.
To be perfectly honest I got a little bit bored here and there simply because I had trouble getting my character to interact with the DM's NPCs. They just weren't very interesting!
I even tried to provoke the governor to go out with us and drive off these marauding kobolds but he blandly told us he was busy organizing the survivors: no offense at my questioning of his values or anything!

Well things got more interesting when we raided the main cultist camp. At one point I hid in the shadows behind a tent and shot at a sentry on the cliff-top above me. Thankfully when he plummeted into the middle of a tent the cultists assumed it was their kobold allies that had done it (because of the arrow I had used) and so our party was able to get the prisoner and escape intact amidst all the confusion.

We're level 3 already. This seems a bit fast to me, or is this about right after two-and-a-half sessions?

Be gentle on your DM Forest, its a tough job. You are world creator, referee, have multiple characters to enact and storyteller.

Playing the game is a doddle in comparison.

Most DM's have strength and weaknesses, they might be great at the big picture but not so good on the small character stuff or vice versa.
You have to let them grow and give feedback without making it sound like a complaint.
Say you enjoyed an aspect that you genuinely did but then perhaps suggest it would be nice to have more interactions with the worlds NPC's.

Afterall every Dm wants their players to enjoy their game as much as possible. Thats the reward for being DM, seeing your players enjoying it.

I see. I think I must have unfair expectations going in is all. Like you say, everyone is better in some areas and worse in others and the fact that we don't know each other well must be an impediment to smooth and interesting inter-character roleplaying.

On the plus side the last half of the evening went very well, with lots of involvement all around. It will be an interesting opportunity to see what the next DM's relative strength's and weaknesses will be when we switch out in two months or so.

There was one point at which I definitely glimpsed the DM deftly handling a situation when one of our characters got into an impossibly tight spot, and the DM fished them out of it.


What is your opinion of the Dungeon Master running their own character? Beyond the fairly obvious point that said character shouldn't be too active, have you done this yourself in the past?
I now feel guilty thinking it, but I rather enjoyed playing with just 4 characters and the DM orchestrating npcs (this happened for a while after we used the DM's character as a shield against kobolds and he ended up dying). Combat went by faster, and it felt a bit freer.

Forest Shepherd wrote:We're level 3 already. This seems a bit fast to me, or is this about right after two-and-a-half sessions?

Yeah, it does seem a tad quick.

So the game continue apace. We missed this last week because I and one other was sick.
Anyone else tried playing 5th Edition yet?

I'm kind of mad at our fighter. He went and skipped these awesome specializations for his class and chose "Eldritch Knight." This is basically a fighter who knows some wizard spells.
I mean, we have a bloody wizard already!! And I play a bard, so I don't like having too many spellcasters around as it makes me look more useless. And we do have a cleric as well. And even the rogue knows some magic, so now it's positively Hogwarts night every session.


I wish I'd chosen a druid. I could leave the party for long periods and go on nature-hikes or something.

(Things are well though, really).