What ROLE-PLAYING have you been doing?

This weekend we had our first night of D&D 5e since April. This is my first extended stretch with roleplaying, and I'm playing as a monk. We played for probably about six hours total, with a break for dinner. I jut had to share this particular encounter we had yesterday.

We're in this wizard's manor, trying to get this magical mask for another guy. The problem is that it was locked in a basement with a nothic, which is apparently a large-eyed monster that the wizard insisted that we not destroy so the nothic could continue to aid his research. But he volunteered to make one person invisible for one minute, allowing this person to sneak in and grab the mask from among the refuse in the basement. As the person with the best dexterity, proficient in sleight of hand, stealth, and athletics, and having a bell that could silence everything within a one-foot radius, I was chosen to go.

So our party's wizard (not the one who owned the manor) slid open the door to this room and generated an illusion of a glowing orb to give me a little bit of light in the very dark room. The nothic went up to it, but then started watching the door. So our halfling druid went into the next room to make a noise to turn his attention away from the door so I could get in while ringing the bell, and invisible. Our druid produced a thunderclap, which was, shall we say, effective. It chased the nothic into the back chamber of the room, giving me an opportunity to sneak in. I searched around in the first chamber for the mask, only finding broken up pieces of artifacts. I therefore assumed that the mask was in the back chamber.

Now keep in mind that I'm furiously ringing this silencing bell all the time as I sneak through all of this stuff.

I go into the next chamber, and the DM stops me and has me check my stealth, since the nothic is like 20 feet away from me at this point. Being way dark, I'm given disadvantage on the roll, but I still manage to roll a 19. I make it into the room and pass my perception check to look around at least in my immediate vicinity, since it's still awfully dark. I decide to search on one of the corners, and the DM has me make a sleight of hand check, again with disadvantage, and this time I pass with a 21. So I'm able to find the mask in the pile while not being detected.

Then the nothic seems to sense something is up, or someone is there, or SOMEthing, and says he can "see me." I'm assuming it's a bluff so I make a break back for the door. I then realize the flaw in my plan: I don't have an exit strategy. I am both invisible, and can't make any noise. Fortunately our wizard is watching the door, so I make a quick dash for the door, and pass the mask through the slot. The nothic suddenly dives for the door, and I pass my dexterity check (with a -5 modifier because of the need to not make sound) at like a 16. I am able to jump out of the way and stand next to the door, while the nothic bangs on the door to be let out. So to review, I'm now standing right next to the nothic, with about 30 seconds of invisibility left, and no way to get out of the room.

It's at this point that our wizard creates a ball of fog through the hallway and the slot, into the locked door. Our warlock then casts a spell that puts evil whispers in the nothic's head, and absolutely KILLS the roll, driving it off. It runs away, and as they see it disappear into the fog they open the door hoping I can make it out. I hop out, and then our DM asked "so how do you guys know to close the door?" So I said, "I close the door myself." Boom, made it through without losing any HP at all.

The DM was working hard to make sure that we'd have to actually battle the nothic, which does some serious necrotic damage with its eye. That's why she kept giving me disadvantage and bad modifiers, because we were supposed to fight this thing. But I kept rolling too well, and Mar Hallack the Monk can now tell the tale of how he faced the nothic and robbed it blind without ever being seen.

san il defanso wrote: The DM was working hard to make sure that we'd have to actually battle the nothic, which does some serious necrotic damage with its eye. That's why she kept giving me disadvantage and bad modifiers, because we were supposed to fight this thing.

Epic RP shenanigans, but I genuinely hope that was not the reasoning behind the DM's decisions. The last RP group I was in (Pathfinder) all got upset with each other after spending three hours arguing about what to do with 1/2 ton of iron ore. I kind of blame the DM for that one, too. I've been binge watching Critical Role on youtube, and I like how 5e seems to work. I'm poking around the Basic Fantasy books though, because I'm cheap when it comes to RPGs.

JEM wrote:

san il defanso wrote: The DM was working hard to make sure that we'd have to actually battle the nothic, which does some serious necrotic damage with its eye. That's why she kept giving me disadvantage and bad modifiers, because we were supposed to fight this thing.

Epic RP shenanigans, but I genuinely hope that was not the reasoning behind the DM's decisions. The last RP group I was in (Pathfinder) all got upset with each other after spending three hours arguing about what to do with 1/2 ton of iron ore. I kind of blame the DM for that one, too. I've been binge watching Critical Role on youtube, and I like how 5e seems to work. I'm poking around the Basic Fantasy books though, because I'm cheap when it comes to RPGs.

It might just be because I'm not an experienced roleplayer, but I think all of us were totally anticipating combat here, even before we did the postmortem on the session. All of the stuff thrown at me in this particular encounter felt really appropriate for where we were, so I am willing to forgive our DM gunning for us in this case.

My monk's order seeks to conquer the effects of chance and luck by leaning into them and rolling with them, so my character was primed to accept such a risky job. It was one of those "a-ha" moments of roleplaying for me, since I've had some trouble depending on a character for what my actions are, rather than on a set parameter of rules. It was a terrific evening, and it might have made a roleplayer out of me yet.

I'm glad it turned out well and you got a memorable roleplaying experience- that's the magic of RPGs when they fire off like that. Just, a DM bending the rules to screw the players is a red flag that would have me never going back. Players are capable of screwing themselves very easily!

So a while back one of you linked a great vid from Matt Colville - I'm pretty sure it was part of the SJW-athon that was spurred by the "Hobby Gaming will get you raped or KILLED!" thread. Anyhoo - I enjoyed it and have been consuming all his content - You should check it out www.youtube.com/user/mcolville

His manifesto and mission of encouraging people to play DnD worked : I'm two sessions into running a game for my 20 year old and her BF, my 16 year old and her friend, and two of my 30ish year old gaming buddies - It's going great!

Based on his suggestion from the series we did a session 0 - Everybody rolled their characters up and discussed backstories, I gave them campaign info, to help them fit in and I think this is a great thing to do - For the newbies (4 of them) it allowed them to ask questions about mechanics and work through the PHB together. I highly suggest and will be doing this if I ever run any other games.

I'm using Lost Mines of Phandelver and I reskinned it for the DnD Known World setting (heretics call it Mystara) circa the Gazetteer Line - Basically dropping it into Karameikos and replacing big city (Neverwinter) with a bordertown (Threshold) and dropping the lost mines and Phandelin in the Highforge area south of there. I've forever despised Forgotten realms - When I did leave my Red and Blue box settings** for the world of AD&D back in the day, it was to the Greyhawk boxed set, which was a close second to running a game in Karameikos/Known World - Karameikos won out because it is so simple - Basic political rift set up initially between lingering Traladaran resentment of new Thyation nobles being granted land in a 30 year old nation - tons of borderlands and wilderness - surrounded by mostly friendly neighbors but separated by uncontrolled territory held by demihumans and such.

So they rolled up :

Attikus a human paladin (Thyation, ex military, bearing the weight of a crushing defeat)
Valeria Kelvin a human wizard (young, the daughter of the a local Thyatian Baron on her 2 year "Shearing*." )
Petra, human monk ( Traladaran, part of a special order entrusted with safeguarding the nobility....tasked with Valeria's safekeeping)
Arrick the dwarf sea cleric (returning from 50 years at sea to put his house in order)
Asogohan, a human barbarian (from a Traladaran group of travelers that live in NW section Karameikos - Think wood gypsies)
Kindle, a gnome wizard (think more a pixie or sprite - woodland fey creature, but we are using forest gnome stat and racials - a local wood wizards apprentice who started studying with him because of her insatiable curiosity)

Session 1 was great - a couple of light combats to break them in - they really took a long time for a couple of two round fights, but I was OK with that, and they were too - they spent a lot of time flipping the PHB, realizing that spell selection was a big deal, learned about long and short rests - the realization that first level characters are fragile....I'm a roll in front of the players kind of guy so it there was the moment when the first goblin in the ambush rolled a nat 20 on the surprise round and his bow took the cleric down to 1 HP - everyone was like - Crap! this is serious. They eventually beat the goblins - with the gnome wizard making a heroic nat 20 on her -2 (wisdom = 8) perception to check to spot the fleeing/hiding goblin - everyone huzzahed - they were smart enough to disable one and tackle it, so they had one goblin to interrogate.

They stowed the wagon away and set up their first marching order and tracked the goblins down - Then there was a 30 minute discussion of how they were going to approach the cave mouth and avoid the goblin ambush they were sure was waiting - I stepped back from the table and let them work it out - they started comparing character sheets, more PHB flipping, and then finally they launched their grand scheme - The cleric created a magical fog to provide them cover, while wizard used dancing lights and minor illusion to create distractions in the fog while the monk circled around the cave mouth in the thicket - they RP'd it pretty well and they got to smash the disorganized scouts without a single one escaping.

Not a lot for a first 3 hour session (they will all be 3 hour sessions) plotwise or story wise, but I could almost call it session 0.5 - The one where we learn how to do combat - Tomorrow (as long as my wife doesn;t go into labor) they get the opportunity to assault the caves that serve as the Cragmaw hideout and see if they can find out what happened to Sildar Hallwinter.


*Shearing is a practice in Karameikos where a child declares his/her majority by approaching their parent/family and having a send off party, where they shear the end of their cloaks and send them out to prove their ability to fend/provide for themselves for 2 years without the support and rank and title or resources of the family - Of course the wizard is ticked because her dad sent a secret bodyguard that she totally knows about but Petra doesn't know that she knows.

**How many of you guys killed Bargle? Remember Aleena? Fear not solo adventurers from the Red Box era....Aleena is alive and well in my campaign.

Also - I;m playing Dungeon Siege III - because it was free and I thought I should try it before I deleted from the xbox hard drive - What a horrible game....However.....The plot from the beginning, I think would make one of the best alternatives to " You all meet at the Blue Dragon Tavern.....introduce yourselves."

The basic plot is - all the characters are descendants of some historic fighting order - that was crushed for political and other reasons, and there is a call by a mysterious timeless member of this order for all these various progeny with the blood of the order to meet at an old chapterhouse - when the heroes arrive it is in flames, they attempt to find survivors and then are harried and must escape - and eventually find their mysterious benefactor and decide what to do from there. Dynamite campaign starter.

If I run another game I will probably steal the plot and reskin it.

I've sort of been toying with RPGing the last two years with my wife and some other folks. Thought using a well known setting would help, so I thought about game of thrones of the old Star Wars setting.

Check out this very simple and quick RPG. It reminds me of a combination of OD&D, Basic D&D, and Heroquest. It's called Four Against Darkness. I've been experimenting with it and have had fun. It reminds me of my less than organized D&D day-dreaming doodles in my high school notebooks. You can play it solitaire or with a friends. You just need two D6, a pencil, and some graph paper. It's portable. You can play it anywhere where you can doodle and roll a D6.

www.ganeshagames.net/product_info.php?cP...6stt6g0ld9kefjj1tss4

www.ganeshagames.net/index.php?cPath=1_55

Reviews:

skirmishwargaming.com/four-against-darkness-rules-review/

dieheart.net/4ad-playtest/

andyslack.wordpress.com/2016/04/20/revie...ur-against-darkness/

Tonight I had my first ever RPG experience go down. I've been wanting to try an RPG for a long time, but the group interested in playing kept hitting me with a he who smelt it dealt it rule, meaning if I wanted to play an RPG I'd have to set it up and run one. So despite seemingly wanting to be a player and not a GM, my choice to get the game to the table was to bite the bullet and run a session. I purchased DCC book a while ago, a set of funky dice, and made some prints outs and we ran Portal Under the Stars from the rulebook. We had 5 players each running 4 characters and the play by play will have spoilers if you haven't seen or run the adventure...



I think everyone had a really good time. Overall the group rolled pretty crappy in combat and they did not fare well (except the very end), splitting up hurt them. I really enjoyed it, but still think it would be more my style to be a player and not a GM. Regardless everyone is on board for a few more modules, and as I gain a bit of experience with those I might dabble in some custom stuff. The few that played RPGs before said I did a great job running it, so that was a nice compliment. I really enjoy the DCC system and am excited to show the group the magic wackiness and the fun lvl 1 stuff they will get. Role playing is great and after running this I still don't really see the appeal in Dungeon Crawler type board games when you could just play an RPG, the campaign style and persistent world building from session to session trumps any other type of game mechanic (even my beloved asymmetrical sides/powers). In addition there are some narratives that play out that are moments that just can't be beat by other types of gaming, the bold being rewarded, looting a fallen allies still flaming corpse at great risk to themselves, how the social party dynamics play out in minor fueds and arguments, and the triumphant final pitchfork thrust that finished off the big bad. Ordering Sailors, People of the Pit, Doom of Savage Kings, and One Who Watches Below; which should give me a lot to go over for a while. DCC doesn't disappoint.

Awesome to hear that coming to RPGs later in life is totally viable. Cool to read your and Nate's experiences.

Out of all the games people play here, that I'm not playing, reading about DCC is the only one that makes me a little envious. Such a great game.

I have a buddy with the Peril on the Purple Planet boxed set and he's been talking about running it. I should prod him...

I've been gearing up for some RPG action myself. I bought into the Pathfinder Humble Bundle from a while ago, which landed me hundreds of dollars worth of Pathfinder source books in PDF form. I also have the beginner box that I had purchased years ago.

We are going to try something completely different. I'm gathering up all of my friends from back when we played D&D in my friend's basement as teenagers. We are all going to play remotely over roll20.net. I've gone through the tutorials and spent time with 2 players creating their characters. I need to read some more rules and get all characters finished up, and the module read. THEN we have to find a time when all 5 of us can log on, which may be the most challenging part of it all. Even if the game doesn't go well, it will be neat to be online with all of them at once. The site supports video / voice chat and it works really well. I just wish at this point that I already had all of Pathfinder's MANY rules internalized.

I'm putting together a campaign for the group I've been playing Shadows of Brimstone with. Everyone has played Pathfinder (except the ones who haven't played any RPGs) but I'm using Basic Fantasy instead, partly because of the volume of options and rules in the former. If it doesn't work out, I'll migrate it to Pathfinder (I'd much rather move to D&D 5E but books are $$$).

My first "traditional" RPG was DCC at ~45yo. Before that I did 1 or 2 one-session indies with my old gaming group that were more RP than G (which was fine by me). Since then my current group spent some time with a couple of other systems, most notably Numenera, but signups dwindled down to myself and the GM this year, so now the group is BG only. It is likely I will never RPG again - I can take or leave it at this point - but I'm really glad I got to have that experience after going my whole life just reading about it.

Looks like the Heroes of Magnamund book is out for the Lone Wolf Adventure Game.

I'm considering treating myself to the box set for Christmas. Is this book also needed or solely more player options?

Mr. White wrote: Looks like the Heroes of Magnamund book is out for the Lone Wolf Adventure Game.

I'm considering treating myself to the box set for Christmas. Is this book also needed or solely more player options?

Heroes of Magnamund gives you a ton of options for new playable races/classes. About 120 pages worth. The base game just gives you Kai lords, which is a mighty fine place to start, but Kai lords are inherently "good guys" and don't really stray from that path despite any character flaws. The HoM book gives you the ability to play something else, with different abilities and motivations. There's a ton of stuff in the HoM book, including 13 unique races and a ton of options for making up your own type of character. There's also about 8 pages of extra armour, weapons, items, and that type of thing in the back.

If you're on board with a party of Kai lords doing good guy stuff start with just the box set. If anything you'll be able to get a handle on the rules and decide if you want HoM.

My only little knock against the LWAG is that the box set's provided adventures are pretty scripted. Not a big deal, the box set tries to welcome new RPG players so I get it. There is room for some improvisation, but they're pretty clearly provided as tutorial adventures. Luckily there's also the Adventures of the Kai book, currently in PDF with print on the way. It has 3 proper more open 20-pageish each adventures and some info on creating your own.

My only big knock against the LWAG is that I'd like more Magnamund setting material than there currently is in the box set. Highly recommend the free Project Aon Magnamund Companion . That being said, I really dig the LWAG full rules and you wouldn't have to run the game in Magnamund proper to make it work.