Dungeons and Dragons

a reply to: NarcolepticBuddha

You'd be surprised at the amount of people that go "Oh, I've heard of that! Never had a chance to play though."

Many either just don't "get" role playing, or feel overwhelmed by the rules (DnD 3.5 can be rather daunting to the new player, 5.0 made it a lot easier).
Or, they are just so used to electronic media (Movies, TV, Video Games) that they've forgotten how to "play" without all that and only use their imagination.

I can remember my parents in the 70's and 80's playing cards or Dominos on the weekends, music playing on the stereo, and then board games with me and my little sister. In today's world, most people have their noses stuck in the TV, computer, tablet or their smart phone.

One way you could try and get people you know interested in playing something with you, is have a get together like a BBQ, or a small party, and have something set up to play and see who likes it and who doesn't. The key is to find something simple, and already drawn up (let's face it: spending 2 or 3 hours having to roll up a character in a game you've never played before won't be a good seller), emphasize the role playing more than the rules and having to crunch numbers.

Here's a short YouTube video this guy did of a recording of one of their gaming sessions. You can hear the fun they are having just role playing:



My group is made up of friends, family and some co-workers. While we enjoy playing the game, it's also mostly just fun to get together have dinner together and joke around.

There was one campaign that I was DM'ing that they had me literally gasping for breath because I was laughing so hard. Two of the players who were playing Rogues were trying to get through a door but it was magically sealed, and they had no way to tell that. They tried all sorts of things to get through the door. Finally one of them said they were going to "Appraise" the door. I was puzzled, but went, uh, okay, roll for that. He rolled a 1, a fumble, and he shouted out "OMG! This door is worth BILLIONS of gold pieces!!!!"
I started to laugh, when his buddy also rolled to Appraise, and he ALSO rolled a 1. They then started acting out about how "precious" this door was. They even tried to get the rest of the party to go back to the door, because obviously how valuable the door was!

But if you figure out something you could do with some friends you have a get together with, something simple and easy to do for them and you, you just might hook them into doing RPGs, and they'll want to do more.

Here's one more video by the same guy above, this story here sounds so much like our little DnD group:



Oh, and just for giggles, here's a video of me and my youngest son, Josh, we were goofing off but it's pretty much how the role playing with our DnD group goes:

a reply to: eriktheawful

I think it is great for kids it teaches them many lessons in life.
I think every tabletop roleplayer has many a tale where everyone falls about laughing it really is fun for free really.
I'm running a game next week for a bunch of folk who has never played gonna go easy on them I'm looking forward to it.
I recently found that channel funny as hell

Oh do I so much miss playing (A)D&D. Some of the best memories of my younger years were in those halcyon days of THACO, hit points, saving throws and NPCs.

The problem is my crew from childhood has dispersed to the 4 winds, and the pressures and responsibilities of adulthood have encroached on leisure time.

Maybe when my daughters get a bit older I can enlist them in a game. All of my DM and player manuals are likely still back in my father's house, but might be time to upgrade the publications from say the early 90's versions.

RIP Garry Gygax

Old thread but I missed it.


There was a shout-out to Roll 20, I guess I should do the same for Fantasy Grounds because we started on it four years ago and are using it now due to the Covid lockdown and the fact that the DM has to drive an hour for us to meet up. As a result of dropping back to online versus around the table, an old friend out in Arizona can join us gaming.

If you like playing modules, they are available. If you would rather home brew your own stories (and who doesn’t) you can go as deep as you want from just using FG as the dice roller and character sheet holder to maps, note, storylines, automating every last detail and effect of spells, feats and abilities...you can (as DM) parcel up random encounters and planned to populate the Combat Tracker and then be ready to disperse XP and treasure to the group. If you commonly do a party loot sheet...guess what, right there for you.

Fantasy Grounds Unity will use all current material and have a built in mapmaker that is very nice for showing what players can and cannot see. FGU might be my next full endorsement.

a reply to: Ahabstar

Yeah you're right, this thread is ancient. I only looked at the post immediately preceding mine from March 2020; didn't realize how old this chat was.

OP mention's Baldur's Gate. If I'm not mistaken that takes place in the Forgotten Realms "milieu", which had all manner of pre-packaged extension story lines for DMs. I remember one of the most famed characters of Forgotten Realms was a powerful wizard named Elminster. Most if not all of the novels penned by R.A. Salvatore were set in Forgotten Realsm, including my favorite one, Drizzt Do'Urden from The Icewind Dale and The Dark Elf series.

Will check out Roll 20 and Fantasy Grounds, thanks for mentioning Ahabstar.

a reply to: SleeperHasAwakened

Basically the way to think of it is everything that was Gary Gygax related happened in Greyhawk which is Oerth. Ed Greenwood created Forgotten Realms as setting for his fantasy stories going back to the late 1960’s. So Baulder’s Gate (the city) and Waterdeep may be older than Gygax’s dungeon adventures with his kids and neighbors in Wisconsin. Other settings came later and was the works of paid authors like Hickman’s Dragonlance and Ravenloft settings.

Using the core books, all made up adventures happened where you wanted them to be and either Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms was promoted depending on how friendly TSR (and later Wizards of the Coast) was with Gygax before he died.

originally posted by: NarcolepticBuddha

originally posted by: IkNOwSTuff


That said I can’t see it being any better than pc games

I can imagine that a creative DM would make it more engaging and interesting--the human element seems to elevate the game.

Exactly.
The better the story teller the better the experience.
I played D&D as a kid and also a game called Traveller (which was essentially a space opera in a gaming style similar to D&D).
Not even thought about those types of games for decades (!) but I do remember how much better they were than PC games that came later.

a reply to: UKTruth

Rifts...
I would love to be part of an epic Rifts campaign.

Call of Cthulhu. Another great setting that takes the right GM and the right players.

We tried Cyberpunk and I tried to run Wraith (which I found to be completely disconnected from the other WoD games) but didn’t have the right group for either. I always wanted to do a Modern common setting with some fantastic elements. Maybe not quite Ninjas and Superspies, but something that allowed for adventure, character development and advancement.

My group(s) experimented with several "offshoot" D&D campaign story milieus:

* we had our "ninja" phase, thanks to inspiration from AD&D Oriental Adventures handbook. Man, would that book title even pass muster nowadays? In any case, we had some really great sessions, with some inspiration leaking in from 80s/90s films (Big Trouble in Little China, American Ninja, The Octagon)

* we had our dystopian desert phase (inspired by Frank Herbert's Dune??), compliments of the Dark Sun handbook. One of my friends really liked playing psyionic characters. These campaigns were very unusual and whacked out, but we stayed with it for a while.

* our dabbling into Unearthed Arcana let us explore Drow characters, use of barbarian and cavailier classes, and plenty of new beasts

* we also spent a lot of time in the Forgotten Realms world, and briefly some time in Dragonlance world.

We had another friend who set up a Marvel Universe RPG, but my preference was always D&D/Fantasy.

I'm still trying to get a table going, after all this time

a reply to: NarcolepticBuddha

the only way to play D&D anymore is neverwinter nights

after all these years its still alive and kicking

a reply to: Akragon

I have a fat D20 on my dashboard that rolls around when I drive and it determines how much my work day is going to suck

That's about all I can hope for!

a reply to: NarcolepticBuddha

full version is on steam...

originally posted by: Akragon
a reply to: NarcolepticBuddha

full version is on steam...

I'm still stuck on Baldur's Gate 1 & 2.

I think my disk copy is cursed...

Been trying to finish this game for like 20 years now...

a reply to: NarcolepticBuddha

lol seriously?

well this game has a good campaign...

and its the only way you can play a real D&D game with all the dice, and rules...

you should check it out

a reply to: Akragon

Work, eat, sleep. Seriously

I'll look into it. Wasn't Neverwinter Nights basically the original BG 3?

a reply to: NarcolepticBuddha

I don't think so... in any case I played that game for years...

Theres a full kit for making your own servers, including all DM commands...

literally the best D&D game ever made... and its old...

to this day there are still dedicated servers for those that want to play real D&D... full roleplay

one of the best games ever made...