el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
In one word? GREAT!
I'm back baby!
I had not run a D&D game since 2009 (which was a 3.xE mish-mash + a ton of house rules) (you can read about two of the campaigns I ran between 2000 and then in my story hour threads here and here) but once I moved to a new city where I had a couple of friends who were interested in starting one up, I decided to use it as an excuse to check out 5E and I liked what I saw. I planned to run a game using Ghosts of Saltmarsh as the core, supplemented with adapted adventures from my stack of Dungeon mags (mostly from the 90s - the best adventures in the history of DnD bar none). I also cannibalized my old homebrew (Aquerra) for the world- but setting everything in an obscure corner of the (definitely not Aquerra) world - allowing the PCs to be from the rest of it "The Known World" and create any kind of background they want, with any questions about where the game takes place being able to be explored in-game as opposed to a lot of backstory and exposition and "My character would have known that." It allowed for an easy rule of thumb: if you don't know it it is because your character doesn't know it, while also allowing them to bring the "prejudices" of a typical fantasy world with them. One conceit was that where they are from most humanoids are extinct, wiped out in genocidal wars by the so-called "Free Folk." So, are orcs all evil? Well, have you ever met an orc? I mean a real orc and not some person who claims to be descended from them? Who knows if the old legends are true? Thus every encounter has a potential freshness in it for me and for the players when they find there might be some still tucked away in a forgotten place of the world. We are playing with core rules only.
I also did a handful of other small changes which don't really effect the rules, like we replaced references to "race" with "peoples." Oh and I used a stat draft to determine starting scores - something I developed in a thread right here on ENWorld a million years ago, but that you can read the succinct rules of right here.
The group is basically newbies. One player (plays gnome bard, recently multiclassed to wizard) had only ever played video game RPGs, one player (plays a tiefling ranger, recently multiclassed with sorcerer) had played very briefly in a game that fell apart, the other two players (half-orc barbarian and human druid) played a lot as kids/teens but now (at nearly 40 years old) are returning to it. I love them. They have the enthusiasm and joy that is infectious. So much is new to them (or distantly familiar) and none of them are big rules types. Our main focus is to keep things flowing and have fun and lots of fun is being had.
Three sessions in pandemic hit, so we moved to Zoom. I have a set up with two cameras. One focused on me and the classroom sized dry erase board behind me and the other on the battle mat. I have been predrawing a lot of maps so I can figure best camera position and not slow the game down. I got a few recommendations for using Roll20 and/or D&D Beyond but not interested in the learning curve when the system we're using is working for us. People roll their own dice on the honor system. If I thought they were cheaters I wouldn't play with them.
In terms of adventures, we started with "A Wizard's Fate" (adapted from Dungeon #37) throwing in some classic simple undead encounters and having their first real obstacle (the imp) be something they could not just easily defeat through force of arms), moved on to The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, which was broken up with an adaptation of "And a Dozen Eggs" (from Dungeon #30) that fell in the downtime between the house and ship parts of that adventure. This was followed by Danger at Dunwater (which they loved! I have run this twice before in the 80s and 90s and it went terribly both times - not so this time!) and they just did a sidetrek ("The Whale" from Dungeon #35) on their way to do "Salvage Operation" (which had its origins in an adventure published in Dungeon #123 before appearing in GOS). They just hit 4th level (I still prefer slow advancement - it is great because the players have gotten plenty of opportunity to get used to their abilities and learn how to use them well at each level).
In addition, the players shoe-string character backgrounds were just enough to build some subplots around. For example, the druid was searching for his estranged husband - which went from "I think he went into the woods to live a life of quiet contemplation after we broke up" to "oh no! he might have been kidnapped by the bad guys!" to "OH NO! I think he IS one of the bad guys!" It made for great drama. There was also a brief episode with a cursed axe that nearly led to the barbarian killing the rest of the part which was fraught and fun (and that they just resolved in the most recent downtime). This has led to player who was the least into the role-playing aspect (and who has now gone all-in) to announce she wants a romance subplot for her character too - I think she has her eyes on Oceaus the Sea-Elf (spelled Oceanus in the module, but I changed it) which despite how I described him, she keeps describing as My So-Called Life era Jared Leto.
We have a wiki going for the campaign (something I used to do in the past) and for a short time I was keeping a story hour synopsis on a blog, but dropped that.
Anyway, that's how my game's going. We play once or twice a month (next game Dec.5th) for five hours (2 pm to 7 pm) and my enthusiasm and focus for D&D has been totally rekindled. I even tried to run a second ZOOM game with players all over the country - but scheduling F-ed it up. Aw well. May still look for a couple of replacement players for that one to join the remaining players.
How's your game going?
I'm back baby!
I had not run a D&D game since 2009 (which was a 3.xE mish-mash + a ton of house rules) (you can read about two of the campaigns I ran between 2000 and then in my story hour threads here and here) but once I moved to a new city where I had a couple of friends who were interested in starting one up, I decided to use it as an excuse to check out 5E and I liked what I saw. I planned to run a game using Ghosts of Saltmarsh as the core, supplemented with adapted adventures from my stack of Dungeon mags (mostly from the 90s - the best adventures in the history of DnD bar none). I also cannibalized my old homebrew (Aquerra) for the world- but setting everything in an obscure corner of the (definitely not Aquerra) world - allowing the PCs to be from the rest of it "The Known World" and create any kind of background they want, with any questions about where the game takes place being able to be explored in-game as opposed to a lot of backstory and exposition and "My character would have known that." It allowed for an easy rule of thumb: if you don't know it it is because your character doesn't know it, while also allowing them to bring the "prejudices" of a typical fantasy world with them. One conceit was that where they are from most humanoids are extinct, wiped out in genocidal wars by the so-called "Free Folk." So, are orcs all evil? Well, have you ever met an orc? I mean a real orc and not some person who claims to be descended from them? Who knows if the old legends are true? Thus every encounter has a potential freshness in it for me and for the players when they find there might be some still tucked away in a forgotten place of the world. We are playing with core rules only.
I also did a handful of other small changes which don't really effect the rules, like we replaced references to "race" with "peoples." Oh and I used a stat draft to determine starting scores - something I developed in a thread right here on ENWorld a million years ago, but that you can read the succinct rules of right here.
The group is basically newbies. One player (plays gnome bard, recently multiclassed to wizard) had only ever played video game RPGs, one player (plays a tiefling ranger, recently multiclassed with sorcerer) had played very briefly in a game that fell apart, the other two players (half-orc barbarian and human druid) played a lot as kids/teens but now (at nearly 40 years old) are returning to it. I love them. They have the enthusiasm and joy that is infectious. So much is new to them (or distantly familiar) and none of them are big rules types. Our main focus is to keep things flowing and have fun and lots of fun is being had.
Three sessions in pandemic hit, so we moved to Zoom. I have a set up with two cameras. One focused on me and the classroom sized dry erase board behind me and the other on the battle mat. I have been predrawing a lot of maps so I can figure best camera position and not slow the game down. I got a few recommendations for using Roll20 and/or D&D Beyond but not interested in the learning curve when the system we're using is working for us. People roll their own dice on the honor system. If I thought they were cheaters I wouldn't play with them.
In terms of adventures, we started with "A Wizard's Fate" (adapted from Dungeon #37) throwing in some classic simple undead encounters and having their first real obstacle (the imp) be something they could not just easily defeat through force of arms), moved on to The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, which was broken up with an adaptation of "And a Dozen Eggs" (from Dungeon #30) that fell in the downtime between the house and ship parts of that adventure. This was followed by Danger at Dunwater (which they loved! I have run this twice before in the 80s and 90s and it went terribly both times - not so this time!) and they just did a sidetrek ("The Whale" from Dungeon #35) on their way to do "Salvage Operation" (which had its origins in an adventure published in Dungeon #123 before appearing in GOS). They just hit 4th level (I still prefer slow advancement - it is great because the players have gotten plenty of opportunity to get used to their abilities and learn how to use them well at each level).
In addition, the players shoe-string character backgrounds were just enough to build some subplots around. For example, the druid was searching for his estranged husband - which went from "I think he went into the woods to live a life of quiet contemplation after we broke up" to "oh no! he might have been kidnapped by the bad guys!" to "OH NO! I think he IS one of the bad guys!" It made for great drama. There was also a brief episode with a cursed axe that nearly led to the barbarian killing the rest of the part which was fraught and fun (and that they just resolved in the most recent downtime). This has led to player who was the least into the role-playing aspect (and who has now gone all-in) to announce she wants a romance subplot for her character too - I think she has her eyes on Oceaus the Sea-Elf (spelled Oceanus in the module, but I changed it) which despite how I described him, she keeps describing as My So-Called Life era Jared Leto.
We have a wiki going for the campaign (something I used to do in the past) and for a short time I was keeping a story hour synopsis on a blog, but dropped that.
Anyway, that's how my game's going. We play once or twice a month (next game Dec.5th) for five hours (2 pm to 7 pm) and my enthusiasm and focus for D&D has been totally rekindled. I even tried to run a second ZOOM game with players all over the country - but scheduling F-ed it up. Aw well. May still look for a couple of replacement players for that one to join the remaining players.
How's your game going?
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