Has anybody tried gaming outdoors?

Gaming outdoors is nice in the right conditions. A nice summer day, no wind, and a shady place to sit is a nice departure from playing in a dining room or basement.
 

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Kicks butt!

When I was in high school I played in a group of 10 gamers. One summer two of us regular DM's set up an outdoor adventure in the towns local lake and woods area, was very cool.

We had all the players bring thier pc sheets and what we did was set up encounters along the way. The first part was a canoe trip up a small creek on an edge of the lake, which was more like a maze thru pockets of high grass and logs. We had earlier set up "treasure casks" in certain places along the route.

After getting to the head of the creek the adventure continued thru a thick stand of woods and ended up at a an abandoned tower (abandoned house).

When we started out there were 3 canoes (all pc's) and a paddle boat (myself and the other DM)... The characters had bows (cheap little glass-bows, cool though) and we had 3 swords (one of the guys dad had a small sword collection). We beat the heck out of alot of dead trees (orcs and such) that day. And they even passed a wilderness check by cathcing a few fish!

All in all it was a fun time, I would love to do it again!
 
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Yep it's how I started playing D&D

Dark Jezter said:
Gaming outdoors is nice in the right conditions. A nice summer day, no wind, and a shady place to sit is a nice departure from playing in a dining room or basement.

Personally I dislike nice summer days but for normal people I say go for it. Whatever you do avoid heavy rain and be careful with your dice they can easily get lost falling through cracks in picnic tables.
 

LOL

Agamon said:
Hey, Fenrir, I took the word "game" out of your post, and it's kinda funny if you have to fill in the blank. :D


I always wondered what kind of guys post to these boards :D!!!

Another thing: I've often played outside in the sun and stuff... was nice. But something about that ...

When I was doing some LARP years ago, suddenly friends from everywhere in Germany started to phone me if I knew those guys that died "close" to where I lived. I had no idea and knew noone though I knew some LARPers around there and started to inquire...

Some tabletop idiots (rich daddies) played close to a lake... no idea what kind of drugs they used or if they simply drank alcoholics... the were full clad. Chainmails, silk and satin, robes,... all that stuff. Well. They inflated some boats and went on to the lake ... playing around with their swords (real swords... several 1000$ each I heard).

Well. None of those guys ever tried to remove a chainmail underwater. One or two drowned.

I know, everyone here is supposed to be reasonable enough not to do something like that, I just wanted to mention that part of the story...
 
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Aside from the occasional LARPing our group does, I've gamed outdoors a few times, and in a pontoon boat that a friend's family owns may times (That's quite enjoyable as long as there are enough clouds so that you don't have to worry about sunburn)
 

Last May I DMed my groupd in my backyard.

We took all the tables outside and placed in the shade of a large tree. We gamed. It was great! Damned be the neighbors! :D

I plan on doing it again. Nothing beats fresh air, sunshine, and kicking undead butt!

machine.
 


Bleah to gaming outside. My group went on an overnight camping/gaming trip last year, where we cooked sausages over the camp fire and then settled in for some gaming by fire & lantern light. It was hard to read in the dark, stuff blew away if you didn't weight it down, and all of the paper got kinda damp in the night air. Give me climate control any day, and leave the outdoors to ocelots and caribou.

Although, in fairness, I did enjoy the sausages.
 

Gaming outdoors is great
I remember when me and my roommates became homeless for a month (which is a whole story in itself), we ended up camping out beside a river with a few tents and all of our belongings
We played every day (after looking for jobs, or working temp service) for that whole month, it was great, I remember trying to playing at night with glowsticks, campfires, flashlights, anything we could get our hands on, having to use rocks as paperwieghts, if it rained then we just played in the tents, that whole month was one of our best/favorite campaigns
Playing outdoors gives the game a whole new feel, I highly recomend it, we where homeless over 4 years ago, before that, none of us had ever played outside, now we try to play outside as often as possible
 
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I've run a few games outside, mostly because it was such a nice day. One game in particular I ran outside, though, was for the atmosphere, and I think it was a lot of fun.

It was a chilly September evening with a full moon and I took everyone down to an old amphitheatre in the woods and ran for them a variant of Sleepy Hollow I put together a few months before the movie came out. It was great; the weather and surroundings were almost exactly what I was pictureing for the campaign-setting. Made the whole thing a little more spooky to have the players in the same kind of place the characters were.

-Mike
 

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