Topic: The Dungeon and Dragons Thread

@Tyranexx I know Tyranny is two adventure books in one. Originally it was published as two adventures and then they republished them as one since they do got together think of it like Infinity War movies how you had part one and part two. That's why I was confused when you said you were making new characters it be like if they had Captai. America, Iron Man, Hulk etc. in part 1 and then in part 2 they brought in a total new group of heroes and didn't say anything at all as to why they changed.

The only thing I can figure is unless your DM is going to kill all your characters or something like that so they want you to have a new character ready. If that's they case then that's a DM I wouldn't want to DM. But yeah to switch characters mid campaign is just odd.

If people.dont like their class they can always just switch classes or multi class. I have had Fighters become rogues, Mages become priests etc. Switching classes also creates some interesting stories.

@Tasuki I'll admit I'm not sure on the DM's intentions, though nothing was mentioned about killing our current party at least. If Tyranny used to be two adventure books in one, I wonder if our DM isn't taking this opportunity to treat the second half as a separate adventure...new characters and all. Or if our previous party will be re-introduced as NPCs at some point. Last I knew, our existing party didn't die, but we did vamoose pretty quickly from the floating storm giant castle.

We've not had anyone fully switch classes in my experience, though one player was thinking of multi-classing their new character before settling with (presumably) their final decision.

Not sure if we're meeting this weekend or not. Unless something changes, I do know the full party makeup now. I'd say we're quite the ensemble:

• Half-Orc Oath of Vengeance Paladin
• Halfling Alchemist Artificer
• Lizardfolk Way of the Serpent Monk
• Bugbear Gloom Stalker Ranger

@Tyranexx I guess maybe that's how they saw it, I just found it odd that's all. Some interesting characters there that's for sure.

As for me, I sadly don't know when I will be gaming again or if it will even be D&D. Mainly its everyone's schedule that is keeping us from playing but also just the way Hasbro is handling D&D has been a disappointment to me. It has just become to commercialized and really generic for my take. I mean I can understand why they are doing what they are doing but to me it just isn't why I enjoyed D&D.

What I loved about D&D was the settings they built. Settings like Greyhawk, Ravenloft, Forgotten Realms etc. With 5e there just isn't any of that. Most of the adventures they put out are one small section of these settings and it just just that. Other adventures just feel as fill in the blanks with your own stuff, which again I know why they do it that way. However at the time it just doesn't feel like the same quality product that was before. Sadly I feel.that way with One D&D as well which is why I will pass on it. Who knows maybe I will look into older D&D God knows I have alot of it, or some of this newer stuff that is coming out like Kobold Press's Tales of the Valaint or something entirely different. But I will be TTRPGing in some way.

@Tasuki I can fully relate on the scheduling front. We usually don't gauge for a game until mid-week and haven't played for a bit. We understandably skipped this past weekend due to Mother's Day. I know my availability wasn't the most flexible.

I'll admit I haven't been with D&D long enough to specifically relate with you on how it's changed over time, but something similar happened with me and World of Warcraft. There are various reasons why I quit playing, but mainly I just didn't find it fun after Cataclysm (I briefly played some of the free content during Warlords on weekends, which wasn't bad, but still...lacking in some ways). I didn't like how they pruned down talent trees and preferred farming great gear, not relying on heirlooms and power leveling to the finish. The game was more about its story and PVE to me - I was never a big PVP fan - and was more about the journey than destination. Though I fully acknowledge others play for different reasons. Wasn't a fan of how they wrote some characters later on either...especially what they did to Sylvanus. Admittedly I'm not up to date on how her saga ended though.

It's been awhile since I've looked at One D&D stuff since our games very much use 5e, but I do agree there are some similarities. Seems like you miss a lot of the more original world building? Which I agree is important in any worthy setting.

Edit: I do know WoW Classic is a thing, but I'm staying away from game subs for awhile.

@Tyranexx Yep that's a good comparison. While on the one hand what Hasbro did for D&D I can't disagree with they made it more mainstream and introduced it to alot of people, it's they way they did it if that makes sense. As I said I won't stop playing it I just won't be a part of the new stuff.

My group is going to try playing via Roll20, so I'm setting up an account this weekend. Next weekend might be when the trial run is, but that isn't set in stone yet. I've heard good things about the service, and our group is small enough that we think we can get by with the free stuff.

@Tasuki I think that does make sense. In any case, it's your time, so play whatever D&D edition you like!

Sorry it's been while since I have even been on the site regularly, and our group has struggled to get together for sessions. The brief summary is that we are heading towards the final stretch of the campaign by completing the last quest for gems. Honestly, we almost could assault Strand's castle now but I think we all want another level or two just to be safe.

@Tasuki I get what you are saying, as this time around everything was based in the Forgotten Realms with a few Eberron and Dragonlance bones thrown out. I also understand their reasoning as supporting multiple campaign worlds with source material is difficult, and it dilutes the sales of those sourcebooks to just the people interested in the campaign world.

Much like you however, I am not eager to repurchase books to be One D&D compliant, and the quality of their sourcebooks have been all over the place. It is bad enough that their writers don't understand their own mechanics (perception check vs investigation check for example) and tend to make things combat oriented with little explanation of how a goblin fights differently than an orc.

But honestly, after this campaign we might be calling it quits or a break. It is getting way too difficult to get together and we are looking at playing something that we can still do if everyone cannot make it on a particular night.

@Darknyht Yeah the quality is definitely not there I have noticed, and there are so many blanks that they go fill in yourself. I know that happens when a big conglomerate ends up owning you and just uses the product as a cash cow. I have seen this kinda of thing happen to other things as well, video games, foods, household products etc it's just the nature of the beast really. They pride themselves in quantity over quality because they know people will buy it.

I don't want to sound like a gatekeeper but this is not the Dungeon and Dragons I grew up with. I grew up with rich and well thought out worlds not worlds where well we can't do this anymore because it might upset someone. A world that had Villians that you were afraid of cause you had no idea what they were capable of. Hell we knew of Vecna and that he was an evil and power God not the guy from the latest episode of Stranger Things.

As I said I glad that Hasbro took it from a niche thing to something everyone can share, but at what price.

@Tasuki I am reading a really interesting book called "Chokepoint Capitalism" that is all about how corporations insert themselves between a product and the customer and choke it through various means. Hasbro is attempting that with DND Beyond and One D&D, but they underestimated the backlash. However, they will keep trying until they break things completely and it is all buried in DRM that they control. Just look at what Amazon did with publishing, Spotify is doing to music, Google did to search/advertising, Apple and Google did to Smartphone Apps, and many other things out there.

We did manage to play and Irena has been resolved despite having a crazy celestial steal her face and having an epic battle with him. We managed to do the shove, grapple combo on him after a masterful wall of flame separated him from his minions. Then it was just a matter of wailing on him as he could not stand or move (Prone with no movement due to grapple) and was unable to break the grapple thanks to rolls and my Flash of Genius +5 bonus.

We are now on the road to get to the last gem we need to collect before facing off with Strahd.

I know it's been awhile since I posted here, sadly my campaigns died due to various reasons the big one just not being able to get schedules to meet so everyone can play.

That said I have been keeping an eye on the D&D landscape with the 2024 Edition coming out.
I still stand by what I said a few post back that I am not impressed with the way Hasbro is going with D&D. Since then I have been looking at Kobold's Press Tales of the Vailant and it is to 5th Edition what Patfinder was to 3rd. I am very impressed with it and I can see the care that goes into it. It is very well thought out and the world building is something I missed from D&D. Tell you what. If my group does figure out a time to play I just might switch over to ToV.

Likewise, it has been a while since I last posted. Most of my games have been either stopped or put on hold since I started a new job that has my commuting 5 hours a day. We were on our way to fight Strahd when I started, so it is a matter of finding the time to play again to finish the campaign.

@Darknyht WoW that is a commute I don't know if I ever would take a job that made me commute that much. I hope your vehicle gets good gas milage.

@Darknyht Ouch. THAT is a commute that would be a deal breaker for me in nearly all circumstances. Unless it was only once in awhile where I could work remotely most of the time. With some other stipulations thrown in.

My group has been trying to meet. Roll20 hasn't really worked out for us between some technical issues and the fact that the player who suggested it - so that they could even play to begin with - hasn't been showing. So we've had a couple session zeroes. I haven't heard when or even if we're moving back to in-person meetups yet.

@Tasuki Thankfully company car and company gas.

@Tyranexx I’ve long distance drove for most of my career. That is much of an issue as it finding decent entertainment. Audiobooks, podcasts and BBC radio app has helped, but do miss hockey.

@Darknyht Well that's definitely a good thing that it's their car. Although yeah I would be looking for some good podcasts for a commute like that. Hopefully you find some good ones!

@Tyranexx I was never a fan myself of Roll20. Although I only used Roll20 and D&D Beyond which I found to be better. I don't know if it was Roll20 itself or the host trying to run to much stuff on an old laptop on top of a poor internet connection but it never seemed to work for the group I was playing with. It always crashed and freeze and other technical problems that just made playing a TTRPG annoying and not fun at all, at least for me. I know alot of people like it, but for me my experience with it was bad.

@Darknyht That would get long, but at least you seem to have found a few good ways to keep yourself entertained! And at least it isn't your vehicle piling on the distance.

@Tasuki We decided to try Roll20 first since there's a free tier. More of a trial to see how playing online would work. I didn't have any internet connection issues, but importing my character sheet into our game took AGES (As in, probably 30-45 minutes). I'm still not sure what caused it to become so bogged down. Other group members dealt with a few technical issues.

@Tasuki we were/are using FoundryVTT. I have access to DND Beyond’s version but it was a mess when I last looked at it during beta. I also tried the free Roll20 and it was a little difficult to integrate everything.

The biggest problem with them all is players tend to act like they are playing a RPG video game instead of their imagination. When I was DM I only used it for combat because of that. Theater of the mind give you a lot more flexibility that the maps. However the tactical advantage of battle made it worthwhile. Especially it keeping track of initiative and stats.

@Darknyht I never tried Foundry VTT, but I have heard good things about it. I can see the whole video game part, that's my biggest thing about using a VTT. I can see the convenience factor especially for someone who can't or doesn't have time to draw/build maps but yet it does make ot feel more like a video game. To be honest the people I have always played D&D with along with other TTRPGs never used maps, preferring to play mind's eye. If for some reason we needed a reference point we would just scribble down a crude map with reference points or use stuff on the table as reference points lol, this red solo cup is the dragon and you are this D4 and the tree is this Mountain Dew can etc.

Mostly what I used D&D Beyond for was to have a digital copy of players character sheets and digital copies of the books making it so much easier then needing to have a stack of books lol. I do have hard copies of the books, and most of my players had hard copies of their character sheets but digitally makes if so much easier especially as a DM. To be fair though last time I tried D&D Beyond they didn't have a map feature like now so there's that but that was one reason we as a group opted for D&D Beyond to begin with because we don't use to many maps.

So I am quite excited. I recently found a Gaming Cafe in my town a few weeks ago, gaming as in board game and other table top games like card games like Pokémon, Magic and TTRPGs. On Tuesday nights they have what they call drop in RPG night which is a few DMS with various TTRPGs. I saw on their website a Pathfinder one, a couple D&D ones, a Vampire the Masquerade one and a couple other that I dont know of. I am planning to check the D&D ones out tonight to see how it goes. Honestly I am not big on D&D since they way Hasbro is handling it rather check out Daggerheart or Tales of the Valiant but it is what it is. I figure as a drop in game there's no big commitment to it if I dont like it but it will be nice to play a TTRPG again.

The game I am looking at is one out of the Dragon Deleves set something to do with Orkus. I ended up creating a human hunter ranger cause I only have the free rule set of the 2024 5e. Not sure what the rest of the party will be but we shall see. Looking forward to this.

So reporting back on last night's D&D session at my local Game Cafe, it was a blast. I was playing a human ranger with the hunter subclass. The rest of the group was made up of a Tabaxi rogue a Barbarian (wasn't sure what race he was) and my son played a Dragonborn Paladin. We ended up exploring a ruin that was once a temple to Orcus that was abandoned for years but now had some activity in it. The villagers were worried that a cult of Orcus moved into the area so they of course hired our group to investigate the ruins.

It was your standard dragon crawl adventure. We entered the ruins, cleared out them out of some cultists and called it a day. There was a great twist at the end which I enjoyed and had us all laughing. The party worked out pretty good. The barbarian and Paladin where our main Frontline tanks while I and the rogue attacked from the rear with arrows. Hoardbreaker is such a fun skill to use. At the end we manged to clear out the ruins for the towns folk, made a bit of gold and leveld up.

Overall had a blast and it was good to play. TTRPG again. I am probably going to see when they have more TTRPG nights at this gaming Cafe and do this again.