D&D confession/tabletop rpg thread

[Buddy Bradley]

I'd like to give online roleplay games a go - I was into D&D and WFRP as a teenager - but I don't know if I can carve out enough uninterrupted time for it. Also not sure about playing with randoms, seems like it would be too easy to get stuck with someone whose personality you can't stand.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

I'd like to give online roleplay games a go - I was into D&D and WFRP as a teenager - but I don't know if I can carve out enough uninterrupted time for it. Also not sure about playing with randoms, seems like it would be too easy to get stuck with someone whose personality you can't stand.

Everyone I know who plays online just plays with people they already know. There are lfg areas around but they can vary wildly to say the least.

From what I hear, the more specialised lfgs (for lesser-known systems) are better as people will have a specific reason to be asking, but if you try for something popular like 5e, you're really asking the whole of the internet and your Unacceptable Rando chance is a lot higher.

 

[Karl Masks]

I'd like to give online roleplay games a go - I was into D&D and WFRP as a teenager - but I don't know if I can carve out enough uninterrupted time for it. Also not sure about playing with randoms, seems like it would be too easy to get stuck with someone whose personality you can't stand.

Some of those online sessions can last for hours, which is great if you have the stamina i guess

 

[kalmatthew]

Some of those online sessions can last for hours, which is great if you have the stamina i guess

I DM an online D&D game with freinds who live far away, it started in covid. We often do 8-10 hours which is fun but by the end of the session I'm usually good for nothing other than a beer and collapsing on the sofa.

 

[mojo pixy]

For online D&D play, it's worth noting that an old game (2002 but re-released in 2018 and greatly improved) Neverwinter Nights, still has a thriving online community. The game is based more or less on 3.5 Edition and there are some excellent, friendly multiplayer servers.

Arelith and Ravenloft/Prisoners of the Mist for example both have dozens of regular players, and are heavily focussed on roleplay and group storytelling. There are loads of others but some have very few players.

One I used to play on years ago is called Thain, hardly anyone plays there now but if anyone fancies rolling a character and playing I'd join in

 

[Ming]

For online D&D play, it's worth noting that an old game (2002 but re-released in 2018 and greatly improved) Neverwinter Nights, still has a thriving online community. The game is based more or less on 3.5 Edition and there are some excellent, friendly multiplayer servers.

Arelith and Ravenloft/Prisoners of the Mist for example both have dozens of regular players, and are heavily focussed on roleplay and group storytelling. There are loads of others but some have very few players.

One I used to play on years ago is called Thain, hardly anyone plays there now but if anyone fancies rolling a character and playing I'd join in

My online Guild Wars name is Clang Overbier but i use it for most MMORPs. Like Michael Moorcocks eternal champion type thing. (Elric’etc).

Few other old school table top games which are fun:

Rune Quest
Traveller
Space Opera
Steve Jackson’s books
Car Wars

 

[Crispy]

Strahd is supposed to be pretty good - I've not played it myself but it seems to be consistently at the top of "Not Shit 5e Things".

I've been listening to a podcast of it for years. It's huge

 

[maomao]

Ugh, I've got 12 sign ups. Is that even possible? I had asked to cap it at eight. They're all nice kids though. Should I let one be a DM and run two tables?

 

[kalmatthew]

Ugh, I've got 12 sign ups. Is that even possible? I had asked to cap it at eight. They're all nice kids though. Should I let one be a DM and run two tables?

Unless one of them has experience that could be risky, can you split the group and run every other week? A campaign with 12 is going to be a lot of sitting around.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

Some might just want to see what it is all about.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

The virtual table tops nowadays look great for online play but I always think the more visual cues you add the more it takes from the imagination which is the point of it all really. If you’re just looking at miniatures on a screen you might as well just play a computer game.

 

[maomao]

Well I have eight, six boys on the spectrum and two cool girls who've been watching Stranger Things. They invented characters last week and killed some goblins this week. It's surprised how little you can get done in an hour with overexcited 12 year olds. I've been using some visual aids on the board but they really didn't need any.

Kids are weird though. One of them asked if he could 'poo and wee' on the dead goblin bodies. I told him no but if he tries it again I'll have some goblin deity turn up and turn him into a halfling (he's a half-orc fighter).

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

Kids are weird though. One of them asked if he could 'poo and wee' on the dead goblin bodies. I told him no but if he tries it again I'll have some goblin deity turn up and turn him into a halfling (he's a half-orc fighter).

Well.....

When our group killed a big bad who was associated with zombie like creatures my character (halfing gunslinger) burnt the body, loaded the ashes into a barrel, pissed in them, then threw them in the sea.



He was still resurrected.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Well I have eight, six boys on the spectrum and two cool girls who've been watching Stranger Things. They invented characters last week and killed some goblins this week. It's surprised how little you can get done in an hour with overexcited 12 year olds. I've been using some visual aids on the board but they really didn't need any.

Kids are weird though. One of them asked if he could 'poo and wee' on the dead goblin bodies. I told him no but if he tries it again I'll have some goblin deity turn up and turn him into a halfling (he's a half-orc fighter).

Should have allowed it; with unfortunate consequences.

 

[Karl Masks]

was definitely worth it - but it's coming out for general release soon as the KS rewards have mostly all been sent out

it's out now

but the pdf is £20 which, IMHO, is too much for an ebook. It does look good tho

 

[Magnus McGinty]

What board games would anyone recommend for a nine year old to get into the role play/war game hobby?
I keep thinking Talisman, but that suggests age 13+ and also I like it so I'd be basically be buying it for me lol. Any suggestions?

 

[Rob Ray]

Amazing scenes as Hasbro's attempt to close down its open license (the entire key to the popularisation of DnD as it allowed third party firms to make shitloads of really good additional content) persuades every other TTRPG firm to do the obvious thing and set up their own collectively-run open license instead. Talk about killing the golden goose!


I can only imagine the panic going on in the upper levels of Hasbro HQ atm, they seem to have thought the thing was a monopoly they could dictate terms on as opposed to y'know, a game you can play with a pen and a pad of paper while making up rules as you go along. Some of the leaks have suggested a real disdain towards the whole concept other than as a cash cow to be milked:

 

[Lazy Llama]

Cory Doctorow wrote about this, saying that the OGL was always fatally flawed.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/12/beg-forgiveness-ask-permission/#whats-a-copyright-exception

 

[fucthest8]

As an aside, whilst reading about the whole OGL thing, I have a copy of this at my parents which I shall recover this weekend.



Appears to currently be going for anywhere between £75 and £200 depending on version and condition. Not that I'd ever sell it

As you can tell, it's been a while since I played, but at Christmas I bought the "Adventure Begins" boardgame for my son, thinking it would be a good way to get us playing something as a family (my son is a massive nerd/neurodivergent/gamer, I am also some if not all of those things) but a gentle intro for my missus as it's a boardgame

I was very pleased when (a) she took to it like a duck to water and (b) my son insisted on DMing as I'd hoped he would. Played it 3 times, now I'm going to pick up all my old stuff and see if we can't adapt it into our own game and Hasbro can go fuck themselves. All I need is paper, dice and my brain.

I realise I am very out of touch with how this has all developed online and creating characters etc has been streamlined over the years, but surely the D&D community can just work round it?

 

[fucthest8]

Cory Doctorow wrote about this, saying that the OGL was always fatally flawed.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/12/beg-forgiveness-ask-permission/#whats-a-copyright-exception

Ha, didn't read that first, funny they used the AD&D cover!

I might have to read it twice, but am I right in reading that as actually, if they do dump the OGL then anyone who signed up to it is released?!

 

[RedRedRose]

I returned to D&D not long after 4E was released (2010, maybe) and played for a couple of years. There was a huge shitfight amongst gamers about editions (4E, 3.5, Pathfinder, retro 2E gamers, etc) and after rejecting 4E I fell in with a Pathfinder crowd. I should confess, I have a long standing grudge against Wizards of the Coast, but they did themselves no favours with 4E.

Is Pathfinder still a thing? Has 5E reclaimed the D&D market?

 

[RedRedRose]

What board games would anyone recommend for a nine year old to get into the role play/war game hobby?

Most of the D&D variants have introductory boxset versions of the game.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Most of the D&D variants have introductory boxset versions of the game.

In the end I got Dungeon and Mice and Mystics. He’s a bit young for a lot of the others.

 

[RedRedRose]

Mice and Mystics is supposed to be good. You might also want to consider Stuffed Fables.

 

[Gromit]

As an aside, whilst reading about the whole OGL thing, I have a copy of this at my parents which I shall recover this weekend.

View attachment 359232

Appears to currently be going for anywhere between £75 and £200 depending on version and condition. Not that I'd ever sell it

As you can tell, it's been a while since I played, but at Christmas I bought the "Adventure Begins" boardgame for my son, thinking it would be a good way to get us playing something as a family (my son is a massive nerd/neurodivergent/gamer, I am also some if not all of those things) but a gentle intro for my missus as it's a boardgame

I was very pleased when (a) she took to it like a duck to water and (b) my son insisted on DMing as I'd hoped he would. Played it 3 times, now I'm going to pick up all my old stuff and see if we can't adapt it into our own game and Hasbro can go fuck themselves. All I need is paper, dice and my brain.

I realise I am very out of touch with how this has all developed online and creating characters etc has been streamlined over the years, but surely the D&D community can just work round it?

I eBay'd my 2E full set ages ago.

Knock down price just to give them a loving home.

Buyer complained how much postage I then added... which was how much the postage was, cause they were hardbacked books and damn heavy.

Kinda wish I kept them. 2E was the most fun in my opinion.

 

[Rob Ray]

surely the D&D community can just work round it?

Depends if you mean D&D the specific game (owned by Hasbro) or D&D the broader concept.

In the former, the purported new licence won't really affect homebrew content but will affect the ecosystem of for-profit companies (Kobold Press, Chaosium, Legendary Games) that currently piggyback off their structure (keyword sets, monster concepts etc). So you might see a lot less new content come out, but the quite large backlog of existing games and scenarios can still be played on the older edition system.

In the latter, yes that's basically what's happening. Paizo (which runs the biggest non-D&D TTRPGs like Pathfinder and Starfinder - yep RedRedRose that's definitely still going) has basically decided to champion the idea of a new irrevocable open license set up by a collaboration of all the largest firms in the industry. Hasbro still has a big lead in terms of stockists (D&D gets a shelf, Pathfinder/Starfinder maybe a half of one, everyone else crammed in on the end) and brand recognition but there's been a massive shift over the last week with people switching over to Paizo's stuff, it could easily snowball into success.

 

[fucthest8]

Depends if you mean D&D the specific game (owned by Hasbro) or D&D the broader concept.

In the former, the purported new licence won't really affect homebrew content but will affect the ecosystem of for-profit companies (Kobold Press, Chaosium, Legendary Games) that currently piggyback off their structure (keyword sets, monster concepts etc). So you might see a lot less new content come out, but the quite large backlog of existing games and scenarios can still be played on the older edition system.

In the latter, yes that's basically what's happening. Paizo (which runs the biggest non-D&D TTRPGs like Pathfinder and Starfinder - yep RedRedRose that's definitely still going) has basically decided to champion the idea of a new irrevocable open license set up by a collaboration of all the largest firms in the industry. Hasbro still has a big lead in terms of stockists (D&D gets a shelf, Pathfinder/Starfinder maybe a half of one, everyone else crammed in on the end) and brand recognition but there's been a massive shift over the last week with people switching over to Paizo's stuff, it could easily snowball into success.

Thanks for this, that explains it all nicely. I'll def be looking at Paizo then, nice one!

 

[Lord Camomile]

Is Pathfinder still a thing? Has 5E reclaimed the D&D market?

I'm another pandemic-newbie, but my understanding is that 5E + pandemic is largely responsible for the recent D&D boom. Over the past couple of years I've heard it said many times that 5E, in whatever way, made the game more accessible to newcomers (again?).

And yes, Pathfinder 2E is still a thing, and as Rob Ray says, could be about to become a much bigger thing.

As I say, aside from one campaign via Zoom with my mates when lockdown kicked in, I've been very much a lurker and observer from the outside, but it really does seem like carnage and Hasbro/WotC have just absolutely impaled themselves on their own short-sighted greed.

 

[Lord Camomile]

An Update on the Open Game License (OGL)

Although we are not yet able to release the OGL at this time, we would like to update you on how things are developing, and the goals we have in mind fo...

www.dndbeyond.com

The next OGL will contain the provisions that allow us to protect and cultivate the inclusive environment we are trying to build and specify that it covers only content for TTRPGs. That means that other expressions, such as educational and charitable campaigns, livestreams, cosplay, VTT-uses, etc., will remain unaffected by any OGL update. Content already released under 1.0a will also remain unaffected.

What it will not contain is any royalty structure. It also will not include the license back provision that some people were afraid was a means for us to steal work. That thought never crossed our minds. Under any new OGL, you will own the content you create. We won’t. Any language we put down will be crystal clear and unequivocal on that point. The license back language was intended to protect us and our partners from creators who incorrectly allege that we steal their work simply because of coincidental similarities. As we continue to invest in the game that we love and move forward with partnerships in film, television, and digital games, that risk is simply too great to ignore. The new OGL will contain provisions to address that risk, but we will do it without a license back and without suggesting we have rights to the content you create. Your ideas and imagination are what makes this game special, and that belongs to you.

 

[kalmatthew]

An Update on the Open Game License (OGL)

Although we are not yet able to release the OGL at this time, we would like to update you on how things are developing, and the goals we have in mind fo...

www.dndbeyond.com

An intresting climb down in the face of massive opposition. Especially given one of the biggest appeals of D&D in genral is the ability to tweak an remix. I won't feel entirely safe until I see the new licence though...