Well, I've been part of a tabletop RPG club for the better part of a year now, and actually don't RP all that much myself. I have more fun as a GM, generally speaking, as I enjoy telling stories and having people react to them. Only mastered horror games until now (Don't Rest Your Head, which is absolutely fuckin' badass, and Sketchulhu, which is aight), so I'm including quite a bit of horror in this campaign to get used to it little by little. It's quite ambitious, but I think that I'll be able to pull it off.

I'm definitely more of a "fun before rules" kind of GM, and allow quite a bit of leeway if the players are creative enough.

That's a good plan. Rad that you're doing horror themed games. What system are you using in the one you're working on?

I'm working with fifth edition D&D as a base (so d20), with only some tweaks here and there. I was thinking about including sanity checks and stuff like that, but honestly, I think that it's more of a fun challenge for me as a GM to disturb them without having to resort to actual game mechanics.

The campaign's gonna be called "Family Pride", "Red Mist" being the title of the first chapter. To make a long story short, a Duchess descended from a long line of royal sorcerers turns to necromancy to take vengeance on the kingdom that snubbed her family and denied them lands of their own. Problem is that, in this custom setting, necromancy doesn't simply reanimate corpses, but forcibly tears extradimensional entities out of their realm and imprisons them in vessels that they can neither understand nor bear to be in, distorting the cadavers into horrendous, otherwordly shapes guided by a mad, unfathomable conscience. Mind you, the aforementioned mess happens as a side-effect of performing necromantic rituals, and the Duchess deems violently turning nearby corpses into meat puppets for alien beasts happy accidents, as her real aim all along was to resurrect a long-dead, legendarily nasty warrior (originally slain by one of her ancestors), known as Vrimir the Bloody, who had some messed up magic mojo of his own going on to begin with. Of course, when that gets mixed with the foul sorcery of the Duchess..... Bad stuff happens, to say the least. The PCs don't really know anything in the beginning, though. They only start getting some answers towards the end of the first chapter, after they hear about a nearby city seemingly becoming deserted overnight and surrounded by strange, crimson mist, and decide to see what's going on.

I'd write more, but my file on this thing is almost 4000 words long already and there's still, like, a third left to write. Hope it sounds good though.

Big old school AD&D nerd here. Been playing a 1st edition campaign with some friends for close to two years running now. We're working our way up to Queen of the Demonweb Pits.

That does sound good. Let me know how it pans out.

I went to a gaming con recently and saw a lecture by a guy who's writing a Masters in Education thesis on the integration of RPG's into education. He runs after school programs for kids around ages 10 and 11 years old. He gave a general survey of RPG system options, talking about the available reward systems (at least principles, if not actual mechanics) whereby characters profit by the qulaity of their decision making, not necessarily their combat prowess or power ups. He used a horror setting as an example, being rewarded for surviving peril or avoiding peril, or managing to remain sane by sheer resourcefulness, or character points awarded when a PC does something inventive with their scenario. His point was that while combat is a perfectly good reward system, sword and board isn't the sole way to gain XP. There might be some food for thought there for you.

On a related note, a friend who went with me spent most of a day playing Eclipse Phase. The GM had come with really well-organized character packets. One of the characters was a ship's computer consciousness that over time had grown sentient so that the ship could basically run itself. Eventually the ship's consciousness got tired of being a ship and downloaded itself into one of the many human-body vessels available. To be thorough, it backed itself in 12 other bodies so at any given point there were a dozen other beings with just the same mind in different bodies scattered througout populated space, which were highly unlikely to ever interact. I thought that was a really neat character. There was another character who was basically a torrented personality, a cohesive compilation of minute fragments from tons of different people. That was also really cool. Apparently the game involved no combat whatsoever, although there was almost constant threat, and was really fun. That friend is taking over the GM spot in our Pathfinder game, so it'll be interesting to see what he incorporates from the stuff we saw and talked about.

Oi, yeah, combat isn't actually gonna be a big part of the session. There's gonna be, like, three encounters at most, one of which isn't supposed to actually be fought head on (the aforementioned long-dead warrior, which is sorta like Resident Evil's Nemesis gone all medieval). Rewarding them for careful thinking and good decision making is definitely a good idea, plus the regular boons I give for good roleplaying.

I've read a bit about Eclipse Phase, and yeah, the kind of stuff that you can pull off in that game is absolutely crazy, but I don't think that I'd be able to run that kind of game. I love sci fi, but can't write or narrate it for shit.

The DM in my current game very much operates on this philosophy, he often gives out some extra XP for good roleplaying and problem solving. I wouldn't say it necessarily encourages us look for non-combat solutions, since the group all likes a good mix of story, RP, and combat, but it is definitely a nice bonus.

We're almost a year into our 5th ED campaign now. I haven't played D&D since 3.5, but I feel like they did really good with the classes this time out, each feels distinct and useful, but they also have enough flexibility to be shaped to suit the type of character you want to play. In a few more levels my Goliath Barbarian will be able to move his full speed in any direction before falling to the ground, so I’m basically gonna have a massive tank doing wire-fu all over the battlefield. It's not the optimal choice I could make, but it suits my character and plus it just sounds fun.

Well our journey to the Demonweb pits has been delayed (we simply aren't high enough level)
I've suggested to the DM perhaps the Caverns of Tsojacnth as our next adventure in 1st ed. AD&D
We are all about level 8-9 (my character is dual class levels 8 illusionist level 9 thief)
Any other module suggestions?

Looks like White Plume Mountain it is!
*excited*

Well, Curse of Strahd is real fun, if you're into spooky, gothic settings. Same goes for Elemental Evil, which has some really creative cults in it to use as antagonists for possible adventures. That is all 5e though.

EDIT: Woops, missed the last post

Actuallly I'd love to play the original Ravenloft module
My DM thinks its a tad too out of our ordinary setting but personally I think there's lots of room for variety in AD&D
Afterall we did play an oriental themed module once and that's pretty exotic compared to our usual fare

Welp, I had that D&D session that I mentioned earlier last night, and it actually turned out pretty well!

I did make quite a few rookie mistakes (man, lots of numbers and skills and shit to keep track of; the games I usually master are mechanically pretty simple), but overall, the guys had lots of fun. Leo, this friend of mine, played this pseudo-Russian knight called Boros, and he was a fucking riot He almost immediately formed a sort of kinship with Chip, this gal who was playing a weird mix of warlock/paladin with a thirst for fey blood. As you can imagine, the party interactions were pretty cool overall, and they made a good team. I grossly miscalculated the amount of time that it would take to finish this first chapter though, so they just managed to reach the gates of the city that they're meant to explore before we had to call it quits.

Can't wait to continue next weekend.

I'd like to play D&D with you, xlxlx! I could play with my homosexual historian Tiefling warlock haha. I'd really like to play again but it's tough to get a group together (schedules etc!) but I should actively seek one, I've just found a D&D Montréal club so I might try this, I wouldn't mind meeting strangers to play.

Hell yeah, Metallum D&D sessions FTW! I bet that'd be really awesome, especially with characters as inventive as that.

And yeah, joining an RPG club is one of the best decisions I've made in, like, the past three years. You should totally give that a shot.

Dunno shit about RPGs apart from playing the D&D starter set but has anyone here played Forbidden Desert? Pretty unique thing with crazy intelligent mechanics. It's rather hard to win though, balancing out cards that deplete your water level with trying to excavate as much tiles as possible in a limited amount of time (which is basically the objective) requires a lot of careful planning and co-operation. I'm sure it's satisfying to win at the end though.

I'm in. We need VR.

I met up with strangers before from online... lasted a few months then fizzled. Current group has been going for 2 years now. 1st ed. AD&D. Best group I've had.

I’m curious, what are the benefits of playing 1st ed as oppose to say 3.5 or 5?

Never played 5th so couldn't tell you. I had alot of fun playing 3.5 and Pathfinder. In 1st there's fewer classes and none of those skill points. AC is calculated differently. It's just a different flavor. I like it because I grew up with those old school books as part of my childhood as did everyone else in the group. Also I find it's more strict, more restrictive so there's potentially more challenge.

Masochism.

I can't say I find the idea of it being more strict and restrictive appealing but hey, whatever works for ya Thoth Amon!

I like the immediate social aspect of boardgaming versus videogaming, which is why I backed the shit out of the Dark Souls board game. I'm not a fan of the series (since I never played them), but it sounds like this adaptation has a lot of what I look for. I'm a diehard fan of Fireteam Zero, Gears of War (the board game), Robinson Crusoe, and others that emphasize cooperation in a dire predicament. I love board games that involve planning turns in advance but making the best of the shit that happens when you roll or draw poorly.

The old adage of 'less is more' is applicable in this case IMO

Different experience. Its like reading books versus watching movies.

Yeah I could see AD&D for sure just because there were so many great settings/modules released for it (Planescape, Dark Sun, etc.) and updating them for a newer edition would be a huge pain in the ass. There were some updated versions released, but they never covered everything from the originals. But 1st ed? I guess whatever gets people into the room...

1st ed. AD&D is what we're playing. Not original D&D.

I've been playing some 5th edition with some faraway friends using roll20 for a little while now and am so far highly enjoying it. My character is a cleric that was abandoned in a tavern by his parents at birth and was raised in a temple, where he discovered he loved history and knowledge. He basically raised himself through reading in the church library, and thus rarely mingled with people socially. He's really socially awkward, but thinks he can get through social encounters by using suggestion spells to get what he wants. This causes some problems when the people he tries to suggest things to succeed in resisting the spells.

That being said, I'd love to get another game started with M-A people using Roll20 if anyone sets one up.

Ah ok, that makes more sense then. I mean I'm still not 100% sure why you'd play 1st ed. AD&D over 2nd ed. but whatever floats your butt!

3 of the 5 of us grew up playing 1st ed. 1 player is new to the game entirely, and I grew up with 1st ed. stuff as a kid but never actually started playing till later. So obviously nostalgia is a big factor. I've never actually played 2nd ed.

Yup. We've made some rule "tweaks" in favor of keeping interest in the game alive. We ditched the ceiling on multi-class levels for example. Also as a house rule we added "Luck" points (like Strenght, or Int, etc.).

Yeah, a good degree of flexibility if always healthy, me thinks. Makes the whole thing more fun and open.

Currently making a radiation elemental and some insectoid mummies for future use. Homebrew monsters FTW.

also, first edition has all those classic modules (keep on the borderland, slavers series, queen of the demonweb pits, white plume mountain, etc.) in there original forms.

So I'm joining a D&D club with complete strangers since I want to play and I don't have enough friends into the game. It's with D&D 5e and I'm planning to play a human woman wizard named Elvira. The other players are older than me but I'll see how it goes, I hope it will be fun. I did a drawing of my character but it's not cool enough to share hahaha

I want to do a destruction mage so I went with the School of Evocation path and picked those spells:

Cantrips (3)
Fire Bolt
Mage Hand
Message
1st level spells (6)
Magic Missile
Burning Hands
Expedious Retreat
Find Familiar (black cat)
Identify
Thunderwave

Did any you played with 5e? Tips? Etc...

The Most Important 5e Tip: If it doesn't have cantrips or multiple abilities that can be used at-will, it's worthless and the antithesis of fun. The At-Will/Encounter/Daily power system of 4e was the best thing to have ever been introduced to D&D, and so of course, 5e chopped it off, along with its arms and legs, leaving behind an empty husk of a game with no substance.

"I strike its hand so that he takes Disadvantage on his next attack" is such a basic combat technique that it SHOULD be an at-will option for every melee class, but nope! "I walk up to it and hit it" is all that you get, filthy Ranger. If you wanted to have fun, you should've rolled a Warlock or Sorcerer.

4e is basically tabletop Diablo. No thanks.

5e is pretty streamlined for D&D, and without 4e's dumb emphasis on just murder and lootin'. Certainly not as open as 3.5, but it's very easy for a newcomer to get into it. It's good enough, I'd say. Also, what Zelk mentioned (striking hands/heads/legs/etc for something something) is perfectly easy to implement. Hell, that's why house rules exist at all.

This doesn't seem like a constructive nor pertinent tip, Zelki! Only negativity and frustration!

Even if I liked the The At-Will/Encounter/Daily power system of 4, I don't see how its removal would make a game without "substance", you seem to be unnecessary hyperbolic like usual.

I played a warlock before (in 4e) and it was fun but I wanted something different. It was either the sorcerer or the wizard but since already 2 people in the pack were picking half-elf (best race for sorcerers from what I've read) and the DM didn't want Tieflings in his game, I did something else.

never was an enthusiastic tabletop gamer, but Starcraft board game is an interesting experience. I head already become fed up with this setting (after years of being keen on a computer version) by the time my pal convinced me to try this game, but I mean the mechanics itself is quite strategy-oriented and balanced with that system of prioritized orders.

"Runewars" is the second one that caught my attention, pretty much a tabletop version of HoMM. Some random effects were frustrating, although maybe I didn't get familiar with the whole concept after 5 parties or so

Tieflings are good for Elementalist Sorcerers, but for the regular-ass Sorcerers, Tieflings and Half-Elves aren't the most optimal choice. If you're looking to min/max your race-class combo, Wild and Storm Sorcerers are Charisma/Dexterity based, so you want to be a Satyr, Shade, Pixie, Drow, Vryloka, Revenant, Kenku, Goblin, Halfling, Hengeyokai, Changeling, or the Kapak Dragonborn. If you wanna be the best Cosmic or Dragon Sorcerer, which are Charisma/Strength based, your choices are more limited with only Vryloka or Dragonborn.

Here's a handy-dandy chart for future 4e class-stat combo goodness!

I'm not playing 4e and I was considering the sorcerer for 5e. This dude said that Tieflings and Half-Elves were the 2 best races for the sorcerer in 5e as the other races are not there yet (?) http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread ... d-Sorcerer