Critical Role.

I play DND weekly with a couple of my girlfriend's pals who live quite far apart, and we've only ever met in person once. The campaign's been going for about three years now We use a Discord chat coupled with Let's Role for the tabletop side of things. I think the biggest downside to the online sessions is that it's far easier to get distracted while you're waiting for someone else to take their turn/make a decision and lose track of what's actually happening, but it's been pretty good fun.

It's a good job the DNDBeyond character sheets add your dice rolls together too otherwise every combat encounter would take three times as long as it currently does

Would be cool if people would be up for playing and on Roll20 as I bought the books I can use them on there.

site23 wrote:

Pedz wrote:I have never played it, and have always wanted too. Would be cool if someone would set up a game that could be played weekly via discord and roll20.

FWIW I played a mini-adventure (just a few sessions) with a couple of online friends a while ago that was set up like this. It worked fairly well! It's not quite as good as playing IRL but it was still a lot of fun.

I've DM'd a campaign (Curse of Strahd) for about the last year over discord/Roll20 for some mates and it works pretty well as a setup. Only problem is that it can be quite a lot of effort for the DM to get everything setup on Roll20 in advance (maps, tokens, etc). But if you don't mind doing a bit of prep work then it's a decent replacement.

Nice of you to offer Nun. When we starting?

Spoilers for episodes 34 - 36.

Well that's the

Pedz wrote:Spoilers for episodes 34 - 36.

Well that's the

Briarwoods dead. Hoping a fun adventure comes up to deal with the weird black hole. Be cool to see if the go see the Water Druids too.

The story really does amp up as the group gets stronger.
Watching the group try and stop Grog from using The Deck of Many Things which can easily destroy entire campaigns is always fun.

Holy gooseberry fool at episode 39!

4 Dragons attack Emon!!

Was going to go to bed but I need to see what happens next. I will go to bed soon though.

A goof friend of mine is years deep in to a D&D campaign. They all fully role play in character, voices and everything. He said he felt like a twat at first, but is now so comfortable with it that he researches accents in shows to make sure his character is authentic.

I wish I had friends to play D&D with

Episode 68

Pedz wrote:Episode 68

Percy died, family. I assume they will get Puke to revive hom, but have no ides how long you can leave a corpse and still revive them on DnD.

D&D 5th edition has made character death much, much less common.
You can get raise ded spells at fairly low level and items that can raise the dead if you get to them in a couple of minutes are pretty available as well.

Also the fact that you get 3 death saves as well which didn't exist in the edition I played.
In 2nd edition you went unconcious at 0hp and if you took damage to take you to -10 you died and damage didn't stop at zero if you took a 75 point hit for example and you had 50hp you just flat out died on the spot and the only spells to revive you were 7th level which my group that played for 6 years never got anywhere near casting.

Characters in Critical Role do die, it's just a lot harder for a DM to kill players now.

Player stupidity is a more dangerous foe than monsters with a few oopsie moments leading to character death.

Still watching this, on Episode 93.

Peter Crisp wrote:

Pedz wrote:Episode 68

Percy died, family. I assume they will get Puke to revive hom, but have no ides how long you can leave a corpse and still revive them on DnD.

D&D 5th edition has made character death much, much less common.
You can get raise ded spells at fairly low level and items that can raise the dead if you get to them in a couple of minutes are pretty available as well.

Also the fact that you get 3 death saves as well which didn't exist in the edition I played.
In 2nd edition you went unconcious at 0hp and if you took damage to take you to -10 you died and damage didn't stop at zero if you took a 75 point hit for example and you had 50hp you just flat out died on the spot and the only spells to revive you were 7th level which my group that played for 6 years never got anywhere near casting.

Characters in Critical Role do die, it's just a lot harder for a DM to kill players now.

Player stupidity is a more dangerous foe than monsters with a few oopsie moments leading to character death.

I have always been of the opinion that it is not the job of the DM to kill players or turn the game into a side rolling exercise but instead give them lateral thinking puzzles to solve so there is a feeling of accomplishment without the need for threat. Nobody wants to see their RPG character die; why put it in at all?

I’ve been DMing RPG games (mostly Heroquest) for my kids and their friends for years and the constant ‘remember that time when….’ stories never get old. None of them end with ‘…..we gave up because we had to make a new character for the 5th time this month.’

Carlos wrote:I have always been of the opinion that it is not the job of the DM to kill players or turn the game into a side rolling exercise but instead give them lateral thinking puzzles to solve so there is a feeling of accomplishment without the need for threat. Nobody wants to see their RPG character die; why put it in at all?

I’ve been DMing RPG games (mostly Heroquest) for my kids and their friends for years and the constant ‘remember that time when….’ stories never get old. None of them end with ‘…..we gave up because we had to make a new character for the 5th time this month.’

2nd edition (the edition I played) D&D wasn't a death zone as everything was built around fragile characters.
The lower level characters were super weak and as such people tended to play much more thoughtfully and slowly.
On the other hand high level characters were supremely overpowered to the point of not seeming like much fun to play but I never played past 7th level so I'm not sure if that's actually the case.

Character death was still rare it was just something you always had to consider as a real possibility.

I'd say the easiest way to experience 2nd edition is to play Baldurs Gate 2 on pc or console as that uses 2nd edittion rules and you'll see just how different it is. The magic system is completely different for example.

Do I think 5th edition is better?
Yeah, it probobly is but I only ever actually played 2nd so it will always be my personal choice.

Watching critical role just shows how many chances they get now to avoid death and even come back from death and I feel it loses some of the tension.
I'll always remember my first ever character that died was BraveStar who I reckless threw into a pack of Goblins thinking as a level 7 fighter he'd kick arse but the goblins just ripped him appart.
He managed to get reincarnated somehow but he changed race into an Elf and he just wasn't the same after that.

Over the course of 5 years my group played I think we had 3 character deaths as we went from level 1 to level 7 with I think one person being level 8.

Carlos wrote:I have always been of the opinion that it is not the job of the DM to kill players or turn the game into a side rolling exercise but instead give them lateral thinking puzzles to solve so there is a feeling of accomplishment without the need for threat. Nobody wants to see their RPG character die; why put it in at all?

I’ve been DMing RPG games (mostly Heroquest) for my kids and their friends for years and the constant ‘remember that time when….’ stories never get old. None of them end with ‘…..we gave up because we had to make a new character for the 5th time this month.’

I think part of what makes TTRPGs really cool is that the DM can mould them like this. I think you are definitely right that a game for kids should figure out more creative and forgiving stakes for the characters.

I think placing characters in mortal peril can be pretty fun if you have older players who can handle it, though. I wouldn't want my character to die every week, but a heroic (or stupid) death maybe once per campaign can be one of those "remember when..." moments. I had a character drown in a sewer while battling oozes once, which is definitely one of the worst ways someone can go... very memorable though!

Wish I had friends to play DnD with

Something I have always wanted to try, closest I got was warhammer and heroquest(?)

site23 wrote:I think part of what makes TTRPGs really cool is that the DM can mould them like this. I think you are definitely right that a game for kids should figure out more creative and forgiving stakes for the characters.

I think placing characters in mortal peril can be pretty fun if you have older players who can handle it, though. I wouldn't want my character to die every week, but a heroic (or stupid) death maybe once per campaign can be one of those "remember when..." moments. I had a character drown in a sewer while battling oozes once, which is definitely one of the worst ways someone can go... very memorable though!

The way I look at it is these adventurers are going up against epic creatures who present mortal perils for most people in the world.
A Beholder can pretty much wipe out an entire village so even an experienced party should face the possibility of character death in that encounter. It isn't the DM's job to kill the party but you have to challenge them and just steamrollering everything just becomes dull.
A group shouldn't just be able to wander about in the Underdark with impunity, it's a death sentence for all but a select few none-Drow so should be reflected as such.

Pedz wrote:Wish I had friends to play DnD with

Something I have always wanted to try, closest I got was warhammer and heroquest(?)

I only ever play Heroquest. When most of the role play aspects are based on the use of imagination I don’t see any advantage in having complex rules for character creation and resolving actions. You can add as much as you need as DM.

For example 2 of my sons friends were going on holiday. I noticed these same players had been injured by a zombie in combat. I got them to roll 2D6 and after this many turns their characters turned into zombies themselves (which they did!)

I then gave the other 2 players a quest to recover a magical sword to slay the dungeon boss and regain their friends whilst they were away.

The new Heroquest rerelease is 99% the exact same game as the 1980’s version. I picked up the intact original for a fiver from a charity shop some years back but buy the new expansions and add my own skin on the included quests.

That dull room with 3 goblins and a bookcase suddenly becomes the Goblin Book Club (which the players interrupt mid-debate) and I can throw in some logic puzzles scribbled on paper to flummox the players.

I'd highly recommend Advanced Heroquest if you want something Heroquesty that bridges the gap to D&D. It's really customisable and maintains a familiar desktop/tactile style with many of the D&D elements. It's a bit rough around the edges, but I much prefer it to Warhammer Quest.

It has a great, fluid system for dungeon crawling and quests, including its random counters the Gamesmaster can potentially draw each turn. It allows the GM to mould how difficult the quest should be based on how much the heroes are struggling and what level of peril the story requires.