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The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons

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Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons

#201

Post by simonh »

johnchristopher wrote: post #185

I don't like the new crop and the new style. Tables I played were overtly aggressive in a bad nerdy/intellectual way. I could sense the influence of mmorpgs and competitive tabletop games. I play for the story and the camaraderie, not to master loopholes in the rules and asserting dominance through numbers.

D&D 5 has a lot less of that than say 3.0 and 3.5 or Pathfinder, they're gone a long way to streamline the system. The general trend in RPGs over the last few decades has been towards lighter weight, more story driven games. I'm not personally a fan of D&D and it's tropes, and even then I'd go for something lighter like Dungeon World, but for what it is D&D 5 hits the nail on the head.

If you're interested, Meetup has a lot of local games groups listed you can try out to see if you can connect with a like-minded bunch of people.

Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons

#202

Post by C1sc0cat »

c22 wrote: post #129
hellepardo wrote: post #61

My friends and I play D&D because we have no real other option. We used to play Minecraft and other collaborative building games as a group, but then one in our group went fully blind. There is a complete lack of good multiplayer computer games for entirely blind players (admittedly that is quite a challenge), but D&D requires only imagination, which all of us still have. Highly recommend if you have friends with vis…

I used to have several blind friends who were very successful in text based MUDs. It's possible finding one with an active userbase is getting harder and harder.

Shades (a very early MUD) used to have a Deaf/Blind Player and she used to come to eyeballs with her Guide Dog.

Indra Shah (booker prize shortlist author) wrote a book called Cyber Gypsies that covers this late 70's online community

Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons

#203

Post by C1sc0cat »

weavejester wrote: post #198
shemnon42 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4e wasn't “discard[ing] a big chunk of its worst, thorniest rules”, it was a re-write to sell splat books and accessories, to try and turn it into pen and paper World of Warcraft, and make it a miniature focused expensive game. It failed. It was D&D in name only and an abomination to those who really cared about it. 5e was the streamlining and modularization that was needed so you could play it like it was 2e, or 3e/…

I'd disagree that 4e was far from D&D's roots. D&D evolved from miniture-based wargames, and it remains a combat-focused P&P system. In my view 4e had two primary problems: combat was complex took a long time to resolve, even by D&D's standards, and it was different to what people were used to.

Technically Correct - but once the Three brown Books where published in 75/76 DnD diverged from "proper" wargaming 100%

Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons

#204

Post by dagw »

kriro wrote: post #155

In Germany there's at least one other big P&P RPG called "Das Schwarze Auge" (sold in the US as "The dark Eye" iirc and not very successful). I think it's a good system and the lore is pretty nice (even though compared to my child-self I now realized a lot of it is heavily influenced by real world history/cultures). Which makes me wonder...what are other native language systems that are popular in the country but mig…

Sweden has produced quite a collection of P&P RPGs over the years, with Drakar & Demoner, Mutant and Kult probably being the three most popular. The last two I know got English translation of various versions, but I don't think they ever got popular outside of Sweden.

Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons

#206

Post by lordnacho »

loydb wrote: post #205

I am still running a campaign that started in 1979, with many of the same players. We can only manage once/month, because getting 8-9 adults together is a scheduling nightmare (thanks Doodle!), but we still love it just as much.

Have the lifestyles of the characters changed with the people who play them?

Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons

#207

Post by C1sc0cat »

ilaksh wrote: post #58

I think that D&D is interesting in terms of the contrast with computer roleplaying games. In a way it does a good job of showing both the current strengths and weaknesses of computers. Managing the rules and stats by hand can be fun, but I have seen many recorded sessions where it is obviously a burden that a computer would be perfectly suited for. On the other hand, aspects of D&D like face-to-face interaction and l…

Should not be a problem

I use Index cards and have all my spells, special abilities and my various attack sequences (for combat classes) written out long hand.

I also use an A6 notebook per campaign to keep a record of each session.

Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons

#208

Post by colomon »

klodolph wrote: post #81
ajross wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a cache, though, when the use case at hand is random access. I mean, if I'm willing to do some prep work I can surely do even better than sticky notes (like, heh, "google for all the monsters ahead of time and line them all up in browser tabs").

Perhaps that's your use case, it's not mine. How DMs prepare, if they do, is highly variable. But most DMs choose monsters ahead of time. This appears in survey data in The Lazy Dungeon Master. The questionnaires are interesting, when asked how they would prepare for a session if they only had 30 minutes, most DMs explicitly mentioned choosing monsters. Over the years, my personal experience is that running things ou…

I've been running the old d20 Star Wars game for my kid, and with PDFs of all the rulebooks, one of my main game prep things is printing out the pages for the creatures / characters / spaceships I think are likely for a session.

Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons

#209

Post by Sean1708 »

nouveaux wrote: post #55
usmannk wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love a recommendation on a starter game (or a few!) if you find yourself with a minute! I play with a group who, including myself, are novices when it comes boardgames. Between 3-6 players most of the time. We found ourselves getting really into Puerto Rico and recently tried Terraforming Mars but didn't _love_ it. I think TR would be better on a second playthrough when we actually know the rules though :). I pla…

Terraforming Mars is my favorite game. I think its worth giving it another try. I would remove the Corporate Era cards for now. These are the cards with the white triangle near the bottom left. Here are some games I would suggest for a group that likes Puerto Rico: -Lords of Waterdeep -Castles of Burgundy -7 Wonders (scales well to 6 players) -Pandemic Legacy (co-op) -Clank -Azul -Splendor These all have different me…

I played Splendor for the first time a couple of weeks ago when I visited my parents and immediately bought my own set, it's just such a simple premise that lends itself really well to interesting tactics.

Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons

#210

Post by mcv »

uberswe wrote: post #147
meekins wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roll20 is awesome as well

Whenever I hear Roll20 I just think of this post https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/9iwarj/after_5_years_o...

I had not heard that yet. I've always had a positive impression of Roll20, although I'd never used it. This makes sure that I never will.

That thread is a good source of some alternatives.

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