Roll20 - DnD?

[Hunnewle]

I'll be honest, I've been wanting to do a DnD game for a good while. So, I figure, why not see if anyone else wants to do a 'trial' run of it? I can (attempt) to play as the DM if no one else wants to. Though, to make this work we're gonna have to make sure all who wanna play are on at the same time.

I can play (almost) anytime, Eight AM to around eleven PM. Preferred time would be 8PM, and go from there.

Thoughts?

[Taintedglory]

I'm mean, you gotta give a little more info.

What edition? 2nd? 3.5? 4? 5? PF?

What days work for you?

What kind of game?

How often you want to do this?

[Hunnewle]

Oh lord.

I maaay have to 'lower my hand' on the GM bit, because I aint know shite about the editions. I just wanted to make up a story as I/we went.

But for the others, All days work for the time being (Could change in a month or so).

Type of game, I'd say normal ole' DnD, First time! I dunno!

I'd be up for every other day, or what ever works best for the group.

[Tenenza]

I'm always up for a one shot, although my hours are a bit weird. However, if you intend to go beyond just one session, there's pretty much no way I can DM with my erratic schedule.

[Hunnewle]

I'm sure we could work something out, as a character that pops-in-and out of the 'story'.

[Taintedglory]

Okay so what do you mean by dnd?

Are you using it as a term or a system? Dnd is a game system, dungeons and dragons. If you're looking to just to on roll20 with loose rules I can give you generic games like gurps or traveler.

As far as dnd I'm a nearly 25 year vet of the games and I can teach you every edition up to 4th. I know fuck all about 5th.

4th is the easiest, but less customization. It's bonus is I got a nifty tool I can share that builds your character for you and let's you see all the items in the game and makes a character sheet for you. It's literally the easiest to play and people can learn it as fast as they learn a board game.

3.5 and pathfinder are the hardest but have some in-depth customization options for characters. It takes people several days to learn all the mechanics.

2nd edition is a classic and a real joy to play buts severely outdated

[Tenenza]

Tenenza's opinions on D&D Editions:

5th is pretty good. It's a solid middle ground between 3.5 and 4.

4th is my least favorite. It's the most gamey of them all, in that it's very clearly built towards making ease of combat it's strongest aspect.

3.5rd is a mixed bag, with pathfinder being a more polished experience. It's definitely more complex, but makes up for it in having a great more depth.

2nd/AD&D is the classic, and easily the hardest to get into. It's not really more complex then 3.5, just worse written, but the nostalgia/absolute insanity make up for it.

We don't talk about 1st.

Also, I could probably do a character that jumps erratically out of the story. Either a very very sneaky person, someone who can literally teleport and has obligations elsewhere, a ghost/summoned entity/astral projection, time traveler, someone suffering from teleportitis (the disease that randomly makes you teleport), a golem/warforged that has unscheduled downtime, an easily distracted druid that turns into a very large bird, or something like that.

[Hunnewle]

Sounds grand!

[Taintedglory]

Buckle your pants a bit because I am home and on my computer, so this is going to be a TLDR moment as I break down some stuff here.

2nd Edition is great, but people have a hard time understanding its rules. The classes and races are fairly streamlined, and things are decently simple after you wrap your heads around its Old timey thinking. Its not something I will recommend except for advance players or Nostalgia.

3.5/Pathfinder is the most common and well known editions. Pathfinder being the better choice as its 3.5 with updated rules and all of its information is open source by law. (( http://www.d20pfsrd.com/ ))

Now, While I love this system, and its complex nature, it has a major folly. Its Complex. You can make a deep and very customized character down to the T, but that also means for newer players or casual players that they will be really confused almost all the time. More often than not games ran with Pathfinder will be bogged down with "How do I do this again?" or "Let me check the rules on my skill/spell/feat/etc" Because frankly, your character sheets in this system can have a billion different things on them with a hundred different rules governing those things.

Granted, this is my go to System and me and my friends play this all the time, infact I got an IRL campaign going that has been going for 6 years in 3.5. Me and another DM switch DMing every few sessions so we can both enjoy being a player. But the thing is people who play this tend to have the rules fairly memorized to enjoy it. I mean, hell this is the system where my favorite character I made of all time came from, and I could never match him in another edition by his sheer amount of in depth customization I did with him.

4th Edition is a lot of peoples least favorite, and as someone who grew up on 2nd edition, and played 3.5 Ritualistically I was very leery about it too.

But honestly, people don't give the game credit for what it does good, as it does a lot of things good, and I really mean a lot.

I always try to get first time DnD players to play either 3.5/Pathfinder, but first time Gamers in general to play 4th edition.

It plays exactly like a board game, it explains all the rules for everything your character can possibly do on your own character sheet. There is no hidden mechanics or hard to find mechanics. Its all there, in the open, and easily digestable. Encounters move swiftly, and can honestly be a lot of fun.

But I know what its biggest folly is, and what people miss the point of when playing it. Its because most people who play it don't spend a session talking together about character creation. Its a game where its all about Teamwork and team cooperation. Literally half the classes don't do much damage in combat, and instead focus on helping other classes do the damage. It clearly defines the classes into four types, Striker, Defender, Controller, Leader. The players have to work together to make their party a decent make up of these 4 classes in order to successfully do anything in the game. A striker is nothing without his defender, a Defender is nothing without his Leader, and the entire party needs the controllers to either buff them or debuff the enemies in some way or another.

Alot of times people complain, and then when I see their party makeup its like all Strikers or all Defenders or something. This game has its merits, and it has alot of them. Its real easy to play. So easy infact that you literally dont need the rule books once you put your character to paper, as your character sheet will explain every rule for everything you do.

5th edition I hear alot of good things about, but I havn't put forth the time to learn it or play it. I hear it has simplified the rules of 3.5, almost making it 4th edition without making it a Board Game.

[VileFault]

I have played 4th edition, and the most accurate thing I have heard it called is a "superhero simulator." It simplifies a lot of mechanics for the sake of the players, so they can play smooth badasses and generally be in control of the situation. Which is great, if you like that kind of thing. As I said, I played it for a few years, and found it pretty fun.

5th edition is, in my opinion, the best. It avoids the excruciating depth of the first few editions, which made doing anything at all a hassel (I once saw a table for computing the effects of different numbers of different type of alcoholic drinks on a player's stats), while maintaining enough complexity to make leveling up and navigating the world full of impactful choices involving the mechanics. The mechanics are very streamlined, without making it quite as featureless as 4th edition (where leveling up might only grant you access to one new ability, chosen from a pool of three).

Just thought I would leave this here, since I have experience with both. Sadly, I don't have enough time at the moment to play.

[Roderick Grey]

I would definitely recommend 5th edition just for how easy it is to pick up. Unless most of the players are more familiar and fond of another go with 5th.

If you do choose fifth here's some awesome resources:

Status effect ref-sheet:

http://crobi.github.io/dnd5e-quickref/preview/quickref.html

Rules:

https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/BookIndex

Character creator point-buy system:

http://1-dot-encounter-planner.appspot.com/point-buy-calculator.html

Another 5e SRd: (the one I use)

https://5thsrd.org/

5e spell lists:

https://5thsrd.org/#spellcasting

[TrickingTrapster]

I won't get into the whole "what edition is better" thing but I'm up for joining the party. I prefer some customization in my character however.

[Hunnewle]

Hm. I wouldn't mind being able to properly customize a character. Either fifth or PF sounds good to me. (I may be /slightly/ biased towards ones with good spells)

[Mofo1995]

I would join, but I'm already in so many R20 rps... so I wish you all the best of luck! I hope you all have fun and that it works out

[Taintedglory]

Hm. I wouldn't mind being able to properly customize a character. Either fifth or PF sounds good to me. (I may be /slightly/ biased towards ones with good spells)

 

Both 5th and PF has good spells. D&D spell lists are always good and barely change through editions

[Hunnewle]

In that case, i'd go with which ever edition the 'majority' wants.

( Side note: Every time I bloody check this thread someone has posted not > 5 minutes ago! )

[Taintedglory]

The only difference I can think of between PF and 5th Edition spells is pathfinder has like, 3000 spells compared to 5ths like 500. Not saying it has more variety , it just covers more redundancy

[Hunnewle]

Huhm. Sounds of things, this might work well! Should we 'get together' on discord to plan sometime, or what-not?

[Brayce]

I'd be down for this.

[Hunnewle]

I dunno a good time for everyone, so I'm gonna go with around noon EST on discord, PM me then and I should be able to arrange a chatroom or something. If that time aint good, lemme know here or elsewhere.

[Tenenza]

Noon EST tomorrow I'll busy for about 7 hours, give or take an hour.

[Hunnewle]

Huhm. In that case, I can do 8 - 9PM EST. I'll still be 'open' around noon in case any others can't make the later one.

[Hunnewle]

Noon has come and gone, no contacts. I'll still be around for the 8 - 9pm and beyond, one.

[Vittorio Giurifiglio]

This still open for faggots?

[Hunnewle]

Still meetin' at 8 - 9 PM EST. Message me on Discord and I'll pop up an invite.