ITT DJP plays Dungeons and Dragons for the first time EVER

we don't use the video, just audio, but we're getting some glitches like where everyone can hear everyone else except one person can't hear me. so far we've been able to reset with a minimum of hassle, but we were saying "hmm how about trying Zoom" last week after the GM lost connection.

so basically we'd use Roll20 for the dice, character sheets, and maps.

Update on my Dungeon World game with my kids. My 8-y-o loves it. Our first game he played a Ranger, second a Wizard. My 11-y-o played a thief both times and finds it extremely hard to concentrate. I think the presence of paper and pencils and sitting in a chair basically makes him feel like he's at school. He gets into it, but after about an hour his distraction circuits are on overload. The 'be naughty at school' instinct kicks in and he tries to poison his brother, etc. So we stop. It's hard to really build momentum and play through a whole adventure because an hour is practically nothing.

Which leads me onto something that I've felt many times listening to RPG podcasts or watching streams etc - which is that most campaigns are AGONIZINGLY SLOW. Part of that is GMing style, but even with a tremendous GM the amount of 'story' you get through - as opposed to minute breakdowns of physical actions in a battle - in, say, three hours, is small. So many questions and answers and restatements of the scenario and where everyone is in relation to each other. Dungeon World helps, with its run and gun mentality, but I feel like there could be some even newer innovation that allows the story to really move.

I found GMing less daunting than I thought. I barely looked at any of my moves or notes. Once it starts flowing you really do just have things magically occur to you, at least often enough. As long as you're aware of when moves get triggered that's enough.

We had a lot of fun drawing a map. I used some of the guidance from Perilous Wilds there. Everybody noted their homeland, etc. The 8-year-old's country is called 'Potato Shack'. I can't wait to find out what that place is like.

I still find incorporating NPCs a little difficult. When and where the characters should meet them, how long they should hang around for, how to distinguish them from hirelings. I mean, it's just like any other aspect, I guess, you make it up and just roll with it.

This is my most favourite recent-ish thread, so I was wondering where is everyone at with their own experiences?

Has rona slowed everything to a crawl?

I think I may have found some nice local folks to game with who don't seem to mind a newbie participating, I'm excited.

My wife and daughter and my wife's cousin are playing every week, and they've got a clever way to prevent DM burnout -- they worked up a shared world that has a somewhat vague overarching plot, and take turns DMing smaller campaigns that run 4-6 sessions. Each of them is running 1-2 characters at a time and the DM du jour provides NPCs as needed.

I've been running an rpg via Discord (video streaming) for a couple of months and it works pretty well. None of my players are local, so Discord is not due to the pandemic.

As a now-48yo GM, I'm learning to be better than when I was a shitty, dictatorial 14-21yo GM. One technique I like is just asking the players lots of questions and letting them provide the details. Like introducing an NPC from one of the PC's past - I will tell them the name of the character and one fact about the NPC, then ask the PC about their relationship with NPC. This spreads the creative burden around, helps the players buy-in, and can lead to cool moments you wouldn't have come up with on your own.

Yeah I remember GMing something when I was that age, very much a shitty dictatorial GM insisting that players took a specific course or did certain actions. Later, I was fortunate enough to play RPGs with someone who was an incredible GM talent in my eyes: really capable of spouting out compelling stories. Unfortunately, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia a decade later.

But more recently I really enjoyed watching my daughter GM a family game recently, where she did not fall into any of the traps I did at her age! Unfortunately, her cohort seem to have put D&D on the back burner recently even though they are all on Discord.

Got my first game (since I was in my early teens a looong time ago) this Saturday, opted for a badass 'Oath of Vengeance' Half-Elf Paladin, the numbers fell pretty good too and the DM is starting us all on L2 so imma be misty-stepping all over the place (okay, once a day)

It’s Not Just You: NYC Has a Serious Dungeon Master Shortage

https://hellgatenyc.com/no-on-wants-to-dungeon-master-any-more

Bumping this to note that I’m joining a project where the teams are all named after mythical creatures and I successfully got our team to name itself Gelatinous Cube

Ahaha, that's amazing.

excellent