The Gaming Thread: Roll for Initiative

[LynnInDenver]

So, probably time to open a tabletop gaming thread, even if most of us are doing this over Zoom these days. >.> Feel free to chip in with your own recent gaming, favorite story from the table, or if you're looking for a group online, maybe people here could arrange to get together for such things on Zoom/Skype/Discord/etc.

To start, new piece added to my gaming setup as of, oh, today. A dice jail. Made using scraps I had lying around. Hopefully this will kill the Wheaton Dice Curse that I'm occasionally afflicted with.

   

We're currently part of a first mission into Rise of Tiamat, which is the second part of Tyranny of Dragons. One DM, three players, we've killed a dragon and paraded it around as a trophy.

[Inquisitive Raven]

Wheaton Dice Curse?

[LynnInDenver]

Named for Wil Wheaton, who seems to be cursed to make bad rolls at a rate much higher than the general population, especially on camera.

[Norgarth]

I have the same problem.  My dice often taunt me by rolling just badly enough to make me check the result, only to learn I've failed by 1.  I also roll 2 or 3 times more crit failures than crit successes, at least in combat.

I tend to roll pretty good in character generation, but once the game actually starts, I have trouble hitting a barn, even while inside the barn.

[David Lewis]

The Wheaton dice curse in action

[DHBirr]

One of my characters rolled several fumbles – at least three, maybe four – in a single encounter.  A short fight, because the party's other members mopped the floor with the monsters.  I regret to admit I didn't role-play him with sufficient rigor:  he was supposed to be a samurai, but I let the other players talk me out of having him commit seppuku after that disaster.

[David Lewis]

If we're doing a TTRPG thread, I might as well post one of my old favorite stories from the old OLD board's posting that I saved... Jesus it must be nearly a decade or more ago.

Anyway, credit to  User Epsilon for posting something that I so appreciated, that I saved it at school and emailed it to my old Hotmail account (and somehow didn't loose in the intervening years.)

------

So this is why I feel that it is safe to basically go into most of my roleplaying sessions as a GM without preparing much in the way of stuff beforehand. Because my players are so insane they'll do all my work for me.

An example:

In tonight's session I was running Adventure!, or as we call it "The League of Extraordinary Victorian Bastards". I didn't have much of a plan. But after the players began to do a bit of invesitgation they realised that they had to get from London to the Isle of Man in order to have a big showdown with the mad inventor who had taken over England with his army of clockwork automatons.

So I basically asked "How do you get there?" then sat back and watched the fireworks.

Well, obviously they needed to take a train. It was quick and efficient and give the evil scientist the least time to respond. Perfect.

Problem one; there are several PCs with huge reputations at this point and just boarding a train seems like a Bad Idea. Okay, the obvious solution to this is they plan to steal a train.

Yes, steal a train.

They decide that stealing an actual moving train with passengers on it is too dangerous (?!), so they decide to break into the Royal Trainyard in the middle of the night and make off with a train. Okay, I'm thinking. Sure.

Then the Mad Scientist in the party points out that instead of stopping and catching a boat to the Isle of Man he can convert the train INTO a boat. While its in motion under full steam. Okay, I'm thinking. Sure.

Just two nights ago the PCs had managed to invade the Tower of London in a daring raid, so security was extra tight. They sneak up to the trainyard and notice that there is a nice footthick wooden fence all around it and pairs of clockwork automaton patrolling outside leaving only a two minute interval between groups.

The sneak specialist player say to the others "I'm the only player with ranks in Drive anyway, so I'll sneak into the trainyard, steal a train and meet you outside." Seems a reasonable plan. So the sneak specialist walks up to the fence and... flubs his Stealth roll. Oops.

I ask for a Perception check. The sneak specialist flubs that roll, too. Oop, again. Two automatons walk up behind her and get free shots. Two solid blows. Whap and whap. Ouch. The PC is now down two health levels (and in a system with only seven health levels and increasing wound penalties, this is bad).

At this point the sneak specialist freaks out and draws her sword, making a lunge for one of the automatons. I should note that the only way to destroy these things is to hit the master cog in their forehead. So the player rolls a melee attack and... flubs. Oops.

The party gunbunny runs in, being all heroic. But they reccommend that he not shoot, since there is still a chance of being sneaky (since the automaton can't yell out, see). So the PC wades in with his non-existant melee skill to use his rifle as a club and... flubs his roll. Oops.

(Beginning to notice a pattern here?)

The other PCs rush in to save both their friends. The melee monster steps in and takes down the automatons with two swings of her sword. Bam. Bam. Looking cool and competent now! Must have just been a run of bad luck.

Then the healer walks in. Obviously the driver can't be injured. So he decides to use his special power to heal those wounds. This requires a Medicine roll. Now, I should explain the dice system here. In Adventure you roll a dice pool of ten sided dice. Every die that comes up seven or higher is a success. The more successes you roll, the better you do. If you roll NO successes and any die comes up a one, you botch. If you roll multiple ones, you botch worse. Suffice it to say that the way the statistics work out the likeihood of botching on any dicepool over three are very, very low.

So of course the healer rolls a triple botch on the sneak specialist. Oops. I rule the sneaky girl is unconscious as the medic accidentally sucks out her vital energy instead of restoring it.

This means they are down their driver. Now, any sensible group would call that a night and try something else. But not this group. Oh no, not this group.

The party brick decides now is no longer the time for subtelty. He smashes through the fence, tearing it apart with his barehands. Haha! The alarms go off! He sneers and charges in, with the others following behind.

(I should mention here that the brick had fought about fifty automatons just last session, during the Tower of London raid. In the process he'd been battered around so much that he had one health level left. However, he has a power that means he can ignore all injury short of unconsciousness. I don't feel the need to point out to the PC that he is still at one health level at this point...)

The party spots a train on the tracks and makes a run for it. Shouts and cries start going out. A large army of automatons starts shamble-jerking its way towards them. Soliders start breaking out rifles. Things are going to get hot in a few seconds.

The healer tries to use a piece of wood as a travois for the downed party member. Of course he has Strength of 1, so uh... not happening. Meanwhile the gunbunny rides his horse straight at the train. A dozen clockwork men step between him and it. He bears down, and spends a plot point to double his riding dicepool and makes a legendary roll, leaping up and over the grasping metal pinchers and straight into the open backdoor of the train (yes, horse and all).

The melee twink grabs the unconscious PC and activates her leaping power, doubles her dicepool and makes a legendary success on her acrobatics check to run up and acorss the heads of the auomaton, safely getting them both inside the train!

The healer activates his telekinesis, grabs a timber of the broken fence and tries to pole vault over the horde... and flubs his roll. He lands right in the middle of the group.

And then it was the auomatons turn. Five attacks later the healer is lying in a pool of his own blood, thoroughly unconscious (and thankful that in this system that no more than five people can attack one target in hand-to-hand).

Thr brick, seeing this, grabs a piece of traintrack, rips it from the ground and charges into the group. He smashes into them like a scythe into wheat, scattering them like tenpins. He pauses only long enough to grab his comrade and leap aboard the train, a fraction of a second before the gunfire starts filling the yards. (Yet another plot point and legendary roll).

So the situation in round two of combat is that we have three heros (and one horse) awake inside a train car with a small army of mechanical men outside and dozens of soliders firing bullets into its side. Okay.

Nobody else has the Drive skill, but the melee bunny has the highest base stat, so runs up to the front to try and start up the train. She does a fantastic stunt, using her special flaming magic sword to stoke the furnace and... flubs her roll. The train lurches three feet and stops.

At this point the automatons start climbing onto the train. Uh oh. One of them breaks in the door. The gunbunny aims and fires, hitting it in the head and causing it to explode... and the fragments shatter outwad and hit the nearest three in the head, exploding them and so on, knocking them off the train. Wow, a really spectacular roll and attack. He's bought them another round! (And another plot point goes up in smoke.)

The brick, being the mad sceintist of the group, runs up front to try and help the melee twink. He rolls and... flubs. Okay, things are getting grim.

The next round dawns as more of the automatons begin to climb aboard. The heros all rush to the front and, using teamwork, manage to actually get the train moving! Yes! Of course now the automatons are breaking in the windows and climbing aboard. Thinking fast, the gunbunny orders his HORSE to grab the two fallen heros and drag them aboard the engine car while he uncouples it.

Yes, his horse. With no manipulators. But he spent points on a legendary horse. So I take out four dice and roll. Four successes. I blink. Okay, the horse somehow drags both bodies, at the same time, to the next car. Using its teeth.

The passenger cars are uncoupled and the automatons are just slow enough they can't catch up with the slowly moving train. But gunfire is still ricocheting off the side of the engine and coal tender (where they are keeping the horse). However three of the automatons make spectacular rolls and leap from the passenger car to the engine. A short melee later and they are dealt with. All the time the melee bunny is desperatly trying to get the engine to acclerate. Its moving slightly faster now...

Then they see the gate. A foot thick wooden gate. Closed and braced. Right in their path. Oh boy. The players scramble at the controls, and manage to get the engine up to half speed! I rule that there is going to be a quick contest, eight dice of structural strength for the door and eight dice for the train. The players spent one of their few remaining plot points (they had been draining them like water for all their spectacular near deaths so far) and double their pool...

And still fail. The train slams into the door and comes to a stop, the wheels churning but not pushing it faster. And the army of a hundred automatons is catching up fast!

The melee twink tries to put the car into reverse and... flubs the roll. The engine stops entirely.

The brick decides to leap out of the engine and tear the gate down with his barehands. He's the brick, he can take a fewl bullets and... what do you mean I only have one health level left? Oh. Oh.

Thinking fast the gunbunny pulls out his rifle and fires a single perfect shot. He pings a bullet off the head of a automaton, causing a flare of sparks that look like a muzzle flash. He's trying to convince the soldiers that the PCs are retreating through the ranks of the clockwork men so they will fire on them instead of peppering the brick when he runs out. He rolls, while the soliders roll their "detect bullshit" rolls...

Then the badguys finally botch.

One round later the brick is tearing down the gates with a single mightly blow. The melee twink somehow gets the engine started up again. The brick manages to, with his one die pool, not get run over and grab onto the train as it starts to, very slowly, pull out of the trainyard.

And thus ends perhaps the worlds most incompetent, but successful, train robbery.

You see, this is why I don't feel the need to prepare for adventures.

-----------------------
Epsilon

[LynnInDenver]

Yeah, sometimes I have a good session of rolls... sometimes I have a bad session of rolls... many times it's a pretty even mix.

We've got a candy display full of dice (four old style candy jars with the sideways mouths), so it's not a big worry if I find I need better dice. My husband is the Dice Goblin here, although he's nowhere near Laura Bailey's level.

[robkelk]

If we're doing a TTRPG thread, I might as well post one of my old favorite stories from the old OLD board's posting that I saved... Jesus it must be nearly a decade or more ago.

Anyway, credit to  User Epsilon for posting something that I so appreciated, that I saved it at school and emailed it to my old Hotmail account (and somehow didn't loose in the intervening years.)

------

So this is why I feel that it is safe to basically go into most of my roleplaying sessions as a GM without preparing much in the way of stuff beforehand. Because my players are so insane they'll do all my work for me.

An example:

In tonight's session I was running Adventure!, or as we call it "The League of Extraordinary Victorian Bastards". I didn't have much of a plan. But after the players began to do a bit of invesitgation they realised that they had to get from London to the Isle of Man in order to have a big showdown with the mad inventor who had taken over England with his army of clockwork automatons.

So I basically asked "How do you get there?" then sat back and watched the fireworks.

Well, obviously they needed to take a train. It was quick and efficient and give the evil scientist the least time to respond. Perfect.

Problem one; there are several PCs with huge reputations at this point and just boarding a train seems like a Bad Idea. Okay, the obvious solution to this is they plan to steal a train.

Yes, steal a train.

They decide that stealing an actual moving train with passengers on it is too dangerous (?!), so they decide to break into the Royal Trainyard in the middle of the night and make off with a train. Okay, I'm thinking. Sure.

Then the Mad Scientist in the party points out that instead of stopping and catching a boat to the Isle of Man he can convert the train INTO a boat. While its in motion under full steam. Okay, I'm thinking. Sure.

Just two nights ago the PCs had managed to invade the Tower of London in a daring raid, so security was extra tight. They sneak up to the trainyard and notice that there is a nice footthick wooden fence all around it and pairs of clockwork automaton patrolling outside leaving only a two minute interval between groups.

The sneak specialist player say to the others "I'm the only player with ranks in Drive anyway, so I'll sneak into the trainyard, steal a train and meet you outside." Seems a reasonable plan. So the sneak specialist walks up to the fence and... flubs his Stealth roll. Oops.

I ask for a Perception check. The sneak specialist flubs that roll, too. Oop, again. Two automatons walk up behind her and get free shots. Two solid blows. Whap and whap. Ouch. The PC is now down two health levels (and in a system with only seven health levels and increasing wound penalties, this is bad).

At this point the sneak specialist freaks out and draws her sword, making a lunge for one of the automatons. I should note that the only way to destroy these things is to hit the master cog in their forehead. So the player rolls a melee attack and... flubs. Oops.

The party gunbunny runs in, being all heroic. But they reccommend that he not shoot, since there is still a chance of being sneaky (since the automaton can't yell out, see). So the PC wades in with his non-existant melee skill to use his rifle as a club and... flubs his roll. Oops.

(Beginning to notice a pattern here?)

The other PCs rush in to save both their friends. The melee monster steps in and takes down the automatons with two swings of her sword. Bam. Bam. Looking cool and competent now! Must have just been a run of bad luck.

Then the healer walks in. Obviously the driver can't be injured. So he decides to use his special power to heal those wounds. This requires a Medicine roll. Now, I should explain the dice system here. In Adventure you roll a dice pool of ten sided dice. Every die that comes up seven or higher is a success. The more successes you roll, the better you do. If you roll NO successes and any die comes up a one, you botch. If you roll multiple ones, you botch worse. Suffice it to say that the way the statistics work out the likeihood of botching on any dicepool over three are very, very low.

So of course the healer rolls a triple botch on the sneak specialist. Oops. I rule the sneaky girl is unconscious as the medic accidentally sucks out her vital energy instead of restoring it.

This means they are down their driver. Now, any sensible group would call that a night and try something else. But not this group. Oh no, not this group.

The party brick decides now is no longer the time for subtelty. He smashes through the fence, tearing it apart with his barehands. Haha! The alarms go off! He sneers and charges in, with the others following behind.

(I should mention here that the brick had fought about fifty automatons just last session, during the Tower of London raid. In the process he'd been battered around so much that he had one health level left. However, he has a power that means he can ignore all injury short of unconsciousness. I don't feel the need to point out to the PC that he is still at one health level at this point...)

The party spots a train on the tracks and makes a run for it. Shouts and cries start going out. A large army of automatons starts shamble-jerking its way towards them. Soliders start breaking out rifles. Things are going to get hot in a few seconds.

The healer tries to use a piece of wood as a travois for the downed party member. Of course he has Strength of 1, so uh... not happening. Meanwhile the gunbunny rides his horse straight at the train. A dozen clockwork men step between him and it. He bears down, and spends a plot point to double his riding dicepool and makes a legendary roll, leaping up and over the grasping metal pinchers and straight into the open backdoor of the train (yes, horse and all).

The melee twink grabs the unconscious PC and activates her leaping power, doubles her dicepool and makes a legendary success on her acrobatics check to run up and acorss the heads of the auomaton, safely getting them both inside the train!

The healer activates his telekinesis, grabs a timber of the broken fence and tries to pole vault over the horde... and flubs his roll. He lands right in the middle of the group.

And then it was the auomatons turn. Five attacks later the healer is lying in a pool of his own blood, thoroughly unconscious (and thankful that in this system that no more than five people can attack one target in hand-to-hand).

Thr brick, seeing this, grabs a piece of traintrack, rips it from the ground and charges into the group. He smashes into them like a scythe into wheat, scattering them like tenpins. He pauses only long enough to grab his comrade and leap aboard the train, a fraction of a second before the gunfire starts filling the yards. (Yet another plot point and legendary roll).

So the situation in round two of combat is that we have three heros (and one horse) awake inside a train car with a small army of mechanical men outside and dozens of soliders firing bullets into its side. Okay.

Nobody else has the Drive skill, but the melee bunny has the highest base stat, so runs up to the front to try and start up the train. She does a fantastic stunt, using her special flaming magic sword to stoke the furnace and... flubs her roll. The train lurches three feet and stops.

At this point the automatons start climbing onto the train. Uh oh. One of them breaks in the door. The gunbunny aims and fires, hitting it in the head and causing it to explode... and the fragments shatter outwad and hit the nearest three in the head, exploding them and so on, knocking them off the train. Wow, a really spectacular roll and attack. He's bought them another round! (And another plot point goes up in smoke.)

The brick, being the mad sceintist of the group, runs up front to try and help the melee twink. He rolls and... flubs. Okay, things are getting grim.

The next round dawns as more of the automatons begin to climb aboard. The heros all rush to the front and, using teamwork, manage to actually get the train moving! Yes! Of course now the automatons are breaking in the windows and climbing aboard. Thinking fast, the gunbunny orders his HORSE to grab the two fallen heros and drag them aboard the engine car while he uncouples it.

Yes, his horse. With no manipulators. But he spent points on a legendary horse. So I take out four dice and roll. Four successes. I blink. Okay, the horse somehow drags both bodies, at the same time, to the next car. Using its teeth.

The passenger cars are uncoupled and the automatons are just slow enough they can't catch up with the slowly moving train. But gunfire is still ricocheting off the side of the engine and coal tender (where they are keeping the horse). However three of the automatons make spectacular rolls and leap from the passenger car to the engine. A short melee later and they are dealt with. All the time the melee bunny is desperatly trying to get the engine to acclerate. Its moving slightly faster now...

Then they see the gate. A foot thick wooden gate. Closed and braced. Right in their path. Oh boy. The players scramble at the controls, and manage to get the engine up to half speed! I rule that there is going to be a quick contest, eight dice of structural strength for the door and eight dice for the train. The players spent one of their few remaining plot points (they had been draining them like water for all their spectacular near deaths so far) and double their pool...

And still fail. The train slams into the door and comes to a stop, the wheels churning but not pushing it faster. And the army of a hundred automatons is catching up fast!

The melee twink tries to put the car into reverse and... flubs the roll. The engine stops entirely.

The brick decides to leap out of the engine and tear the gate down with his barehands. He's the brick, he can take a fewl bullets and... what do you mean I only have one health level left? Oh. Oh.

Thinking fast the gunbunny pulls out his rifle and fires a single perfect shot. He pings a bullet off the head of a automaton, causing a flare of sparks that look like a muzzle flash. He's trying to convince the soldiers that the PCs are retreating through the ranks of the clockwork men so they will fire on them instead of peppering the brick when he runs out. He rolls, while the soliders roll their "detect bullshit" rolls...

Then the badguys finally botch.

One round later the brick is tearing down the gates with a single mightly blow. The melee twink somehow gets the engine started up again. The brick manages to, with his one die pool, not get run over and grab onto the train as it starts to, very slowly, pull out of the trainyard.

And thus ends perhaps the worlds most incompetent, but successful, train robbery.

You see, this is why I don't feel the need to prepare for adventures.

-----------------------
Epsilon

If I recall correctly, I was playing the healer in that game. (An eastern mystic, to be exact, which is why he had TK - but still the best medic in the party. I do remember repeatedly answering Epsilon's "What do you do?" with "I bleed" after dropping early. Nobody took the hint to apply first aid - not that anybody had time to, mind you.)

So... no gaming story from me for now. Aaron always told them better than I could, anyway.

[LynnInDenver]

I was expecting that story to be utterly epic... and nice that it didn't disappoint, with the combination of horribly flubbed rolls and epic recoveries. I can't say I have many of those sorts of stories from either side of the table, or at least, not that I can provide a good amount of detail to them.

I'm currently prepping up to take on Campaign Three as a DM once we finish up Tyranny of Dragons as Campaign Two in our current Dungeons and Dragons run. I've been pleasantly surprised with Campaign Two in terms of going deep into the written vignettes for things in my character's background, and me and the DM have a feedback loop going on with ideas I'm throwing into the pile related to that. Our first campaign of this "world" was basically the first campaign of The Adventure Zone (referred to as Balance), and the current is set around 40 years after that, albeit with a reversion back to a more vanilla Forgotten Realms setting. I'm planning on advancing the timeline another 20 years, another of the "yeah, so and so is still around, just not adventuring much" arrangements.

I've run this character before, but we never actually touched on her potential backstory in the GURPS 3e Yrth game, so it's refreshing to have given another try and caught the lightning. I went with the Aragon template when I did her in GURPS, and just went with "Human Fighter" in D&D for the simplicity. Beware, this is pic heavy, I do DAZStudio renders of ALL my characters, regardless if I have a particular actor in mind or not.



Lerissa was raised practically from birth by her trainer and master Duncan Wayhammer. At the start of the campaign, she didn't know who her parents were, or anything else about any bloodline. All she knows is that he was killed by what appeared to be bandits, except they were using poisoned weapons (which meant they were going in to kill someone, possibly her), that was complicated by timing (she came back to find them fighting Duncan) and that Duncan was NOT softened much by his time being retired from active adventuring. She moved on to joining a circus as protective muscle, at which point our campaign began. She prefers NOT to fight if she has a choice; she fights to protect others who can't fight for themselves.



Right after the first "boss" battle of the campaign... my character barely survived, and picked up the villain's Greatsword (which meant I decided to specialize her into Great Weapon Fighting). I forget what sword I used to represent it. My character also received her first Boon artifact, the Helm of Ameridan (from the Dragon Age games). Because of their new mission to chase after the organization they're fighting, she needed to change her appearance, so she had her armor refurbished into what's turned out to be her Color Scheme going forward of "The Cyan Knight", and she dyes her hair black temporarily.



At the middle of the chase, the party has arrived in Waterdeep, with the cover of being in the employ as guards of a traveling merchant... who turned out to be the DM's former PC (this is a sequel campaign, after all). Just before arriving at Waterdeep, there's a serious raid attempt on the caravan, which results in the PCs needing to help their charge and his wife from being overwhelmed. This is the point that the PCs get their second Boon items. In the case of my character, she receives the Sicarius Draconum II, a Greatsword forged from the remains of the original spear from the 1981 movie Dragonslayer. I also upgraded her armor in Waterdeep to Plate. The character model I've been using for the renders here has gained facial scars to represent the times she's gotten banged around. She's dropping much less now, though, although she never reached the Pinnacle Narc that was the GURPS version.

At this point, the stage is set for the second half of the chase, and the eventual climatic confrontation at the end of Hoard of the Dragon Queen.



The first half of the campaign is finished, the ales have been drunk, the booty split, and the the stories are being told. We start into Rise of Tiamat now.

Lerissa struck the killing blow on a fully grown Adult White Dragon that was the final boss of the arc. As part of the character process, she takes a set of Dragon Scale Armor made from the remains of their foe. While occasionally overwhelmed with the path she's on (few Dragonslayers live to even 30, and she's only 24!), she is at least making her efforts. She is earning Epithets as their story spreads (like Cyan Knight and Snow Knight) that she might use in place of her still missing surname, but that idea won't last.

A massive upgrade in appearance. I switch her from Champion to Battlemaster. She cuts the remaining dye from her hair, shortening it, which adds visual age to the character (which makes sense under the circumstances). She looks FAR older now, even though it's not even been a year of game time.

Back at Waterdeep, the characters participate in discussions of what to do about the organization the PCs were chasing earlier. The other two previous PCs come in as advisors to the council.

Recognizing the need for a home base, the characters are provided remit to use the old Keep a half a day's ride from Waterdeep, a place called Wyvernclaw Keep. Our party enlists the aid of the former Fighter, who has a connection to the Keep as he worked for the attached Mercenary company before the first campaign. This turns out to be important; the Lord and Lady are undead and bound to the Keep because of the tragic events that befell their son and the company he led into an ambush that the old PC was present for... and turn out to be not hostile because they sense the presence of what they call "the Wyvern's Mark" within the Keep itself. My character keeps our Mage from blasting them as she recognizes that they're not only not hostile, but she has a hunch around the old, tarnished locket she's always had. She pulls out the locket, and with a touch from the mummified Lord, the locket's dirt and tarnish vanishes, revealing the locket to be the Wyvern's Mark.

   

The implication is that the lost son is Lerissa's grandfather, who was having a relationship with one of the sergeants under his command when the ambush came. The sergeant was with child at the time. The locket was given to the son by the Lord and Lady, and he in turn gave it to the sergeant as a betrothal gift. The only missing link is what Lerissa's parents were to the two of them. There is also the concern that, while the old PC had tried to put paid to those who has ambushed the son, there is no guarantee that he got them all, and it's possible that people with the blood of Wyvernclaw may still be in danger, given that Lerissa was probably separated from her parents for her protection, so Lerissa chooses to keep the revelations a secret for the time being, outside of the current party and the previous party of Heroes.

And that's where my character basically is right now.

[David Lewis]

I’ve got a new group going with a friend from work and a few friends of his I’m not too familiar with. I’m DMing them in DnD 5e over discord. I put them through a modded version of ‘The Witchfire Curse’ from the DM Guild, to start with, before just beginning to lead them into The Lost Mines Of Phandelver - aka the starter kit adventure. They’re just about to hit the starter town, and I’m getting really anxious - it’s the first time I’ll have to learn how to run an entire town’s worth of NPCs.

It helps that two of the three have given me good layered backstories to weave into the narrative, and I’m enjoying DMing, but I would be grateful for any tips/advice from long term DMs here.

(One thing I had to learn through pain is that you WARM UP YOUR VOICE before DMing for five and half hours straight with only a single can of cola to moisten your pipes with. I sounded like a zombie that died by gargling granite for a few days afterwards.)

[LynnInDenver]

Yeah, generally the best thing is to follow any and all voice actor tips for the people entering the industry. Lots of liquids, preferably with a soothing quality (hot teas are good). A good microphone helps immeasurably in that regard, so you don't have to shout or raise your voice. We actually started using a TASCAM unit ourselves (basically a stereo microphone) so that we have the microphones right in front of us instead of across the table attached to the webcam. It's made a hell of a difference.

Oh, having players who provide "ways to mess with them" is a real pleasure. I handed our DM that in spades with the "doesn't know who her family line is" backstory. Even a one paragraph backstory can give plenty of hooks to sink the storylines into the the character and draw them into the weave. I've embellished it since we started the campaign, but it was basically one single paragraph to start; I didn't even have her Master's name decided yet until we were a few sessions in.

Note that the only gaming method I've not used is email/forum. I've used chat (IRC), voice, video call, and face to face. I prefer face to face by a margin, but I can comfortably do all the others. I think the only frustration I would have with email/forum is the inherent lag of the medium.

[LynnInDenver]

An initiative of THREE in the combat, only one hit over the whole thing, and I dropped my sword at least three times because I rolled a "1".

SEVEN dice went into the jail.

My husband has been duly informed that Wil Wheaton is not allowed in our house.

[Norgarth]

why not, maybe he would draw all the bad luck away from you and unto himself

[Star Ranger4]

Ugh. Cant find my hardcopy 5e players handbook, and looking for pdf versions I could keep on my computer or tablet...

well, near as I can tell its only integrated with certain VTT systems. Not exactly what I was intitally looking for (as I'd rather have offline access to it) nor am I very pleased with potentially having to buy multiple copies if I was going to attempt to find a game via more than one VTT.

Anyone have some hints/tips/recomendations???

[classicdrogn]

thetrove.is one possibility. Note that there is considerable danger of losing an eye and/or becoming a parrot roost, but since you do own a physical copy and all...