The Dungeons & Dragons Thread

[Lithobrake]

I was wondering if anyone else on the forums played D&D, and If anyone wanted to discuss it here/post stories.

Edited August 12, 2018 by Lithobrake

[Green Baron]

We played AD&D in the ... a loooong time ago :-)

I always had to do the Dungeon Master and never really got to playing. I recall ducking behind sheets of tables, rolling dice of all sorts, sending monsters upon them and dealing out treasure, inventing maps, stories and riddles. Which a mostly had to simplify because they were too queer.

[TheSaint]

I played D&D a lot in high school. A lot. After I went into the Navy I discovered GURPS, never played D&D again.

4 hours ago, Green Baron said:

We played AD&D in the ... a loooong time ago :-)

I always had to do the Dungeon Master and never really got to playing. I recall ducking behind sheets of tables, rolling dice of all sorts, sending monsters upon them and dealing out treasure, inventing maps, stories and riddles. Which a mostly had to simplify because they were too queer.

Amusingly, I never ran a D&D campaign as a DM, I always was a player. Once I started playing GURPS, I've always been the GM, never played as a player.

I'm actually running a GURPS campaign right now, with my family and another family from our homeschool co-op, been going for about three months. First time I've run one in twenty years.

[Just Jim]

I'm not sure I want to admit this... lol  

Three time D&D tournament champion. One 1st place team, award and twice best overall player.

Back in the days of dice, calculators, and lots of pizza... 

Oh, and they say it didn't happen without a screenshot:

[Gargamel]

@Just Jim How exactly does one rank a D&D player?

I played in middle school.  8th grade study hall in the library.  We were entering the final boos room on the last day, and we never got to finish.   We were a diverse group, once kid ended up with a PhD, another in prison for the next 20 years or so (we all saw that one coming), me, and I lost touch with the other one. 

Played some others in College, CP2020 (oh god, that's close isn't it?) and some table top games, but never really got back into D&D.   Of course if somebody needed another in a party, I'd join up. 

 

[roboslacker]

I played a lot of D&D in elementary school with my older brothers. I later DMed a series of adventures with one of my friends and my kid brother in middle school, but we were really held back by only having two player characters. I ran an NPC to try and fill out the party a bit, which did help, but wasn't enough. All in all, I've never been able to get past level 5.

[Just Jim]

14 minutes ago, Gargamel said:

@Just Jim How exactly does one rank a D&D player?

I played in middle school.  8th grade study hall in the library.  We were entering the final boos room on the last day, and we never got to finish.   We were a diverse group, once kid ended up with a PhD, another in prison for the next 20 years or so (we all saw that one coming), me, and I lost touch with the other one. 

Played some others in College, CP2020 (oh god, that's close isn't it?) and some table top games, but never really got back into D&D.   Of course if somebody needed another in a party, I'd join up. 

 

These were weekend tournaments, and players were judged on a multitude of things, not just game knowledge, but how well one stuck to their assigned alignment, and so on... These were short 2-hour mini adventures, and the winners of each played in a final game...

In one I turned the party against each other... hehehe. They all thought I was playing a thief, but she was an 11th level chaotic/neutral illusionist... And when I couldn't get the other players to work together, I not only let them argue, I started playing little tricks on them to keep them fighting, right up to the end, when were to to the cliche "Save a princess from a dragon..." While these idiots were getting themselves eaten, I turned my girl invisible, walked right past the distracted dragon, rescued the princess, and walked right back out with her... while everyone else's jaws dropped... Easy win.

And the second time... I was playing a lawful/good wizard, and we were right near the end of this huge cave, which was at the far end of a cave-lake. And we got attacked by a bunch of giant seaweed... I think... And the only spell I had left was a transformation spell... So I screamed for everyone to run, and dove into the water while I cast the spell on myself... into a giant gar-fish... and died. But the rest of the party survived... which gave me the win... lol.

It's not that I'm a better player... but I have a devilish imagination...   

Edited August 13, 2018 by Just Jim

[tater]

I played D&D a rather long time ago. Decades ago. I switched to Traveller, then I was active with traveller stuff (mostly space combat rules) for quite a while, though I ceased doing it as an RPG after HS.

[Superfluous J]

I played in middle school, along with Traveller and Gamma World. By far I liked Traveller the best but also played a lot of D&D.

I picked it up again 5ish years ago but it didn't stick. Our group met monthly for half a year or so but then it faded due to real life taking us away.

[Mjp1050]

3 hours ago, Just Jim said:

Back in the days of dice, calculators, and lots of pizza... 

Not much has changed on that front, y'know .  Though admittedly my puny 2nd level paladin doesn't require a calculator.

I'm pretty new to the game; I'm currently playing my second campaign ever, so I have yet to learn the ins and outs. My first campaign ended when the DM decided that it was a good idea to give a bunch of newbies the Box of Many Things

[Gargamel]

51 minutes ago, Mjp1050 said:

My first campaign ended when the DM decided that it was a good idea to give a bunch of newbies the Box of Many Things

Don't even have to click the link to know that was a bad idea.....  

Those types of things are supposed to be used as Deus ex Machina for the DM to keep high level players entertained. 

[TheSaint]

1 hour ago, tater said:

I played D&D a rather long time ago. Decades ago. I switched to Traveller, then I was active with traveller stuff (mostly space combat rules) for quite a while, though I ceased doing it as an RPG after HS.

Ah, yes, we did Traveller as well, with the three original books. So you did the Trillion Credit Squadron stuff then?

[tater]

1 hour ago, TheSaint said:

Ah, yes, we did Traveller as well, with the three original books. So you did the Trillion Credit Squadron stuff then?

HIgh Guard, HG bashed with Mayday, then the combat systems for TNE; Brilliant Lances, and Battle Rider. I actually did some playtesting work on Fire, Fusion, and Steel (though it wasn't what most of us wished).

A lot of this was back in the USENET days. We came up with far better sensor rules, and improved combat rules in general.

[TheSaint]

8 hours ago, tater said:

HIgh Guard, HG bashed with Mayday, then the combat systems for TNE; Brilliant Lances, and Battle Rider. I actually did some playtesting work on Fire, Fusion, and Steel (though it wasn't what most of us wished).

A lot of this was back in the USENET days. We came up with far better sensor rules, and improved combat rules in general.

Oh, nice. I bought a lot of the TNE stuff, including F.F.S., but only as possible source material for GURPS, I never actually played it. Same with 2300AD. I actually liked 2300 better, both the tech and the background. Still have most of it on a shelf in the office.

Edited August 13, 2018 by TheSaint
Stupid word filter

[tater]

I have all the little black books, still. JTAS, included.

I also have many old games, a considerable number of which are space games (SPI, Avalon Hill, GDW, etc).

[TheSaint]

4 minutes ago, tater said:

I have all the little black books, still. JTAS, included.

I also have many old games, a considerable number of which are space games (SPI, Avalon Hill, GDW, etc).

I had a vast collection of games that I accumulated from grade school through high school. All kinds of stuff from the early days of gaming, AH, SPI, GDW, TSR, Yaquinto, Steve Jackson, Metagaming, Task Force. They filled four large moving boxes. When I moved to South Africa I sold them all to a collector I met at The Last Grenadier for a pittance. It would all be worth a fortune today on EBay. <sigh>

[cubinator]

One of my friends has got into DMing, so I've played in a couple RPG campaigns, albeit not with the D&D system in particular. However, we'll soon be separated for a while by college (although he may transfer to my college in 1 or 2 years), so we've got one adventure left in the next couple weeks which he'll use as a precursor to a future campaign. I'm even writing music for him!

Edited August 13, 2018 by cubinator

[Mjp1050]

16 hours ago, Gargamel said:

Don't even have to click the link to know that was a bad idea.....  

Those types of things are supposed to be used as Deus ex Machina for the DM to keep high level players entertained. 

Oh, it was certainly entertaining. The least creative demise that day was my teammate being one-shot by the Avatar of Death that he accidentally summoned.

Edited August 13, 2018 by Mjp1050

[Vanamonde]

Quote

 another in prison for the next 20 years or so (we all saw that one coming) 

Because he always played as a thief? 

So this is the first time I've ever heard anyone mention Traveller. That was a spiffy game system. The same combat rules covered everything from fist fights to starship battles. I had several rule books and a few of the related games, but this was back in the pre-internet days when it was darn near impossible to find anyone else with the same game interests, so I never played them with anyone. 

[TheSaint]

3 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

Because he always played as a thief? 

So this is the first time I've ever heard anyone mention Traveller. That was a spiffy game system. The same combat rules covered everything from fist fights to starship battles. I had several rule books and a few of the related games, but this was back in the pre-internet days when it was darn near impossible to find anyone else with the same game interests, so I never played them with anyone. 

Ya'll know that Marc Miller is still around making games, right? Far Future Enterprises. Loren Wiseman passed away last year, the other GDW guys have all just drifted away from the industry, but Marc is still plugging away at it.

[MDZhB]

Just started a new game with new players the other day. I think they got bored with making characters, but hopefully we can really pick it up next time. Hopefully they'll follow the skeleton into the dungeon, and have fun with the traps and stuff.

[TheSaint]

33 minutes ago, MDZhB said:

Just started a new game with new players the other day. I think they got bored with making characters, but hopefully we can really pick it up next time. Hopefully they'll follow the skeleton into the dungeon, and have fun with the traps and stuff.

It's funny. I told my players (most of whom just happen to be my wife and kids) before we ever started that if they don't want to be heroes they shouldn't play in my campaign. My campaigns always start off innocuously enough, a small adventure here, a minor job there. But they always pretty rapidly evolve into a desperate epic quest to save at least the kingdom, if not the world. They will probably lose everything, and may very well wind up dying. But they will probably get a public school named after them.

Take my current campaign, for example. Their first job that they took was to escort an elderly wizard who wanted to take a trip to the edge of the civilized lands to investigate the legend of an ancient magic sword that grants great power to it's wielder and everyone who swears fealty to him. But they keep getting attacked by bands of brigands from this one group with shadowy ties to the rival kingdom next door....

[Gargamel]

34 minutes ago, MDZhB said:

I think they got bored with making characters

I always found that to be one of the more entertaining parts, but then again, I enjoy statistics and maths for fun. 

[cubinator]

15 hours ago, MDZhB said:

Just started a new game with new players the other day. I think they got bored with making characters, but hopefully we can really pick it up next time. Hopefully they'll follow the skeleton into the dungeon, and have fun with the traps and stuff.

I don't blame them. Character making is rather tedious for me, but once the quest starts I have a lot of fun.

[Kernel Kraken]

I played it a few times last year during lunch hour. A friend bought a starter kit and we never got to finish. Eventually he just stopped bringing it.

What if we made a thread for a forum wide game of DnD? That'd be cool.