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Introductions

Dagamorn

Member
Adamantium WoA
Wizard of Story
Greetings, all. My name is David, and I started playing D&D back in the early '80's, during the transition from AD&D to 2nd Edition. I drifted away from the game but returned in 2016 (thanks Critical Role) and have been running a 5e home brew campaign set in the Forgotten Realms for the last four years. When Covid hit, our party went online, where I've been running some adventures in the Wildemount setting.

I'm in southern Indiana, and I carry a transparent teal d20 around in my pocket as a good luck talisman. Love d20's!
 

Clayton

New member
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Hi folks! Have played D&D since I was a kid in the 80's, though would go stretches without a group as I was in the military and moved frequently and sometimes had a hard time finding a group. During those dry spells, would turn to writing and world building to get my "fix" in. Even had a couple of articles published back in Dragon magazine when it was still around.

Currently am running a home-brew campaign with a group with a hybrid of Pathfinder and 3.5 rules. Was recently gifted the 5e rules and have been eager to dip my toes in.

Been a longtime fan of Roleplaying Tips; always find good ideas in both the articles and courses Johnn has shared. Appreciate and look forward to this new community you are all building. Thanks!

Oh, and my favorite die is the d20... what can I say, I'm a traditionalist!
 

Ashekelor

New member
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Hello Everyone! My handle is Ashekelor and my name is Courtney. I have been playing since 1978. I believe I started Game Mastering then, however I honestly don't remember who was running the game. I cut my teeth on basic D&D and went from there. I am currently on hiatus from a game of Pathfinder where I am a player and am in the planning stages of a Starfinder home brew campaign. I am always working on bettering my skills as a GM and am very excited to be doing the workshop!

My favorite die is the d6. It's great for spell damage, rolling stats the old way and very easy to stack!
 

jrrnewton

Member
Wizard of Story
Wow. Pages and pages. I've only read page one, but I'll look over the others after I post.

Hello, my name is John. I live in Denver, Colorado, USA. I've been a GM on and off since the early 80's.

My longest running game was a GURPS fantasy style game in a homebrew world that ran weekly (on and off) for about 10 years. Most of the D&D (and related) games I've run have petered out by level 7 or so. In the last 5-10 years I've experimented with a variety of rule sets, Pathfinder, FATE, Cortex, and have been running 5E for the last year. Our current group meets twice a month for about 3 hours of game time, which is unfortunate and slow for progress.

Currently I'm running the Demonplague, primarily as a way to get a feel for 5E encounter design & power level. My previous game was a home brew I called "Chicken Riding Murder Hoboes III+2" based on Final Fantasy and Firefly tropes. We started it as a Cortex variant, but moved it to 5E and played until 5th level. It has been put on hold to allow me to get more comfortable with running 5E, which is why we are now playing the Demonplague. I need to do more campaign design for CRMH before we get back to it, but progress is slow (both 5E play of current game, and design) for a variety of reasons.

I've kind of always preferred to be a player but often end up being GM for a group due to either unwillingness on the part of others, or because I have an interesting world in my head I want to explore. I think my biggest issue with world building is that I often have an idea for a "neat" world, but not a good idea for a plot that will explore it. I often build worlds that I would like to explore or play in as a player, but I have a hard time identifying the things my players get excited about.

I don't know that I have a favorite die type... but I was given a bunch of old Armory d30 booklets to go with a d30 I got somewhere, and I loved all the "werewolf sailor" jokes running throughout the tables.
 

jrrnewton

Member
Wizard of Story
though I have considered trying Ryuutama.

Greetings! Ryuutama is a fun game. My wife bought me a copy for Christmas one year, and GMed a game for me and our son. Very fun, you should try it. It has a great focus on the journey and not on the encounter.
 
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Xik

Member
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Greetings! Ryuutama is a fun game. My wife bought me a copy for Christmas one year, and GMed a game for me and our son. Very fun, you should try it. It has a great focus on the journey and not on the encounter.
Hello, and thanks for the recommendation! From what I recall of going through the book, it made me think that as a GM it would help for me to spend a good amount of time figuring out how to narrate scenery or minor encounters, like meeting travellers going the other way and stopping for a chat, pausing to watch a kingfisher catching supper, stuff like that. :)
...Well, that's my current best guess as to how to make the journey itself a pleasant and interesting part of the game.

A little funny how my first experience with the game was part of a session (didn't feel I could spare the time for the full thing at the time) where my impressions were a bit of confusion trying to figure out how to use the bits of terrain in combat, heh. (I guess it was the GM's idea of introducing new players to the system who might be more familiar with more combat-oriented games.)
Maybe I misremember, or perhaps they could have benefitted from more narration for travel, since from the time mostly what I remember was rolling to see how difficult a travelling day was and glancing at how difficult some terrain could be, heh.
 

jrrnewton

Member
Wizard of Story
Hello, and thanks for the recommendation! From what I recall of going through the book, it made me think that as a GM it would help for me to spend a good amount of time figuring out how to narrate scenery or minor encounters, like meeting travellers going the other way and stopping for a chat, pausing to watch a kingfisher catching supper, stuff like that. :)
...Well, that's my current best guess as to how to make the journey itself a pleasant and interesting part of the game.

A little funny how my first experience with the game was part of a session (didn't feel I could spare the time for the full thing at the time) where my impressions were a bit of confusion trying to figure out how to use the bits of terrain in combat, heh. (I guess it was the GM's idea of introducing new players to the system who might be more familiar with more combat-oriented games.)
Maybe I misremember, or perhaps they could have benefitted from more narration for travel, since from the time mostly what I remember was rolling to see how difficult a travelling day was and glancing at how difficult some terrain could be, heh.
Yes, it is a very narrative interactive game. There is combat, but it is not really combat focused, and you get combat benefit from describing how you used the "elements" defined by the players and the GM at the start of combat in creative ways... I remember our first game where I was playing a merchant, and some giant eyeball monster attacked the market square. We defined things like "market stalls", "umbrellas", and "central fountain" as objects about, so we were leaping off the market stalls to attack, and using the umbrellas as makeshift shields. Very fun.
 

Jolo5309

New member
Wizard of Story
I am John, I live in Saskatchewan Canada and I currently run a Dungeon Fantasy RPG game. My first RPG was Basic D&D in 79 iirc.

I have run Champions, Traveller, Rolemaster, Spacemaster, about 25 years ago I switched to GURPS completely and have run that off and on ever since.
 

Stephan Hornick

Community Goblin & Master of the Archive
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Borderland Explorer
Dear fellow game masters and story tellers,
Dear Johnn, thank you for this opportunity.

My name is Stephan Hornick from the lustrous grape fields of South Germany. In real life I am married, have three kids, and work as a project manager in the multi-billion mega solar business in Japan.

My biggest hobby was always roleplaying games. I started playing when I was 9 back in 1988. I started with a D&D box I found at a flea market after watching this popular TV show Dungeons & Dragons at that time in Germany. Thinking back, it had a great influence on me.

Over the years I never stopped playing, but soon leveled up to become the game master for our group on a full-time basis´(even as we should have attended school, and even when I moved several times and had new groups...). I enjoy both very much, but recently I try to achieve an even greater level of understanding and performance in both.
I have a multitude of fantastic stories in my mind, that I won't ever be able to tell all, as we are not playing even half as much as new stories develop in my head. I have no problem improvising and most of my spontaneously fleshed out NPCs are a great joy at the table. The pacing is mostly alright and I love world building and sandbox PC based, low level experience story arcs.
Nevertheless, I find it difficult at times to (a) decide on which story I want to tell and to not combine them too much, (b) outline the basic steps of a campaign so as to not make it too huge, (c) to really put the PCs into the focus and not the story I want to tell, and (d) to cope with some very different styles and expectations of roleplaying within my current group.
I really want to learn, so all cues and hints are very much welcome!!

And now the crunch. Here are some of the systems I have run (through many different editions): D&D, AD&D, and again D&D mostly in the Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Vlath, and Dark Sun universe, The Black Eye (Das Schwarze Auge), Exalted, M.E.R.S., Midgard, Rolemaster, Runequest, Hârnmaster, GURPS, Elfquest, Vampire the Masquerade, Sabbath, Werewolf, Changeling, Mage, Dark Ages, Kindred of the East, Bastet, Wraiths, Mummies, Hunter, and many more of the World of Darkness series, Plüsch, Power und Plunder, Toon, Superhero 2044, Splittermond, Thieve's World, Star Wars, Cyberpunk 2020, Numenera, Call of Cthulhu, and of course Earthdawn and Shadowrun.

My absolute favorite worlds are Dark Sun (AD&D3.5) and Shadowrun 5.
Currently, I am running two Shadowrun 5 campaigns (alas, currently on hiatus due to my latest fertility role: I am father! Again! :love:), and a Splittermond adventure with my eldest son and two friends.

My favorite die would be the d30. Just because it is so seldom and I never met another player with one of those.
Apart from this, I like the Star Wars dice for their shift to descriptions instead of success/failure patterns.
And I love the versatility of the d10 / d100 in general the most.
But whatever the die, I find myself with extraordinary luck when I need to role well. Although I believe the very bad roles are even more fun.

So, hi! Nice to meet you all!
And I am surprised to find SO MANY interesting people here.
I am looking forward to discussing with you on how to create better adventures!

Stephan
 
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knoppi

Well-known member
Platinum WoA
Gold WoA
Wizard of Story
Borderland Explorer
My name is Stephan Hornick from the lustrous grape fields of South Germany.
Hmm ... Regensburg?

Nevertheless, I find it difficult at times to (a) decide on which story I want to tell and to not combine them too much, (b) outline the basic steps of a campaign so as to not make it too huge, (c) to really put the PCs into the focus and not the story I want to tell, and (d) to cope with some very different styles and expectations of roleplaying within my current group.
That's exactly my problems, too. I think, @JohnnFour is adressing these topics in his newsletters very well, that's how I originally found here.
 

Stephan Hornick

Community Goblin & Master of the Archive
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Borderland Explorer
Hmm ... Regensburg?

Hello Jan! Thank you for the reply.
No, I’m from a different castle city ;)
Not from Rain Castle (Regensburg), but from Freedom Castle (Freiburg) in the very South-West. Just at the border to France and Swiss. Never thought of Germany as a castle land though... seems way cooler this way somehow :unsure:

Do you GM regularly these days in Munich?

That's exactly my problems, too. I think, @JohnnFour is adressing these topics in his newsletters very well, that's how I originally found here.

Me too! Great newsletter, Johnn! And as I mentioned several times: always at the right time!
 

Stephan Hornick

Community Goblin & Master of the Archive
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Borderland Explorer
You arent alone :)

Me too! World and story and such, but I am missing to loop in the PCs and their arcs. In addition they all seem to be loners and no team. In the middle of the campaign it is hard to change this.
 

knoppi

Well-known member
Platinum WoA
Gold WoA
Wizard of Story
Borderland Explorer
Not from Rain Castle (Regensburg), but from Freedom Castle (Freiburg) in the very South-West.
I think, they have better wine than in Regensburg.

Do you GM regularly these days in Munich?
Yes, I was living somewhere else and returned just last year to be with my PnP-group again. Recently, our frequency even increased, but mainly because we play online. How often do you play / gm?
 

BenS

Member
Wizard of Story
I think, they have better wine than in Regensburg.


Yes, I was living somewhere else and returned just last year to be with my PnP-group again. Recently, our frequency even increased, but mainly because we play online. How often do you play / gm?

Another player from Munich! Yay! Grüß dich aus Moosach :)!
 

Tillinghast

Member
Platinum WoA
Gold WoA
Wizard of Story
Hi all! I'm late to the party, but thought I'd say hi in any event.

My name is Andrew, and live in the Seattle area. I started gaming, ah...about 40 years ago? That's less a brag, more a confession.

I'm starting up a new online campaign and thought that this would be a great way to stimulate the creative energies and hone some rusty tools.

Thanks!
 

JohnnFour

Game Master
Staff member
Adamantium WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Gamer Lifestyle
Demonplague Author
Borderland Explorer
Welcome Andrew!
 

Alensande

New member
Adamantium WoA
Wizard of Story
Better late than never :) My name is Karen. I started DnD 2nd ed in college, never looked back. Played GURPS, 3E, 3.5E, PF1, 7th Sea, Numenera, PF2. GM'd pretty much all of those. I love lore and telling stories, but have difficulty with the catch-and-hold-player-attention part - most of my friends are not NEARLY as into lore and history as I am :) I'd like some help with how to go from a good overarching story line to the individual encounters and groups of encounters that really bring the players in.
 
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