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Introductions

Stephan Hornick

Community Goblin & Master of the Archive
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Borderland Explorer
Hi!! I am Max, Septic to all my online denizens. I have been DMing since September 1977 with the White Box D&D a friend bought due to sensor readings indicating anomalies in the boardgaming world. My first purchased RPG was the LBB Box of Classic Traveller. Thousands of Characters generated, and dying during generation lead to a 40+ year campaign of adventure through many RPG systems. I have DM for the most part, yet I enjoy getting my freak on as a Player Character.

I have enjoyed much of the breadth of RPGs along with my hobby of board wargaming, often mashing up the two branches of adventure gaming. My current passion is running an online Traveller 5.10 campaign Septic's Interstellar Scout Brew on Roll20 and Discord. I am proud of my worldwide reach of Players and their enthusiasm fuels a great satisfaction; as well as an anxiety to provide the best I can for them.

Mania and depression slavishly steal my time for maximum efficiency; I have yet to become comfortable with prep and am constantly working on becoming a Great DM. I am here to share and learn from all you wonderful dedicated DMs and look forward to productive and supportive advice and methods you care to impart to a fellow gamer. I understand and support Real Life Comes First.

Cheers and #rolldice

Max
Septic
Happy Birthday, Max!
It's been a while. How is your campaign going? Would you like to share and tell us a little bit about it?
 

Stephan Hornick

Community Goblin & Master of the Archive
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Borderland Explorer
Hahaha... that's why!! You could have said something.
Happy Birthday, @John B !! Have a nice vacation!!
 

mysterycycle

Member
Gold WoA
Hello, everyone! I'm Devin (he/him), 49 years old in April, with a Bachelor's Degree in Comic Art that I'm still paying off. Hi.

I've been a GM since almost the very beginning of my gaming hobby way back in the early 80s when my parents bought my older brother and me the Moldvay Red Box Basic D&D set and the World of Greyhawk boxed set. Though I've played and run a wide variety of games since then, it has been my pleasure to finally realize my lifelong dream of GMing a long-running weekly Greyhawk campaign. For the past three or four years, I've been able to run an ongoing campaign for my old gaming group.

Thanks to Discord and Roll20 (and sites like Tavern-Keeper - which is sadly nearly abandonware at this point - and now Campaign Logger), I've been able to GM and play every week despite my friends and I being separated from each other by several thousand miles of geography.

Up until now I've been using a combination of the above-mentioned Tavern-Keeper and OneNote to keep track of my ever-growing campaign notes. Tavern-Keeper has always been shaky and quirky, occasionally eating entire pages of notes when I try to undo a minor mistake or save the page. OneNote has likewise been giving me a lot of trouble more recently as it doesn't want to sync up and back up information very often. So I've been looking for an alternative.

I started the free trial and liked Logger so much I'm still using it. With my ADHD brain it can easily be a time sink all its own as I hyperfocus and log entries about everything under the sun for my campaigns, but on the other hand it seems like something that could supplant OneNote and Tavern-Keeper for me (and I've recently started medication for ADHD), so fingers crossed. I'm currently in the process of entering all of my Greyhawk campaign notes into Logger, and tonight I just started another Log for a new Shadowrun campaign I'll be starting on Sunday (to be run whenever my friend is unavailable to run his Curse of Strahd game I'm playing in).

Fun stuff!
 

Stephan Hornick

Community Goblin & Master of the Archive
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Borderland Explorer
Welcome again, Devin!
Note his profile banner? It is a cool new function.
In case your players aren‘t here to be spoilered, I would be happy to hear all about your campaigns.
 

mysterycycle

Member
Gold WoA
Welcome again, Devin!
Note his profile banner? It is a cool new function.
In case your players aren‘t here to be spoilered, I would be happy to hear all about your campaigns.
Nobody's here except me so far. I may manage to make converts of the others, though, since almost all of us also GM and are looking for a good central hub site to share campaign information.

Short, relatively spoiler-free versions, though:
  • D&D 5th Edition Greyhawk campaign, set in the Yeomanry League circa 576 C.Y. (the date of the first boxed campaign set back in 1983, for maximum nostalgic value). In a burst of inspiration after playing around with an old school adventure module name generator in Matt J. Finch's excellent Tome of Adventure Design, I came up with concepts for nine linked modules taking place across the southwestern Flanaess. We've been playing for about three or four years, as I said earlier, and we're still only halfway through the second one, so I've got some material for the future. :D
    • The first module was titled War of the Wizards. I introduced the players to the setting (only one of them has played in Greyhawk, and he's been there with me since the very beginning, back in the 80s; he was also playing under my first DM), having them traveling on the road to Loftwick to attend Richfest, the week-long summer solstice holiday. I had a lot of various things going on and threads they could pick up or ignore as they liked, which allowed them to choose what they found interesting enough to pursue. In the midst of that, however, they became embroiled in what appeared to be an ongoing petty feud between the two major wizards living in the town, Elazinum and Minparvanajad. Their magical pranks and insulting displays of self-aggrandizement began to disrupt the ceremonies of the visiting Dwarfhold master craftspersons who, as part of a generations-old tradition, had come to judge contestants in a craft competition. Those who were chosen as the winners would return to the Dwarfhold as apprentices, to learn from Dwarf masters and benefit from their hundreds of years' worth of skill. However, being Dwarves, their pride was affronted by the wizards' disruptive magical antics, and if they continued to be a nuisance, the Dwarves would consider it an insult to their dignity and refuse to conduct the contest for the next 20 years or so - waiting out a generation of Humans to teach them a lesson about respecting their elders. In the end, the PCs managed to unravel the mystery. One of the PCs was a Half-Elf wizard who had dropped out of the neighboring Elven community's school of magic; they discovered that the former apprentice of the Elven school's Archmage headmaster was responsible for all of the seeming magical antagonism between the two Human wizards. Her student had been sneaking around invisibly and casting spells designed to frame Elazinum and Minparvanajad at different turns, continually adding fuel to the fire of their infamous rivalry. The former apprentice's goal was simply to convince the Dwarves to leave Loftwick for a generation; she had a personal beef with one of the Dwarf guildmasters and wanted to be rid of him for a little while. Fortunately for the Humans in town, the party exposed the culprit and the architect of all that trouble was expelled from the Elven magical school.
    • Our current module is Assault on Witchlight Peak. About a month after the events of War of the Wizards, a Knight of the Watch whom they befriended comes to them asking to hire them as mercenaries. The Knights Watcher maintain beacons atop fortresses and towers all across the Jotens mountain range, defending against giants and other monsters. The Order has received reports that their beacon atop Witchlight Peak has been extinguished and no word has come from there as to why. He wants the PCs to aid him because he has received a secret message from his immediate superior claiming she believes the local commander of their Order may be involved in the fall of Witchlight Peak; so he wants the help of outsiders since he doesn't know who he can trust within the Order. As planned, the commander gets upset when he shows up with a motley band of mercenaries and sends them all away -- freeing them to work independently and learn what has befallen the fortress at Witchlight Peak. Eventually they learned from travelers, refugees, merchants, and an Orc clan of outcasts that a massive Orc Horde is assembling at Witchlight Peak, and if they can't stop it, once assembled the Horde will march on Loftwick and conquer the lowlands of the Yeomanry. At present, they are identifying, finding, and gathering allies against the Horde, knowing their time is running out before all of the Orc clans reach Witchlight Peak and pledge loyalty to the Horde's Warlord Maurg. There have also been a few character-specific subplots, one of which just revealed that the party's Human fighter has a Half-Orc half-brother, and he and their shared mother (who mysteriously vanished years ago) are currently being held as thralls in the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief...
    • Once that's done, there's just...eight more to go. :LOL:
  • Shadowrun 20th Anniversary 4th Edition mini-campaign, to be run on those days when our Curse of Strahdplayer can't DM.
    • This campaign is called Real Life™©2072 All Rights Reserved. It's inspired by a play-by-post game I participated in years ago, so I can't claim complete credit (great artists steal, right?). It's a cross between a slice-of-life drama and the usual shadowrunning hijinx, though with a bit lower scale than usual. The PCs are all residents of the same apartment complex in the lawless Redmond Barrens district of the Seattle Metroplex. Whatever their backstories (we're having our Session Zero to figure that out this weekend), they all share stakes in their current residence, a Kowloon Walled City-style monstrosity full of impoverished, struggling, desperate people. Since it's just a game to be run when our usual DM can't show up due to work or family obligations, the adventures are meant to be short and somewhat episodic, completed in just one session. However, I would like for the PCs' efforts to be cumulative - every minor victory they enjoy, every victim they save, every exploitative or oppressive system they thwart, they make their apartment complex less of a final stop before ending up a statistic on the streets and more of a united community thriving through mutual aid. So I'm planning to use some sort of Blades in the Dark-style Progress Clock or something similar to gauge how they're making the community stronger through their gradual efforts (and utilizing a Push Pyramid [a term and model I got from the "Burn Notice"-inspired TTRPG Blowback] to keep track of the escalating antagonism of their organized crime/Lone Star/real estate corporation antagonists).
So, yeah, there's my long-winded account of the games I'm GMing right now. Well, that's not including the circa 1940 Golden Age and 2045 dystopian future Marvel Super Heroes campaigns I'm running on our round-robin GM Saturday night sessions... I have never done more consistent gaming in my life than I have in the last six years. It's crazy and deeply rewarding.
 

Stephan Hornick

Community Goblin & Master of the Archive
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Borderland Explorer
Wow... Both of them sound marvelous! Great summaries! The latter sounds a lot like what I had GMed some years ago, the Grewhawk beginning like a game I GMed even before that. Nice taste!
 

GrampaHowl

Member
Silver WoA
I am located in the Upper Midwest of the USA. I played 'white box' D&D in the 1970s but haven't played since then. Recently, my grand-daughters started watching 'Stranger Things' and got interested in 'Dungeons and Dragons' and I decided I would try to GM. Then I decided I would create a game system rather than try to figure out how to make the current crop of games work for me and the grand-daughters. So I bench-marked dozens of game systems and kept bits-and-pieces from all of them and have been sketching out a rudimentary system to allow characters to 'do stuff' that doesn't really require a lot of character prep. No 'stats', just a pool of 'action assets' that will get used up - and acquired - during the game by 'doing stuff'. My favorite die is '4dFudge' because I like boring outcomes. However, I'd rather not roll at all.

I'm here for the ideas on how to 'run a game' on-the-fly (sort of) efficiently and with fun.
 

Stephan Hornick

Community Goblin & Master of the Archive
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Borderland Explorer
I'm Thomas, from Georgia in the United States! d10 for life, it looks like a circus tent! I have extensive experience on both sides of the DM screen in D&D 5e, but I took a tour through numerous failed campaigns in numerous systems before settling there. I've been GMing since I first picked up TTRPGs somewhere in 2015.

The only surprising thing is that I didn't pick up TTRPGs before then. My mind is constantly swimming with fantasy, and while writing a book is on the bucket list, I want my ideas to be interactive! TTRPGs seem like the perfect gateway to that. Nothing brings me greater joy than making a world for my friends, and working together to tell a story in it. When I worldbuild, I do so in the name of fun!

On that note, I'm here because I want to up my GMing game. Mr. Four's tips and techniques have been very influential and beneficial to me; now I'm going for the whole enchilada. I'm hoping to come out of this able to make my one trillion ideas into one trillion sessions.

At 21, I think I might be the youngest one here. It's genuinely awesome to be in a community with people who have been playing longer than I've been alive. I hope no veterans mind if I ask a random question now and then. There's just so much history in these halls!

(College just went virtual, so I'm online all the time now. Don't be a stranger!)
Happy Birthday, Thomas!
I hope you are doing well. How are your online classes? It is probably as distracting as everything else, right?
You started the Adventure Building Master Game Plan. Have you been able to finish it?
Did it work out for you?
 

Shamrogue99

New member
Hello new forum members! Welcome!

Please leave a reply and introduce yourself.

Where in the world are you? What game(s) do you GM? How long have you been GMing? What's your favourite sided-die?
Cheers mates,
I currently run a PF2 pirate campaign and a SW5E (great work over there) with another group. I have played since DND 3.5 and have started DMing after 5E came out. I play things fast and loose, let the dice decide, and don’t take things seriously. Originally from
Galway, no reside in the greater Seattle area.
 

jamcartrogue

New member
Hi all! I'm James, living in London UK and I've been playing D&D (on and off!) since 1985.

Early years were classic D&D GMed by either me or a friend, CyberPunk and various other RPGs of the era.

More recently I've taken part in a few social D&D sessions globally, and I GM for my two daughters in a self-created D&D universe and a Start Wars (post RoS) universe. We play it mainly for fun, but also to help them develop their IQ, EQ and even street smarts. Believe me, they ain't gonna trust an overly helpful bard who appears just at the right time with information about the dragon's eggs they've just found (again).

Favourite die is definitely d20 overall as it feels like the star of the show, but I do see d100 as a worthy second best. I like to think in percentages so often use a pair of d10s as GM to decide on random outcomes, NPC decisions and choices etc. and some battle outcomes. I think this comes from my use of it the CyberPunk system and I've just integrated it into my general GM style to give more variety from d20 rolls.
 

Stephan Hornick

Community Goblin & Master of the Archive
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Borderland Explorer
Hello! My name is Justin, I'm a stay-at-home dad raising my two toddler sons, and I live in Mesa, Arizona.

I've been running an online D&D 5e campaign for about 2.5-3 years for a group of seven friends so we can keep in touch. Right now we use a combination of D&D Beyond and Talespire to play and used Tabletop Simulator previously. We only get to play 3-5 hours once a month, so the campaign has been pretty slow going. We've just finished up our first adventure that involved Lost Mine of Phandelver with elements of Dragon of Icespire Peak. I'm getting ready to throw them into a version of Deathtrap Dungeon I hope I've modified decently for 5e.

Oh! My favorite die is the d6, because I use it a lot to randomly figure out how a scenario I haven't planned will play out (1 = worst case, 6 = best case).

I'm really looking forward to starting the Adventure Building course so I can stop using published stuff and start creating my own adventures tailored to my group. Or at least use the course to modify things quicker when I haven't got the time thanks to my kiddos. I also hope to get myself a little more organized so I stop losing the threads of my own story!
Happy Birthday, Justin! I hope everything is great in Mesa. Have a nice Easter break.
How did you like the Adventure Building Course? Did it work for you? Or are there elements you would have liked to have differently?
 

Stephan Hornick

Community Goblin & Master of the Archive
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Borderland Explorer
Hello fellow GMs!

I live in Woodinville, WA which is in the greater Puget Sound area.

Currently, I am in the midst of three campaigns. I am running City of Mists, I am sharing a Fate-based Rocket Age campaign, and I will begin a once-a-month campaign of Star Wars Roleplaying (FFG) in September. I have been a GM for Fate, D&D 4e, Torg and Torg Eternity, Feng Shui, Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, Serenity, Monster of the Week and a myriad of other systems.

I have been role-playing and GMing for several decades. I started in high school playing "City State of the Invincible Overlord". We played through Advanced D&D, Traveller and Hero Systems (1st through 6th edition). Our group has changed over time but we have always had a core of 3 of us that shared GM roles. We have even had systems where we had two GMs. In addition, we annually run a multiple-session game at our local gaming convention with 4 GMs going simultaneously. Everyone in my regular gaming group has been our GM at one time or another.

The favorite die is the d8. The PC I have run the longest uses d8's for her Warlock's Curse dice.
Happy Birthday, @Grunen Drachen!
 

Stephan Hornick

Community Goblin & Master of the Archive
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Borderland Explorer
Hey everyone!

I'm Craig from Oklahoma. I've been GM'ing since around 2004, starting my first year out of high school. Most all of the campaigns I have been in or ran have been custom campaigns set in the Wheel of Time universe. We started off using the old 3.5 rules for the Wheel of Time Roleplaying Game because we were all fans of the novel series. We eventually completely homebrewed our rules. Though our players and campaigns changed many times, we finally wrapped up our adventures in that world a few years ago. The longest running campaign in it was honestly about 8 years running and hundreds of adventures and a dozen or so players off-and-on.

Currently, I'm GM'ing a campaign set in the Shadowrun universe, in the 2070s, using the Cypher-System rules. We just got started and it's been a lot of fun currently, though challenging at times to make those two systems work together (Shadowrun's intense crunch and Cypher's incredible simplicity, especially for the GM). We're much smaller now--just myself and three main players, and one or two that pop in here and there.

I've followed John's emails for years, but just now joining the forum (and now using the awesome Campaign Logger). As my life is much busier and complex than it was in my late teens and my twenties, I'm looking forward to utilizing this site and John's advice to streamline my time to still provide an epic story with my players without dumping hours into building each week like I used to.
Happy Birthday, Craig! How is your Shadowrun campaign? Did you make this pivotical decision work you were writing about?
 

Stephan Hornick

Community Goblin & Master of the Archive
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Borderland Explorer
Hello, everyone! I'm Devin (he/him), 49 years old in April, with a Bachelor's Degree in Comic Art that I'm still paying off. Hi.

I've been a GM since almost the very beginning of my gaming hobby way back in the early 80s when my parents bought my older brother and me the Moldvay Red Box Basic D&D set and the World of Greyhawk boxed set. Though I've played and run a wide variety of games since then, it has been my pleasure to finally realize my lifelong dream of GMing a long-running weekly Greyhawk campaign. For the past three or four years, I've been able to run an ongoing campaign for my old gaming group.

Thanks to Discord and Roll20 (and sites like Tavern-Keeper - which is sadly nearly abandonware at this point - and now Campaign Logger), I've been able to GM and play every week despite my friends and I being separated from each other by several thousand miles of geography.

Up until now I've been using a combination of the above-mentioned Tavern-Keeper and OneNote to keep track of my ever-growing campaign notes. Tavern-Keeper has always been shaky and quirky, occasionally eating entire pages of notes when I try to undo a minor mistake or save the page. OneNote has likewise been giving me a lot of trouble more recently as it doesn't want to sync up and back up information very often. So I've been looking for an alternative.

I started the free trial and liked Logger so much I'm still using it. With my ADHD brain it can easily be a time sink all its own as I hyperfocus and log entries about everything under the sun for my campaigns, but on the other hand it seems like something that could supplant OneNote and Tavern-Keeper for me (and I've recently started medication for ADHD), so fingers crossed. I'm currently in the process of entering all of my Greyhawk campaign notes into Logger, and tonight I just started another Log for a new Shadowrun campaign I'll be starting on Sunday (to be run whenever my friend is unavailable to run his Curse of Strahd game I'm playing in).

Fun stuff!
Happy birthday, Devin!
I hope you have (had?) a great day!
I am actually playing Curse of Strahd also right now (or a version of it).
How is your Shadowrun campaign proceeding? (What happened so far?)
 
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