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Introductions

Stephan Heinrich

New member
Wizard of Story
Hi, I'm Stephan.

I'm german but have moved to north Sweden three years ago. I've been GMing for my kids and their friends since 2008, starting with pen and paper and moved to virtual tabletop using MapTool when I moved to Sweden, because all my players stayed in Germany. Just now I am running Rise of the Runelords.

My favorite die is the d4, because it takes a little skill to "roll" it.

I stick with GMing D&D 3.5, mainly because I know most of the rules by now and I think it is quite well balanced. But to be honest, I simply haven't found the time to take a deeper look into 5e.
 

Stephan Hornick

Community Goblin & Master of the Archive
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Borderland Explorer
Welcome, Stephan!
Where are you from in Germany? And have you moved permanently to Sweden? Must be great! My Japanese wife is a big fan of Sweden.
How is playing and GMing with MapTool? I found it harder to control than Roll20, but it had more options to use. My players weren't up for it though (before Corona).
 

Edgar

Member
Wizard of Story
Hi all, I'm Edgar. In Tucson Arizona.

I first played D&D in 1977 or 78, but didn't get hooked until around 1980, playing AD&D. I rotated in and out as GM. I left the game because of the satanic scare, but got over it and got the itch again, starting up a group at work in 2015. I ran 3.5e with a homebrew Alternative Roman Empire campaign, every other week for about 2 and a half years. At the end of the campaign the group switched to 5e for the next --because I loved the mechanics I was seeing on Critical Role.

Although the holidays have interrupted things for a few weeks, I'm gming three groups -- a (different) work group in Alt-Rome, a group with some 10- and 11-year-olds in a Feywild setting, and an Eberron adventure. I play in two groups. Most of the groups are every other week, but a couple are weekly. Playing on Roll20 for the last year has been ... not as good. The graphics are fantastic--I'll never match the quality of the JPG battlemaps available online using dry-erase markers--and the speed of dice rolling and addition makes for faster combat. And it's great to be able to pull in monsters and stats instantly. But none of my groups have the bandwidth (or inclination?) to show video in the session, so I really miss out on the non-verbal cues.

I've recently gotten my son hooked on the game, and he wrote his own campaign setting this last year and I started playing in his world this winter... which is as wonderful as a dad's life can get.

My favorite die is a d20 that was gifted to me by one of my players. It says "FUCK" on the 1 side, and "YEAH" on the 20 side -- which is pretty much the whole narrative tension of the game, in one die.
 

Stephan Heinrich

New member
Wizard of Story
@Stephan Hornick: Yes, I have moved permanently to Sweden, and yes, it's great! :)
My closest permanent neighbor lives about 1 km away, so no problems with "social distancering" ;)

MapTool works fine for me, I like its visibility features (line of sight) and its macro features (which I use heavily, I am a programmer in real life). And my players had no choice... either they go the VT way or they must find a new GM. Or, of course, they move to Sweden, too.

Compared with normal sessions is playing with MapTool quite slow. I think this is mainly because by using Skype or Discord, only one person can speak at a time. IMHO is this not MapTool specific, more like a general problem with VT.

...now memories come back... I started way before I moved to Sweden playing with MapTool using a (selfmade) projection table, in order to play with miniatures and to skip drawing the map while I am GMing. This speeded up gameplay (and increased preparation time) quite a bit.
 

Stephan Hornick

Community Goblin & Master of the Archive
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Borderland Explorer
@Stephan Hornick: Yes, I have moved permanently to Sweden, and yes, it's great! :)
My closest permanent neighbor lives about 1 km away, so no problems with "social distancering" ;)

MapTool works fine for me, I like its visibility features (line of sight) and its macro features (which I use heavily, I am a programmer in real life). And my players had no choice... either they go the VT way or they must find a new GM. Or, of course, they move to Sweden, too.

Compared with normal sessions is playing with MapTool quite slow. I think this is mainly because by using Skype or Discord, only one person can speak at a time. IMHO is this not MapTool specific, more like a general problem with VT.

...now memories come back... I started way before I moved to Sweden playing with MapTool using a (selfmade) projection table, in order to play with miniatures and to skip drawing the map while I am GMing. This speeded up gameplay (and increased preparation time) quite a bit.
So, where are you from originally in Germany?
Have you seen our VTT thread? It would be great if you could also share your experiences on what works well with you and what not.
Personally, I moved away from 3rd person view battlemaps towards 1st person view theater of mind GMing. A great (but long) analysis about this was given by @ExileInParadise. Thanks again, Allen! Instead, I am using videos of my players as I would have in a game at the table. This increases the immersion and people get unspoken cues and it is more of a community thing than just another online game. It changed our games drastically.
 

doan

Member
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Hi everyone. My name is Doan. I'm from the Twin Cities in Minnesota. I'm currently DMing two 5e campaigns - a (heavily modified) Descent into Avernus, and a homebrew campaign set in Matt Mercer's Wildemount with many elements of Monte Cook's Arcana of the Ancients mixed in.

I've been DMing since 1981 when I saved up my allowance to buy the Holmes Basic set. My friends and I played some version of that, AD&D, and B/X through high school. I also played online d&d campaigns (Compuserve!) back then somehow. After high school I got involved in lots of other things, and just got back into playing and running D&D a couple years ago. For now all my games are online using roll 20 and Discord or Zoom, but I am really looking forward to sitting around an actual table again someday.

I love all dice. Don't judge.
 

wargamming sorceress

New member
Wizard of Story
Ki ora Everyone,

I'm Nicole also known as Nixie (or Wargaming sorceress on Insta) and I hail from New Zealand AKA Middle Earth. Fun fact: I live about 45mins away from where the Shire set is.

Where it comes to being a GM I'm fairly green having only started about March 2020. I run a Pathfinder 2e campaign where I'm building the story off after the end of a small module. I am also interested in running a Cyberpunk Red or Bunkers & Badasses campaign. This course had come at a great time as I now need to figure out the large story plot and plan the story arcs.

My favourite dice is the D3. Yes, they do exist and they are an adorable little bean that should be used more often.
 

Kikketer

Member
Wizard of Story
My name is Chris. I'm located in Wisconsin USA and I've only really started this whole RPG thing pre-pandemic. I threw myself into being a DM for a table of 10yr olds as an "after school adventure" at my local game shop. Unfortunately since the pandemic I've not had much chance to DM games. My son loves to play and he tends to DM as well.

After spending a couple hours before each after-school adventure and realize that the whole plan got rocked (darn 10yr olds, come up with some wild ideas) I am looking for ways to make planning easier and more dynamic. I've shifted my game-of-choice to be Dungeon World as it allows for some really dynamic play and the world becomes that of the players. I'm looking for all of the lessons I can learn from this group to help me build worlds and adventures quickly and not end up falling flat.

The "5 Room Dungeon" idea brought me in, I'm hoping to really learn the insides of that and other techniques.
 

Stephan Hornick

Community Goblin & Master of the Archive
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Borderland Explorer
Welcome to our party, @wargamming sorceress and @Kikketer!

Nicole, once you create your own thread and post the first couple of ideas for your plot based on Johnn's tutorials on story seeds, I will make sure to visit and help you create some fantastic story. I'm looking forward to it.

Chris, running a game for 10 year olds is some grand work. I've been reading up on running adventures for kids (due to my own kids) and I will make sure to post in your thread once you describe your party based on Johnn's tutorials on the treasure table.
 

Zezzens

New member
Wizard of Story
Hello, I am Karel from Belgium (Dutch speaking).
I play since almost 25 years, mostly with friends, but also and still with my children who are adults now.

When I read the invitation to this course, I recognized myself in the depicted DM.
Hmmm, I really want to change that.

Ps. My English and my writing skills are rather poor, so I will not be commenting a lot. Sorry.
 

Wren

New member
Wizard of Story
Hey Everyone, great to be here!

My Name is Wren and I've been playing DnD for over 40 years. I've recently started to think about GM'ing my own campaign and was looking for a resource to help me gather my thoughts and a community to bounce things off of!

I'm excited to get started and flesh out my thoughts and build an adventure for everyone and anyone to play.

Looking forward to the adventure of building adventures

Wren!
 

JohnnFour

Game Master
Staff member
Adamantium WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Gamer Lifestyle
Demonplague Author
Borderland Explorer
Hey @Wren! Glad you made it.
 
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