The D&D thread

a_skeleton_02 said:

Fine line,

Players like rolling dice but making players roll dice for everything makes it tedious. Example is rolling animal handling to ride a horse, you would assume an adult in the realm would know how to ride a horse so we don't make any rolls for riding horses. If you want to do some trick shit then yeah make a roll.

Click to expand...

That's a different discussion. Should the DM do all rolls for the players, or should the players do their own rolls?

What requires a roll, completely different thing.

Luckily my system comes with a shitload of skills and having the skill already has a cost, so nope, if you don't have horse riding, you're not riding that horse. No roll either.

Quineloe said:

That's a different discussion. Should the DM do all rolls for the players, or should the players do their own rolls?

What requires a roll, completely different thing.

Luckily my system comes with a shitload of skills and having the skill already has a cost, so nope, if you don't have horse riding, you're not riding that horse. No roll either.

Click to expand...

To encourage RP I don't have them roll if they are conversational about attempts or describe in detail what they are doing. If they say, I want to see if this person is lying or I want to sneak in and stab that guy I make them roll.

That's actually been one of my go-to philosophies when DMing. If it's just something that happens vs. a combat roll or something incredibly specific like the final attempt to disarm a trapped door that everyone knows is going to blow up if done wrong, I tend to err on letting the roleplaying decide the outcome. If a guy had shit riding skill (what, 3e?) and talked about his difficulties getting the horse saddled, I wouldn't require rolls to see how fast they were traveling or other stuff (being incredibly generic; my AD&D stuff bleeds into my 3e stuff because that was the kind of group that I played with) And after a time or two of the player talking about his woes, I would just incorporate that issue into descriptions of the party getting on the road. "Everyone but Talis gets their shit in gear, and he spends 10 minutes trying to figure out which foot goes in which stirrup. The horse tries (mock roll) and fails to bite Talis during the process. THE PARTY RIDES TO LOCATION X."

The amount of times players have become attached to literal one off's though is astronomical. There was almost no reason for me to flesh out the main big-bads or even their henchmen. It was all about Fandrys the merchant who complains overly long about his wife's issues, and then the party was suddenly a group of supersleuths who discovered she was part of a cult or something (I'd always just roll "do we keep going down this rabbit hole or not?" type checks vs. actually seeing if they were completing stuff.) If it seemed like half the group was in it and the other half wanted something else, I'd clean it up a bit and end it so that they would get back to the "main" story of the session. But if everyone was on board? Yeah, Frandrys and his wife would become the primary focal points of the story until it was resolved and the players themselves lead back to the original main.

Long story short, let the players dictate the path, just try and make it interesting/fun for them even if you didn't have stuff prepared in advance. My experience is that apparently players hate prepared stuff and love everything you have to make up on the fly.

I only require rolls when characters are "Under Stress" usually.

I am playing in a very fun 5e campaign over the last few years. Low-magic, like, on the continent my toon is one of the 3 magic users. It has been hell trying to find spells, finally hit 7th so can get 4th level spells, which can be so world altering already. Trying to come up with some spell research mechanic to learn spells now has been fun also. We enjoy a mix of combat and heavy rp/world building.

If I ever DM'ed Id take the approach of the horse riding and rolling as something everyone can pretty much do. Everyone can use a basic horse to get around. If your character has never ridden a horse before the group can spend an hour and bam basic riding down. Now if your ambushed or you wanna ride that horse over a ten foot canyon then you bet Im gonna make sure you roll and have some heavy penalties. Basics like climbing a rope, riding a horse, and such should never call for a roll. However certain circumstances can call for a roll. Its about knowing when to make them roll and when not too.

Advent of everyone having phones now, this has eliminated the sticky parade. The sheer about of stickies some ppl pass to the DM would become silly to the point we forced ppl to sit by the DM. Got so bad, DM would roll before taking the sticky. This was a must due to too many ppl over the years not understanding they cant use the knowledge they hear for their toon's knowledge. Just ended up better to not know you were getting backstabbed by fellow gamers, easy to seek revenge without their knowledge or to do setups.

I miss watching RL acts of trials. The DM arguments ending with someone having to physically do something like hopping over furniture, distance jumps or tile path walks. Roomate at the time put his shoulder thru a wall with a giant dent once from one of those.

zero hesitation, grabbed two sets.

Those are pretty cool. I will have to let some ppl know about those.

Does anyone know if there's a campaign that takes you (the travelers) through the Abyss? I am assuming it would have to start around level 10 and go well into epic / mythic levels.

Kuriin said:

Does anyone know if there's a campaign that takes you (the travelers) through the Abyss? I am assuming it would have to start around level 10 and go well into epic / mythic levels.

Click to expand...

Pathfinders Wrath of the Righteous module 4 of 6. I recently adapted it to a 5E campaign, was very successful. Pretty sure we started around level 13, end at level 20. Rush, or Krastalvo may remember better.

Thanks for the advice above, i read it all. I just bought this to teach my kids how to play. I've not played in about 15 years now, and i was always a player, never a DM. I'm a bit nervous about it as i can see what it takes to make it really enjoyable. I don't want them to be bored and i don't want to be fumbling through the books as we are playing. The set comes with pre-made char sheets already (which is nice).
I however do not know all these new rules. Last time i played was 3.5 if i remember correctly, maybe a bit of edition 4 ( i think that's when the ability scores got split into 2 scores per ability score).
I remember taking a whole night just to create a char, starter gear, back story etc... I am hoping i don't have to do this for them. I'm going to do my best not to overwhelm them and i really have to just read the whole thing or at least a good portion to start them off. But, i am nervous about being a DM vs being a player... i've always loved being a player

Hatorade said:

Pathfinders Wrath of the Righteous module 4 of 6. I recently adapted it to a 5E campaign, was very successful. Pretty sure we started around level 13, end at level 20. Rush, or Krastalvo may remember better.

Click to expand...

What level in the Abyss did you go? I would imagine you would have to be even higher than level 20 once you get past D-30. I know in Rappan Athuk, you fight Orcus who is the leader of one of the levels and he is essentially unbeatable (though he can be beaten).

Kuriin said:

What level in the Abyss did you go? I would imagine you would have to be even higher than level 20 once you get past D-30. I know in Rappan Athuk, you fight Orcus who is the leader of one of the levels and he is essentially unbeatable (though he can be beaten).

Click to expand...

13ish, party sorta fought Nocticula and some solars and a few others at level 19 at the end.

Hatorade, do you only do D&D or do you do Pathfinder? Would love to do a Rererolled Roll20 or something that was a very difficult game (like Rappan Athuk or even its prequel!).

We tried that via skype, you were awesome DM but wasnt for me.

Kuriin said:

Does anyone know if there's a campaign that takes you (the travelers) through the Abyss? I am assuming it would have to start around level 10 and go well into epic / mythic levels.

Click to expand...

Probably hard to find, but the Savage Tide adventure path, which came after Age of Worms in Dungeon magazine. The party ends up going to the Abyss around 16th level, and temporary allying with Orcus, Malcanthet, and an army of celestials to face off against Demogorgon.

Terial said:

Thanks for the advice above, i read it all. I just bought this to teach my kids how to play. I've not played in about 15 years now, and i was always a player, never a DM. I'm a bit nervous about it as i can see what it takes to make it really enjoyable. I don't want them to be bored and i don't want to be fumbling through the books as we are playing. The set comes with pre-made char sheets already (which is nice).
I however do not know all these new rules. Last time i played was 3.5 if i remember correctly, maybe a bit of edition 4 ( i think that's when the ability scores got split into 2 scores per ability score).
I remember taking a whole night just to create a char, starter gear, back story etc... I am hoping i don't have to do this for them. I'm going to do my best not to overwhelm them and i really have to just read the whole thing or at least a good portion to start them off. But, i am nervous about being a DM vs being a player... i've always loved being a player

Click to expand...

How did this go?