19 ms·

The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons

351 points by gscott 8y ago

rb666 8y ago
Ironically, the best way to actually play D&D is...online, using Fantasy Grounds software. This saves on an incredible amount of time and micromanagement, creating time for actual RP and gameplay. Highly recommended, plus you can actually include your non-local friends.
- meekins 8y ago
  Roll20 is awesome as well
  - uberswe 8y ago
    Whenever I hear Roll20 I just think of this post https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/9iwarj/after_5_years_on_roll20_i_just_cancelled_and/ https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/9iwarj/after_5_years_o...
    - mcv 8y ago
      I had not heard that yet. I've always had a positive impression of Roll20, although I'd never used it. This makes sure that I never will. That thread is a good source of some alternatives.
- wingerlang 8y ago
  Does the social aspect become different?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
luongdukdong 8y ago
massive data hordes for D&D too.
- 3R3130R 8y ago
  Where? i see only an article about it being popular. please tell me where this data is to be found?
  - taormina 8y ago
    open5e.com has some stuff
    - Ash_Nazg 8y ago
      thank you :)
  - rixrax 8y ago
    Archive.org also appears to have some old TSR AD&D manuals available as a pdf[0]. URL: https://archive.org/search.php?query=tsr%20manual https://archive.org/search.php?query=tsr%20manual
mikejulietbravo 8y ago
Given the amount of studies/reports coming out talking about how bad screen time is for people, and how insane the amount of screen time we all log is - I foresee a big resurgence in anything "analog".
- suprfnk 8y ago
  > the amount of studies/reports coming out talking about how bad screen time is for people I haven't heard of this, do you have any links for me?
trynewideas 8y ago
Is it unlikely? Board games were already growing fast. Even CCGs were growing fast, not only through video games but still as physical games too. People want to sit down and get offline and spend time with each other, _and_ people who used to do that want to get online and hang out with each other. All the RPG market needed was one publisher with good production values and broad distribution to discard a big chunk of its worst, thorniest rules. Wizards was happy to oblige... Pathfinder saw it too with their precursor Beginner Box, which also threw out a big chunk of its worst, thorniest rules and sold like crazy off a Humble Bundle. They just didn't get the distribution (or the right YouTubers on board) until it was too late, and never plugged their Beginner Box into other content as elegantly as Wizards did.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > All the RPG market needed was one publisher with good production values and broad distribution to . Wizards was happy to oblige... I think you can make a very good case that D&D 4e in 2008 was where they decided to “discard a big chunk of its worst, thorniest rules”, and that the big innovation in 5e, released in 2014, was less about discarding thorny rules and more about reconnecting the streamlined rules with the fiction, in a way to preserve (mostly) the mechanical streamlining of 4e while reconnecting with the feel of earlier versions (not just one of those, but supporting the different appeal of multiple of them.) Changes like swapping encounter and daily powers for powers recharging with a short or long rest aren't a big deal mechanically, but they are a shift from pure metagame balance to something that is better tied to actions in the in-game milieu.
  - JoshTriplett 8y ago
    It's not just that. 4e greatly simplified the rules, which made it far more accessible and playable, but it made many classes feel very much the same; every class had daily powers, encounter powers, and at-will powers. 5e managed to make every class feel unique again, and brought many of the classic D&D players back.
    - ajross 8y ago
skywhopper 8y ago
I don't think it's surprising at all. As mentioned here, people are looking for alternatives to spending time online all the time. Then, as the article mentions, LOTR, GOT, and Harry Potter have primed the culture to be big into fantasy. And finally, we're a good 30 years past the peak of the D&D bashing by religious types and the stereotype of it being a game for basement dwelling stoners and creeps, which means we have a full generation of young adults who don't have huge preconceived notions about the game.
tareqak 8y ago
There is one aspect where I think digital board games are superior: you don't have to spend time setting up, putting away, or resetting the game. If there was a way to do that in the analog version as quick as the digital ones, then I would more willing to participate. Another thing might be "saving" the state between long sessions: you can use a camera phone for certain parts, but its more difficult for when there are secrets and you need a neutral 3rd party (e.g. a card hand). Edit/Update: My mistake. I've seen a few photographs of people playing D&D (even the ones in the article), and it seemed like there was more of a board and initial conditions represented by many pieces like board games. I've played board games like Settlers and Monopoly where set up requires more time and effort. Sorry again.
- nouveaux 8y ago
  Digital board games are superior in almost every way except face to face player interaction. For games with a high level of complexity, the analog version is always terrible. Forgetting to move a bit when the game state changes is always a sore point. Unfortunately, these games are generally more challenging to port to digital as well. For more casual games, I prefer to play in person with a beer in hand. (PS My day job is running a game store. If anyone needs a recommendation on a board game, let me know.)
  - dragonsngoblins 8y ago
    This isn't entirely true: physical games allow house ruling, even to the point that the game could be considered a new game. I also disagree that the analog version is terrible in high complexity games compared with the digital version, because for the groups I play in the overhead of the complexity causes analysis paralysis... the automation of a digital version doesn't really help that much in my experience
  - usmannk 8y ago
    I'd love a recommendation on a starter game (or a few!) if you find yourself with a minute! I play with a group who, including myself, are novices when it comes boardgames. Between 3-6 players most of the time. We found ourselves getting really into Puerto Rico and recently tried Terraforming Mars but didn't _love_ it. I think TR would be better on a second playthrough when we actually know the rules though :). I played Battlestar Galactica once as well and found it great! Looking at boardgamegeeks is a bit intense with the selection there so I'm hoping you might have a narrower range to suggest.
sudosteph 8y ago
Paradoxically, tech has actually made DnD much more accessible to the masses. When my friends and I first started playing 3.5 in middle school, we pooled our money for a single player's handbook (they were pricey back then!) and would constantly be passing it around any time anyone needed to do anything, which really slowed down the pace of the game and made it hard to get intimately familiar with the rules. Eventually someone found a PDF dump of some books, and suddenly not only did we have access to useful stuff like the monster manual and DM guide, but we could search the text super quickly and get familiar with the rules at home, on our own time. Now that we're adults who can actually afford the books, we don't need the PDFs - but we still benefit from using phone apps for dice rolling and spellbooks, and roll20 for combat.
- ajross 8y ago
  I've timed it in actual play: it's quicker to google for a monster stat block (one from the SRD, obviously) than it is to look it up in the Monster Manual sitting right next to the laptop.
  - klodolph 8y ago
    Sure, but from experience in play, sticky notes in the Monster Manual are much faster for switching back and forth than browser tabs are.
    - ajross 8y ago
      That's a cache, though, when the use case at hand is random access. I mean, if I'm willing to do some prep work I can surely do even better than sticky notes (like, heh, "google for all the monsters ahead of time and line them all up in browser tabs").
      - klodolph 8y ago
        Perhaps that's your use case, it's not mine. How DMs prepare, if they do, is highly variable. But most DMs choose monsters ahead of time. This appears in survey data in The Lazy Dungeon Master. The questionnaires are interesting, when asked how they would prepare for a session if they only had 30 minutes, most DMs explicitly mentioned choosing monsters. Over the years, my personal experience is that running things out of the browser or PDF is great if you need to search for random rules and other situations that come up during the game, but paper books and notes are overwhelmingly superior for expected conditions like encounters and monsters. I've used various laptop systems (wikis, docs, text files), apps, and paper systems (typed, handwritten, paper or notecard). On the balance of things I decided that running the game with a laptop was worse than running a game without one, at least the way I play the game. That's just a personal choice, but it seems like most DMs do choose monsters ahead of time.
Mizza 8y ago
Want to play but don't know how to get started? Try my guide! https://github.com/Miserlou/dnd-tldr https://github.com/Miserlou/dnd-tldr
- SSilver2k2 8y ago
  Thanks for Zappa!
- emasirik 8y ago
  I like this a lot; I'll be trying it on a few victi--er, boardgamers I think might be able to appreciate tabletop RPGs but are pushed back by both social stigmas and a belief that the rules are more complex than they are. It solves the latter problem, at least. :)
- jrochkind1 8y ago
  This is how I played the game as a kid. You don't really need any rules at all, we had no idea which "edition" of D&D we were playing, the DM just decided what a roll would mean. We did it this way cause some very experienced older DM's introduced it. It does depend on the DM being good at telling an interactive story to be fun. but i suspect it does anyway?
ergothus 8y ago
The article undersells the whole story. The Open Gaming License of 3rd edition D&D was definitely open source inspired (despite my personal beefs with it) and kicked of a huge burst of new game developers, and that bubble collapsed right on the tails of the CCG collapse, which caused a big churn in the industry. This led to a spike of online offerings, and the crowdsourcing era has meant that while the last 10 years is anything but safe for authors, for players it us as golden age. Well beyond d&d (though there too) there is a wealth of options and better support and community than ever, between publishers and players, and amongst players. Tabletop games continue, as do video chat based games and play by post forums. All while the old school games, MOOs and MUSHes thrive. Different playstyles are supported, the communities are getting better about tolerance, and the Satanic Panic is not part of mainstream culture anymore.
- teach 8y ago
  I play D&D in person using a paper character sheet and physical dice, but I created that sheet using D&D Beyond. And most of the rest of the party uses D&D Beyond on iPads. Holy hell is that more convenient for tracking spells and subtle rule interactions than what I used to have to do as a kid. In my eyes, it's letting technology do what it does best -- get details right -- and frees up slightly more casual players to do the fun roleplaying part without being so bogged down.
  - gota 8y ago
    Sorry if this is lazy but I can't really Google game related stuff right now, but can you link an image with that sheet?
- simonh 8y ago
  The OGL was a big deal and hugely beneficial to the pen and paper RPG community as a whole. A lot of small publishers got their start publishing OGL supplements and then branched out into their own original games. That plus cheap digital publishing, and a one-stop-shop to buy PDFs in the form of DrivethruRPG, Kickstarter, plus the rise in geek culture generally through things like Comic Con has lead to a huge resurgence in gaming. It's never been better.
nihil75 8y ago
I was hoping it's catching with kids, but just adults..
- floren 8y ago
  Two of the photos in the article are of kids playing D&D, and there's mention of it in the text itself. Kids like D&D.
  - nihil75 8y ago
    The kids are playing with their parents: "it didn't take too much convincing to get the whole family to play, including his 73-year-old grandmother." The surge in Twitch and podcasting is adults: "One of the most popular live-play Dungeons & Dragons web series is Critical Role, featuring a core group of eight professional voice actors adventuring through custom campaigns written and led by dungeon master Matthew Mercer. " Why you diss me man
    - floren 8y ago
      What the hell are you talking about? Look for the ones captioned "Irvin Reynolds, top left, leads weekly D&D sessions for kids at Uncle's Games." and "RPG Research Vice President John Welker leads Dungeons & Dragons sessions for kids twice a month at Spark Central in Kendall Yards."
joe_the_user 8y ago
If anyone is curious, I run a Pathfinder (D&D fork) campaign in the Santa Rosa, CA area. https://www.meetup.com/Sonomacountyrpg/events/pvhbpqyzcbrb/ https://www.meetup.com/Sonomacountyrpg/events/pvhbpqyzcbrb/
nouveaux 8y ago
Not only Dungeons and Dragons, board games are making huge waves around the world. As a game store owner, I have observed a huge growth in tabletop games, including board games. So it's probably not a coincidence that the most highly rated board game (at least according to Board Game Geek) is an RPG based board game. At the time of its kickstarter, I think it raised the most money as well. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/174430/gloomhaven https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/174430/gloomhaven Speaking of kickstarter, I believe some of its most funded ideas were board games.
- scroot 8y ago
  Pandemic Legacy is some of the most fun a person can have!
- adamredwoods 8y ago
  I've found Gloomhaven, Pathfinder The Card Game, or other "hybrid RPGs" to be the better experience because it doesn't take up a full day.
  - brandoncordell 8y ago
    Maybe my group is doing something wrong because Gloomhaven takes up at the VERY least 3-5 hours each time we play. That's only with 1-2 dungeons.
- sparkzilla 8y ago
  I've just spent the past week reading/watching game reviews on BoardGame Geek. So many great games, so little time and money!
cordonbleu 8y ago
IRC is loaded with channels where games are occuring. mostly closed channels but very rich and real world complex espescially if you have a channel of players roleplaying NPCs in character vs a channel of characters playing the adventure. also echo dot understands what to do if i say echo roll 6d6.
ryanmercer 8y ago
I personally know of at least 5 people that started playing D&D because of Stranger Things of all things.
- dwd 8y ago
  I first played it in the 80s and then again in the 90s as an aside to playing MTG. The opening to ET was my first exposure.
  - ryanmercer 8y ago
    Mine was cub scouts, someone's older brother. I was already playing MTG then though from Taekwondo back in 94. I don't think I started playing D&D or others like VtM until 97 (I remember buying the VtM book and then months later a new version came out) and even then I played VtM almost exclusively on IRC heh.
- freedomben 8y ago
  Likewise, several people. Stranger Things also got some people (like myself) who never tried before to give it a whirl.
  - harryf 8y ago
    Watched stranger things with my teenage kids which led me to show them DND. They found a nice break from playing fantasy related computer games
tunesmith 8y ago
We started playing a year ago, it was my first time playing since the mid-80's, and we're doing it all from my old AD&D (first edition) books and modules that I had collected from then. We really like it because as a group of newbies - four of the five players had never played before - it gives us permission to do things that are really fun but we never really would have found time to do before. We've incorporated poetry reading, table-reading of scripts, songs, and silly tasks (I made my wife pick a real estate lockbox we didn't have the combination for, before her thief could advance to level 2). So for us anyway, it wasn't anything about Wizards of the Coast or 5e... this is strictly Gygax-level stuff we're playing. But I think some of it is a blowback from many of us just feeling exhausted and discouraged about online life, there is greater appetite for making these sorts of memories and being creative together.
- fitzroy 8y ago
  This is the D&D I remember. Half the time we we didn't have the books accessible (basically each friend had bought a single book, so if they weren't around, neither was their book). Due to limited transportation, we spent most of one summer playing on a 3-way phone chain. Whenever someone's parents needed the phone their character would become an NPC until they could dial back in. No maps — just a lot of trust and imagination.
- sudosteph 8y ago
  That sounds like a good time! I've actually had some of the most fun role-playing experiences playing with new players who don't really have a preconceived on what the typical limits of role-playing should be. For example, we've got one player who decided to try and buy drugs in-game at one of the seedier cities we were stopping at. Fast-forward many sessions later, and she's now a kingpin of sorts with an owl-delivery service and contacts of varying trustworthiness all over the place. It does help to have a very creative DM who likes creating random effects (inhaling ground up flail snail shell turned out to be particularly silly) and teammates who don't get bent out of shape over "less than optimal" play or whatever.
iheartpotatoes 8y ago
I had a 25+ year gap in my D&D gaming. It started again when I moved to the PNW and met a couple in their 40's who took gaming very seriously, and started playing with them again. They introduced me to something I had overlooked: comic book stores that had Walmart-sized gaming arenas! Now I'm hooked again, but with people who care more about story than treasure. The amount of work my DM puts into backstory is insane, and he asks the same of us (well, not insane levels, but a commitment to character). TL;DR - Playing D&D as an adult, with adults, is vastly different than playing as a teen.
topmonk 8y ago
Just figured I mention tabletop simulator which is a sandbox and editor that allows you to recreate and play nearly any boardgame ever created. I'm using it to play a tabletop RPG with some other people I met online, and it works very well. https://store.steampowered.com/app/286160/Tabletop_Simulator/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/286160/Tabletop_Simulator...
- brandoncordell 8y ago
  And you can find almost any game you can imagine in the workshop for free. Best part is that some of the complicated games are scripted with Lua so you don't have to worry about setting up the game yourself.
nevster 8y ago
For anyone interested in checking out what their old collection may be worth, head over here : https://www.acaeum.com/ https://www.acaeum.com/
irrational 8y ago
I would think a major factor would be the surge of modern board games. Last year alone 5,000 new board games were published. This is called the golden age of board games, and D&D would seem to be just one aspect of this trend.
cschep 8y ago
offtopic! but very cool to see a story from the Inlander that includes bits and bobs from Spokane, WA come across Hacker News :)
ilaksh 8y ago
I think that D&D is interesting in terms of the contrast with computer roleplaying games. In a way it does a good job of showing both the current strengths and weaknesses of computers. Managing the rules and stats by hand can be fun, but I have seen many recorded sessions where it is obviously a burden that a computer would be perfectly suited for. On the other hand, aspects of D&D like face-to-face interaction and language-based free creativity are things the computer can't handle well. Although video chat is a thing. Computers can't understand language at this point so they can't manage everything for you. Of course DMing is the most fun for many people so they wouldn't want a computer to DM. I wonder if there would be a way to translate the freedom that you get as a DM or player in terms of world creation, scenario management, and freedom of action, to an interactive video-game type experience. Maybe in VR?
- sudosteph 8y ago
  Neverwinter Nights 2 had some solid tools for campaign building that were the closest I've seen to creating a world with scenarios like those you see in DnD. It helps that the game was almost literalally DnD, but still impressive. I don't think DM'ing is necessarily fun though. Most everyone I know who DMs sometimes, including me, finds it to be pretty stressful and a lot of work. The real value to me, is that a really good DM knows when to break the rules to enhance the game experience, and how to do it without making people angry. They create scenarios that specifically challenge the characters that are playing, not just for combat, but for role-playing purposes. Ie, a Lawful wizard is tempted to steal a scroll that would contain the knowledge he seeks the most, or a cleric who must decide whether to uphold her team's plan to ally with an unscrupulous NPC, or to go rogue in the name of their ethical code and deliver justice to said NPC. Good storytelling and cooperative play is just something that comes very naturally to some people, and having a human in the loop to respond to events in the context of an overarching narrative and party experience is really hard ot beat.
  - ilaksh 8y ago
    Thanks for the info on Neverwinter Nights 2. I will check it out. I agree about having a human in the loop. My idea though was that maybe you could have the best of both worlds with a computer to help the DM. The trick would be making the sandbox rich and responsive enough that the DM and characters would really have freedom in the moment. Maybe the DM could have tools that easily allow him to rez and customize appropriate objects and NPCs in the visualization.
hellepardo 8y ago
My friends and I play D&D because we have no real other option. We used to play Minecraft and other collaborative building games as a group, but then one in our group went fully blind. There is a complete lack of good multiplayer computer games for entirely blind players (admittedly that is quite a challenge), but D&D requires only imagination, which all of us still have. Highly recommend if you have friends with vision disabilities.
- ravedave5 8y ago
  I haven't done anything but one of the quick D&D campaigns with the prebuilt characters but I am REALLY enjoying gloomhaven as an alternative. I know there's some vision required there but it seems similar to D&D.
  - ZeikJT 8y ago
    It's an alternative if your favorite part about D&D is fighting (if so I'd recommend 4th instead of 5th). The role playing you do in Gloomhaven is non-existent in comparison.
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- mLuby 8y ago
  Losing one's imagination seems more common than losing one's sight. :(
  - pat_space 8y ago
    This comment inspires me to work on my art.
  - tuesdayrain 8y ago
    That sounds like a good thing to me. It would be unfortunate if going blind was more common
jimjimjim 8y ago
My interest was rekindled by the Acquisitions Incorporated Podcasts with Chris Perkins and Penny Arcade.
- DaniloDias 8y ago
  It is kinda criminal that they are overlooked in this article. Some genuinely hilarious content in these videos. http://www.acq-inc.com/portfolio/category/live-show http://www.acq-inc.com/portfolio/category/live-show
tomc1985 8y ago
What a shame that all this attention goes to D&D. There are so many other good tabletop games with exquisite worldbuilding, languishing for attention... Vampire: The Masquerade, RIFTS (my personal fav)
- PhasmaFelis 8y ago
  Rifts has a wonderfully gonzo setting saddled with possibly the worst rules system available in this century. The Savage Worlds conversion is pretty cool, though.
  - tomc1985 8y ago
    LOL, I loved Palladium's weirdo rules, particularly the SDC/MDC distinction with Rifts and a few others. Don't think I've seen/heard anything about a Savage Worlds conversion. Do you have any details on that? And it's a shame how Palladium died, small company got fucked over by their accountant
    - bitsai 8y ago
      There's a whole raft of "Rifts for Savage Worlds" products now (https://www.peginc.com/product-category/rifts/ https://www.peginc.com/product-category/rifts/), but really I think you need only the following two to get going: https://www.peginc.com/store/rifts-the-tomorrow-legion-players-guide-pdf/ https://www.peginc.com/store/rifts-the-tomorrow-legion-playe... https://www.peginc.com/store/rifts-game-masters-handbook/ https://www.peginc.com/store/rifts-game-masters-handbook/
    - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
      They didn't die. Kevin Siembieda sold a bunch of art prints and asked fans to buy books direct from the web store, and they got back in the black. That was 12 years ago and they're still alive. Siembieda has a habit of going all-in on bad ideas and then blaming everyone but himself afterwards. E.G., there was interest in a Rifts video game, so he licensed a studio to make one...for the Nokia N-Gage, despite all his fans urgently telling him that it was a dumpster fire. Then when the game flopped like everything associated with the N-Gage, he announced that no one could have seen this coming and clearly video games weren't a good avenue for Palladium. More than once he's commissioned a book, talked up the author in a big way, then by the time the manuscript is half-completed he's decided to cancel the book and tell everyone that it's because the author just didn't get it. And apparently a lot of the losses to the crooked accountant happened because Palladium had no inventory control system, so no one realized stuff was vanishing. All of which is to say, I suspect that anyone but Siembieda wouldn't have fallen victim to that guy in the first place. (Oh, and there was a $1.5 million Kickstarter that somehow crashed and burned with 90% of the promised materials undelivered, even though all the tooling was ready and they were actually printing books.)
b_tterc_p 8y ago
5e made great progrsss by stripping down rules and making things more accessible. I think they should do it even further. The core game is fun, but combat is quite slow, tedious, and, in my opinion, not much of a good role play experience. Nix weapon stats, health, spell slots, etc. Differentiate more heavily on specialties. Ward off fear of death with a system of injuries and what not. Fighting can still be a huge part of the game, but it shouldn’t be the underlying goal of most mechanics.
- plopz 8y ago
  It sounds like you might like Dungeon World a lot more than D&D.
baroffoos 8y ago
I would love to play it but physical games require you to meet up and everyone is too spaced out in this city to visit.
- Pxtl 8y ago
  Lots of folks play these games in video chats.
  - baroffoos 8y ago
    Huh, thats a really good idea
  - shadowbound 8y ago
    -or irc or pichat or a hybrid situation, with distance players and table players
  - C1sc0cat 8y ago
    I am starting a starfinder (pathfinder in space) that is doing that as well as publishing on yahoo.
- pkaye 8y ago
  There is roll20.net which lets people play online. Roll dice, manage maps, video chat. You can also search for groups that are open.
- zeisss 8y ago
  My friends and I play via Google Hangout and Google Draw. Works well enough.
shadowbound 8y ago
Anyone knows how to build alexa skills, i think this is a chance! Alexa activate D&D skill Alexa how many hit dice does a red dragon have? Alexa how many days walking from harkenwald to fallcrest?
- ZoomZoomZoom 8y ago
  I think there's some precedent using Alexa for DnD, although I'm not a user myself. https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/6f0s97/i_started_using_alexa_with_my_sessions/ https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/6f0s97/i_started_using...
_emacsomancer_ 8y ago
A really nice D&D 'implementation' is Lamentations of the Flame Princess, at least in terms of the supplements, particularly Zak Smith's stuff. The last time I played D&D was during the 2e era (though I stubbornly stuck to 1e), and the LotFP has some of the flavour of the good I remember from that time (with its own twists).
Trisell 8y ago
If you enjoy D&D then Critcal Role[1] is a must watch. Matt Merser is an amazing DM. And the other players(all professional voice actors) are really good as well. It’s great sit on the couch for a while or watch while working type of fare. Each episode is multiple hours of great voice acting and D&D. [1] https://critrole.com https://critrole.com
- oliyoung 8y ago
  +1 on this. Critical Role is the perfect storm of * great friends just playing a home game on stream * who are excellent voice actors (they have Overwatch, Last of Us, Spider-Man, Horizon ++++ credits) * who aren't afraid of improv and who GET D&D
- mcjiggerlog 8y ago
  Also relevant - check out HarmonQuest[1], it's Dan Harmon (of Rick & Morty) doing a campaign which is then animated over. It's absolutely hilarious and very well made. Also, given each episode is only 25 minutes it's not quite as big of a commitment as Critical Role! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HarmonQuest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HarmonQuest
- C1sc0cat 8y ago
  And the players are so well behaved :-) I have found that watching CR has changed the way I Dm and play as a character.
- _pmf_ 8y ago
  Thanks; as someone who has never played "hardware" DnD, this looks very interesting!
seanmcdirmid 8y ago
I’ve always liked reading the sources and watching people playing RPGs more than playing them myself. So all the new litrpg’s that are coming out these days (eg on royalroaddl) have been great for scratching that itch. I wonder if this is related to the current resurgence?
kriro 8y ago
In Germany there's at least one other big P&P RPG called "Das Schwarze Auge" (sold in the US as "The dark Eye" iirc and not very successful). I think it's a good system and the lore is pretty nice (even though compared to my child-self I now realized a lot of it is heavily influenced by real world history/cultures). Which makes me wonder...what are other native language systems that are popular in the country but might not be known outside? My working hypothesis would be that those exist in many countries because P&P RPGs are language driven after all and so native language systems are the most natural tool for storytelling. Please do share if you're from a non-US country and have an interesting system (and share if it is the go to system over DnD or comparable in popularity).
- ekianjo 8y ago
  L oeil Noir! Surprised to know it still lives on. Is the scene very active?
  - kriro 8y ago
    It's still very popular in Germany with new adventures, boxes and also a lot of novels set in the universe being released. As an aside: I also really like the old PC games "Das Schwarze Auge: Die Nordland-Trilogie" (Realms of Arkania in English iirc) but it's a very unique/strange adaptation. It's very close to the game system but has been criticized quite a bit for the gameplay content (I actually liked the storylines). When you selected the complex rule system it was very fun to just level the characters and try all the spells etc. The round based combat was also very unique/interesting (imo)
    - baud147258 8y ago
      There's a remake of Realms of Arkania which has been released a few years ago.
- golergka 8y ago
  Age of Aquarius https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%AD%D1%80%D0%B0_%D0%92%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B5%D1%8F_(%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D0%B8%D0%B3%D1%80%D0%B0) https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%AD%D1%80%D0%B0_%D0%92%D0%B... was a pretty popular Russian role-playing game back in the day. Setting is modern urban fantasy (with guns and spells), with spies and magic mixed up together. I used to play it a lot in high school in early 00s, and at my first job in the game industry I actually got to know one of the game's creators, Slava Makarov, who later went on to create World of Tanks. I didn't know the game got the second edition in 2011 until just now, though.
bzingah 8y ago
i have this idea of using VR and a pokemon go approach to LARP D&D. goggles on and wander the area while your goggles respond to various QR codes placed about to produce goblins and treasure or dungeon environments, and on.
etxm 8y ago
I keep thinking I want to get back into D&D. Would love to play some RIFTS or Shadowrun too.
- mcv 8y ago
  I'm in the process of starting a Shadowrun campaign with old friends. We've played Pathfinder over the past couple of years, but want to try something else, particularly after our biggest Pathfinder-fan quit.
JimRoepcke 8y ago
I'd really like to see someone write "The unsurprising resurgence of Dungeons of Dragons".
quadcore 8y ago
I just realised what was really magical to me with pen&paper rpgs. My uncle used to have this funny / ridiculous trick of his, with a deck of cards where he would secretly see the bottom card of the deck while finishing shuffling it and then ask you: "red or black?". You'd say "red", then if the bottom card was red, he would say "then we take the red", or if the card was black he would say "then remains the black". Basically whatever you would say would lead to the bottom card and you'd supposedly be amazed when he'd show it to you. In a rpg, it's like "you're in the forest, what you do?", "well I walk east". "ok you found a tower". Whatever you do, you'd find that tower haha. It's like whatever you say have fun consequences but with thousands more options than my uncle's trick.
SubiculumCode 8y ago
The saddest thing about having board games is not having anyone come over to play them. In particular for me at the moment, I have Battles of Westeros https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/67492/battles-westeros https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/67492/battles-westeros that many feel is one of the best tactical board games out there: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/979785/battles-westeros-immensely-deep-strategy-experienc https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/979785/battles-westeros-imm... and yet I've played it twice in five years. ;(
- tialaramex 8y ago
  To be fair, deep strategy games aren't exactly the most friendly thing to just "dip your toe into", especially two player deep strategy. If you wanted more chances for people to come over and play games few things could be worse. Maybe 18xx (very crunchy simulationist games about early railways) or full blown scale wargaming (e.g. Napoleonic). But even lighter variants of those let people ease into it (e.g. skirmish wargaming, you can buy a couple of boxes of miniatures and play skirmish variants of 40K or various WW2 settings, and there are train sim games where you just run trains and don't have a stock market, a territorial map and so on) I know I won't have people over often enough to justify big set piece games, so I carry things like "Love Letter" which you can play in a pub in 10 minutes.
  - SubiculumCode 8y ago
    That is very fair assessment that I also share. That is why I have other games. But I do lament it! For the most part, I get my gaming in by playing with people using play-by-post in a Pathfinder roleplaying forum, which I like alot for the creative writing and rp.
- mcv 8y ago
  I've had the same problem. Then I got married, and my oldest son is now 9, and we played Terraforming Mars this weekend and he loves it. It takes a bit of time and investment, but there is a way out.
kraag22 8y ago
I play something similar to D&D for 20 years and won't stop anytime soon :)
beefsack 8y ago
I've tried and failed to get into some RPG campaigns in a few different systems (my general anxiety didn't help) but I listen to and absolutely adore The Adventure Zone podcast[1]. There's scope for some really wonderful collaborative storytelling in these systems, and the TAZ group are a few brothers and their dad and they gel together perfectly. Helps that they have lots of podcasting experience too, very high quality production. [1]: https://www.maximumfun.org/shows/adventure-zone https://www.maximumfun.org/shows/adventure-zone
- thebouv 8y ago
  I used to listen to TAZ but once the story started getting more and more away from traditional fantasy or even high fantasy, I got bored with it. Specifically the Crystal Kingdom arc drove me away. Just couldn't get into it.
Angostura 8y ago
I can confirm that my 15 year old daughter and her group of friends got into it because of Stranger things. Now have regular sessions with obligatory pizza. I'm rather jealous.
johnchristopher 8y ago
I don't like the new crop and the new style. Tables I played were overtly aggressive in a bad nerdy/intellectual way. I could sense the influence of mmorpgs and competitive tabletop games. I play for the story and the camaraderie, not to master loopholes in the rules and asserting dominance through numbers.
- simonh 8y ago
  D&D 5 has a lot less of that than say 3.0 and 3.5 or Pathfinder, they're gone a long way to streamline the system. The general trend in RPGs over the last few decades has been towards lighter weight, more story driven games. I'm not personally a fan of D&D and it's tropes, and even then I'd go for something lighter like Dungeon World, but for what it is D&D 5 hits the nail on the head. If you're interested, Meetup has a lot of local games groups listed you can try out to see if you can connect with a like-minded bunch of people.
  - johnchristopher 8y ago
    Thanks. I checked meetup again but there are no groups where I live (Belgium).
projectramo 8y ago
There are two reasons to pick other game systems over D&D: 1. You don't want the medieval + magic world and want to explore other timelines. Maybe futuristic, Star Wars etc. 2. You don't like the mechanics. Maybe the game system complexity slows you down or else there is some weird arbitrage opportunity that messes up the incentives. (Let's spend the whole game killing orc babies to build up XP instead of solving the clues and then just beat up the bad guy at the end). Do people have good recommendations for substitutes that solves #2?
- docker_up 8y ago
  Isn't #2 solved by a good Dungeon Master? The DM should be able to take control of the game so that players aren't just going around killing orc babies. "In the distance, you see a group of 1000 orc parents coming searching for the killers of their babies..."
  - projectramo 8y ago
    I don't like too much explicit intervention by the DM. Part of it has to feel like the player to feel like there are fair predictable rules that the game adheres to. Yes, the DM has to step in to make sure the game feels good, but the extra work to combat game mechanics doesn't feel like a good use of the DM's time. Your solution is a good, creative one but I don't like that poor mechanics got us here.
- dljsjr 8y ago
  A lot of 5th edition adventure modules have started advocating "milestone levels" instead of XP levels. It requires a good DM to know when it's appropriate to award a level up but it's basically DM fiat leveling; XP is gone entirely and the DM decides when your party levels up typically based on the party achieving certain milestones -- find the McGuffin, defeat the boss, solve the mystery, etc. I'm running Curse of Strahd for my table right now and we're using milestone levels instead of XP and the players seem to really enjoy it.
  - projectramo 8y ago
wenc 8y ago
I'm just wondering, are there many casual D&D groups for non-geeks? (like the Adrian family featured in the article) My only exposure to D&D was the episode of the "Community", and it looked pretty fun. I wonder if the demographics of that group is normal. I only ask because most of my friends have this perception that D&D personalities are a little "awkward" and would not give it a chance, but have no issues going to board-game nights.
- dljsjr 8y ago
  So I felt the same way about it; I'm a card-carrying nerd but most of my friends are decidedly non-geeks who still enjoy board game nights. At first, it started off with me being afraid of introducing them to the less mainstream boardgames. But one night I pitched Settlers of Catan (not exactly underground but also not Monopoly by any stretch) and surprisingly they took to it. And as we started playing more and more esoteric board games (some of them even having faux tabletop/RPG elements to them) I was continually surprised that everyone continued to enjoy them. The most surprising thing to me, though, is that eventually they approached me about trying out D&D. It was something I'd wanted to do for a while but had never communicated it to them because I just assumed they wouldn't be interested. Point being: You may be surprised. You have nothing to lose by suggesting it to them other than them saying "no". The 5th edition starter set even has the option of using pregenerated characters to reduce the friction. Maybe even start by showing them one of the CelibriDnD videos on YouTube; there's one with Vin Diesel and one with Terry Crews, not people who the general public usually think of as geeky.
- naravara 8y ago
  >I only ask because most of my friends have this perception that D&D personalities are a little "awkward" and would not give it a chance, but have no issues going to board-game nights. The game only has as much awkwardness as you bring with you. If they like each others' company playing Settlers of Catan or whatever, there's no reason that will change playing D&D. That said, it does take a little commitment and pushing out of your comfort zone to really get into role-playing. But in that sense, your D&D group shouldn't be any more awkward than an Improv troupe, music jam session, or Toastmasters meeting. Any time you're asking people to "perform" in some way it can be uncomfortable, but it's the good kind of discomfort that helps you grow as a person.
loydb 8y ago
I am still running a campaign that started in 1979, with many of the same players. We can only manage once/month, because getting 8-9 adults together is a scheduling nightmare (thanks Doodle!), but we still love it just as much.
- lordnacho 8y ago
  Have the lifestyles of the characters changed with the people who play them?
  - Timpy 8y ago
    This is a great question. I can see changes reflected in the characters I want create as I go through different things in life, and I've only been playing for a few years.
packetpirate 8y ago
I got into D&D by chance around 2009. Unfortunately I started with 4th Edition (I know...), but I'm very happy that I did, because all throughout High School I was one of the outcasts, but never had any of these mediums to confide in, and often made fun of "nerds" even though I technically was one. Just playing D&D has given me another way to meet new people and do something other than play video games in my free time. I only wish I had more time in the week. I have too many hobbies.
Graham24 8y ago
I am currently DMing The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, every Sunday at 8:30pm.
Rooster61 8y ago
I love DnD 5e and its approachability/newb-friendlyness. That said, the game I have become enamored with here recently (one that I feel is underrated) is Shadowrun. It gets a bad rep (somewhat deservedly so) because of its overwhelming depth and detail/learning curve, and the pretty horribly written core handbook. But once you get past the pointy bits and really learn the utility of the system, it's a pretty fantastic game that really scratches that itch for cyberpunk fantasy. It isn't just DnD plopped into fake leather trenchcoats and hacky-hacky terminals (it has those things, of course). The gameplay is set up differently, and has a heist-movie like flow, consisting of "shadowruns" which are follow a meet client->make plan->prepare->execute flow, and lends itself well to one-off sessions. Give it a shot if someone around is interested and has played it before. You might like it.
Balgair 8y ago
I blame /r/dndgreentext and Critical Roll in part. Those highlights are addictively fun to read/watch. Sir Bearington level DnD is a life goal for sure.
eltoozero 8y ago
How funny, I just started picking up some GURPS material because I wanted some RPG action that wasn’t all dungeon crawling hack n’ slash. Between Cyberpunk, Illuminati, Atomic Horror, and a little Cthulhupunk, should be some good times; if I can get a campaign together...

351 points by gscott 8y ago

Ironically, the best way to actually play D&D is...online, using Fantasy Grounds software. This saves on an incredible amount of time and micromanagement, creating time for actual RP and gameplay. Highly recommended, plus you can actually include your non-local friends.

meekins 8y ago
Roll20 is awesome as well
- uberswe 8y ago
  Whenever I hear Roll20 I just think of this post https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/9iwarj/after_5_years_on_roll20_i_just_cancelled_and/ https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/9iwarj/after_5_years_o...
  - mcv 8y ago
    I had not heard that yet. I've always had a positive impression of Roll20, although I'd never used it. This makes sure that I never will. That thread is a good source of some alternatives.
wingerlang 8y ago
Does the social aspect become different?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

luongdukdong 8y ago

massive data hordes for D&D too.

3R3130R 8y ago
Where? i see only an article about it being popular. please tell me where this data is to be found?
- taormina 8y ago
  open5e.com has some stuff
  - Ash_Nazg 8y ago
    thank you :)
- rixrax 8y ago
  Archive.org also appears to have some old TSR AD&D manuals available as a pdf[0]. URL: https://archive.org/search.php?query=tsr%20manual https://archive.org/search.php?query=tsr%20manual

mikejulietbravo 8y ago

Given the amount of studies/reports coming out talking about how bad screen time is for people, and how insane the amount of screen time we all log is - I foresee a big resurgence in anything "analog".

suprfnk 8y ago
> the amount of studies/reports coming out talking about how bad screen time is for people I haven't heard of this, do you have any links for me?

trynewideas 8y ago

Is it unlikely? Board games were already growing fast. Even CCGs were growing fast, not only through video games but still as physical games too. People want to sit down and get offline and spend time with each other, _and_ people who used to do that want to get online and hang out with each other. All the RPG market needed was one publisher with good production values and broad distribution to discard a big chunk of its worst, thorniest rules. Wizards was happy to oblige... Pathfinder saw it too with their precursor Beginner Box, which also threw out a big chunk of its worst, thorniest rules and sold like crazy off a Humble Bundle. They just didn't get the distribution (or the right YouTubers on board) until it was too late, and never plugged their Beginner Box into other content as elegantly as Wizards did.

dragonwriter 8y ago
> All the RPG market needed was one publisher with good production values and broad distribution to . Wizards was happy to oblige... I think you can make a very good case that D&D 4e in 2008 was where they decided to “discard a big chunk of its worst, thorniest rules”, and that the big innovation in 5e, released in 2014, was less about discarding thorny rules and more about reconnecting the streamlined rules with the fiction, in a way to preserve (mostly) the mechanical streamlining of 4e while reconnecting with the feel of earlier versions (not just one of those, but supporting the different appeal of multiple of them.) Changes like swapping encounter and daily powers for powers recharging with a short or long rest aren't a big deal mechanically, but they are a shift from pure metagame balance to something that is better tied to actions in the in-game milieu.
- JoshTriplett 8y ago
  It's not just that. 4e greatly simplified the rules, which made it far more accessible and playable, but it made many classes feel very much the same; every class had daily powers, encounter powers, and at-will powers. 5e managed to make every class feel unique again, and brought many of the classic D&D players back.
  - ajross 8y ago

skywhopper 8y ago

I don't think it's surprising at all. As mentioned here, people are looking for alternatives to spending time online all the time. Then, as the article mentions, LOTR, GOT, and Harry Potter have primed the culture to be big into fantasy. And finally, we're a good 30 years past the peak of the D&D bashing by religious types and the stereotype of it being a game for basement dwelling stoners and creeps, which means we have a full generation of young adults who don't have huge preconceived notions about the game.

tareqak 8y ago

There is one aspect where I think digital board games are superior: you don't have to spend time setting up, putting away, or resetting the game. If there was a way to do that in the analog version as quick as the digital ones, then I would more willing to participate. Another thing might be "saving" the state between long sessions: you can use a camera phone for certain parts, but its more difficult for when there are secrets and you need a neutral 3rd party (e.g. a card hand). Edit/Update: My mistake. I've seen a few photographs of people playing D&D (even the ones in the article), and it seemed like there was more of a board and initial conditions represented by many pieces like board games. I've played board games like Settlers and Monopoly where set up requires more time and effort. Sorry again.

nouveaux 8y ago
Digital board games are superior in almost every way except face to face player interaction. For games with a high level of complexity, the analog version is always terrible. Forgetting to move a bit when the game state changes is always a sore point. Unfortunately, these games are generally more challenging to port to digital as well. For more casual games, I prefer to play in person with a beer in hand. (PS My day job is running a game store. If anyone needs a recommendation on a board game, let me know.)
- dragonsngoblins 8y ago
  This isn't entirely true: physical games allow house ruling, even to the point that the game could be considered a new game. I also disagree that the analog version is terrible in high complexity games compared with the digital version, because for the groups I play in the overhead of the complexity causes analysis paralysis... the automation of a digital version doesn't really help that much in my experience
- usmannk 8y ago
  I'd love a recommendation on a starter game (or a few!) if you find yourself with a minute! I play with a group who, including myself, are novices when it comes boardgames. Between 3-6 players most of the time. We found ourselves getting really into Puerto Rico and recently tried Terraforming Mars but didn't _love_ it. I think TR would be better on a second playthrough when we actually know the rules though :). I played Battlestar Galactica once as well and found it great! Looking at boardgamegeeks is a bit intense with the selection there so I'm hoping you might have a narrower range to suggest.

sudosteph 8y ago

Paradoxically, tech has actually made DnD much more accessible to the masses. When my friends and I first started playing 3.5 in middle school, we pooled our money for a single player's handbook (they were pricey back then!) and would constantly be passing it around any time anyone needed to do anything, which really slowed down the pace of the game and made it hard to get intimately familiar with the rules. Eventually someone found a PDF dump of some books, and suddenly not only did we have access to useful stuff like the monster manual and DM guide, but we could search the text super quickly and get familiar with the rules at home, on our own time. Now that we're adults who can actually afford the books, we don't need the PDFs - but we still benefit from using phone apps for dice rolling and spellbooks, and roll20 for combat.

ajross 8y ago
I've timed it in actual play: it's quicker to google for a monster stat block (one from the SRD, obviously) than it is to look it up in the Monster Manual sitting right next to the laptop.
- klodolph 8y ago
  Sure, but from experience in play, sticky notes in the Monster Manual are much faster for switching back and forth than browser tabs are.
  - ajross 8y ago
    That's a cache, though, when the use case at hand is random access. I mean, if I'm willing to do some prep work I can surely do even better than sticky notes (like, heh, "google for all the monsters ahead of time and line them all up in browser tabs").
    - klodolph 8y ago
      Perhaps that's your use case, it's not mine. How DMs prepare, if they do, is highly variable. But most DMs choose monsters ahead of time. This appears in survey data in The Lazy Dungeon Master. The questionnaires are interesting, when asked how they would prepare for a session if they only had 30 minutes, most DMs explicitly mentioned choosing monsters. Over the years, my personal experience is that running things out of the browser or PDF is great if you need to search for random rules and other situations that come up during the game, but paper books and notes are overwhelmingly superior for expected conditions like encounters and monsters. I've used various laptop systems (wikis, docs, text files), apps, and paper systems (typed, handwritten, paper or notecard). On the balance of things I decided that running the game with a laptop was worse than running a game without one, at least the way I play the game. That's just a personal choice, but it seems like most DMs do choose monsters ahead of time.

Mizza 8y ago

Want to play but don't know how to get started? Try my guide! https://github.com/Miserlou/dnd-tldr https://github.com/Miserlou/dnd-tldr

SSilver2k2 8y ago
Thanks for Zappa!
emasirik 8y ago
I like this a lot; I'll be trying it on a few victi--er, boardgamers I think might be able to appreciate tabletop RPGs but are pushed back by both social stigmas and a belief that the rules are more complex than they are. It solves the latter problem, at least. :)
jrochkind1 8y ago
This is how I played the game as a kid. You don't really need any rules at all, we had no idea which "edition" of D&D we were playing, the DM just decided what a roll would mean. We did it this way cause some very experienced older DM's introduced it. It does depend on the DM being good at telling an interactive story to be fun. but i suspect it does anyway?

ergothus 8y ago

The article undersells the whole story. The Open Gaming License of 3rd edition D&D was definitely open source inspired (despite my personal beefs with it) and kicked of a huge burst of new game developers, and that bubble collapsed right on the tails of the CCG collapse, which caused a big churn in the industry. This led to a spike of online offerings, and the crowdsourcing era has meant that while the last 10 years is anything but safe for authors, for players it us as golden age. Well beyond d&d (though there too) there is a wealth of options and better support and community than ever, between publishers and players, and amongst players. Tabletop games continue, as do video chat based games and play by post forums. All while the old school games, MOOs and MUSHes thrive. Different playstyles are supported, the communities are getting better about tolerance, and the Satanic Panic is not part of mainstream culture anymore.

teach 8y ago
I play D&D in person using a paper character sheet and physical dice, but I created that sheet using D&D Beyond. And most of the rest of the party uses D&D Beyond on iPads. Holy hell is that more convenient for tracking spells and subtle rule interactions than what I used to have to do as a kid. In my eyes, it's letting technology do what it does best -- get details right -- and frees up slightly more casual players to do the fun roleplaying part without being so bogged down.
- gota 8y ago
  Sorry if this is lazy but I can't really Google game related stuff right now, but can you link an image with that sheet?
simonh 8y ago
The OGL was a big deal and hugely beneficial to the pen and paper RPG community as a whole. A lot of small publishers got their start publishing OGL supplements and then branched out into their own original games. That plus cheap digital publishing, and a one-stop-shop to buy PDFs in the form of DrivethruRPG, Kickstarter, plus the rise in geek culture generally through things like Comic Con has lead to a huge resurgence in gaming. It's never been better.

nihil75 8y ago

I was hoping it's catching with kids, but just adults..

floren 8y ago
Two of the photos in the article are of kids playing D&D, and there's mention of it in the text itself. Kids like D&D.
- nihil75 8y ago
  The kids are playing with their parents: "it didn't take too much convincing to get the whole family to play, including his 73-year-old grandmother." The surge in Twitch and podcasting is adults: "One of the most popular live-play Dungeons & Dragons web series is Critical Role, featuring a core group of eight professional voice actors adventuring through custom campaigns written and led by dungeon master Matthew Mercer. " Why you diss me man
  - floren 8y ago
    What the hell are you talking about? Look for the ones captioned "Irvin Reynolds, top left, leads weekly D&D sessions for kids at Uncle's Games." and "RPG Research Vice President John Welker leads Dungeons & Dragons sessions for kids twice a month at Spark Central in Kendall Yards."

joe_the_user 8y ago

If anyone is curious, I run a Pathfinder (D&D fork) campaign in the Santa Rosa, CA area. https://www.meetup.com/Sonomacountyrpg/events/pvhbpqyzcbrb/ https://www.meetup.com/Sonomacountyrpg/events/pvhbpqyzcbrb/

nouveaux 8y ago

Not only Dungeons and Dragons, board games are making huge waves around the world. As a game store owner, I have observed a huge growth in tabletop games, including board games. So it's probably not a coincidence that the most highly rated board game (at least according to Board Game Geek) is an RPG based board game. At the time of its kickstarter, I think it raised the most money as well. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/174430/gloomhaven https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/174430/gloomhaven Speaking of kickstarter, I believe some of its most funded ideas were board games.

scroot 8y ago
Pandemic Legacy is some of the most fun a person can have!
adamredwoods 8y ago
I've found Gloomhaven, Pathfinder The Card Game, or other "hybrid RPGs" to be the better experience because it doesn't take up a full day.
- brandoncordell 8y ago
  Maybe my group is doing something wrong because Gloomhaven takes up at the VERY least 3-5 hours each time we play. That's only with 1-2 dungeons.
sparkzilla 8y ago
I've just spent the past week reading/watching game reviews on BoardGame Geek. So many great games, so little time and money!

cordonbleu 8y ago

IRC is loaded with channels where games are occuring. mostly closed channels but very rich and real world complex espescially if you have a channel of players roleplaying NPCs in character vs a channel of characters playing the adventure. also echo dot understands what to do if i say echo roll 6d6.

ryanmercer 8y ago

I personally know of at least 5 people that started playing D&D because of Stranger Things of all things.

dwd 8y ago
I first played it in the 80s and then again in the 90s as an aside to playing MTG. The opening to ET was my first exposure.
- ryanmercer 8y ago
  Mine was cub scouts, someone's older brother. I was already playing MTG then though from Taekwondo back in 94. I don't think I started playing D&D or others like VtM until 97 (I remember buying the VtM book and then months later a new version came out) and even then I played VtM almost exclusively on IRC heh.
freedomben 8y ago
Likewise, several people. Stranger Things also got some people (like myself) who never tried before to give it a whirl.
- harryf 8y ago
  Watched stranger things with my teenage kids which led me to show them DND. They found a nice break from playing fantasy related computer games

tunesmith 8y ago

We started playing a year ago, it was my first time playing since the mid-80's, and we're doing it all from my old AD&D (first edition) books and modules that I had collected from then. We really like it because as a group of newbies - four of the five players had never played before - it gives us permission to do things that are really fun but we never really would have found time to do before. We've incorporated poetry reading, table-reading of scripts, songs, and silly tasks (I made my wife pick a real estate lockbox we didn't have the combination for, before her thief could advance to level 2). So for us anyway, it wasn't anything about Wizards of the Coast or 5e... this is strictly Gygax-level stuff we're playing. But I think some of it is a blowback from many of us just feeling exhausted and discouraged about online life, there is greater appetite for making these sorts of memories and being creative together.

fitzroy 8y ago
This is the D&D I remember. Half the time we we didn't have the books accessible (basically each friend had bought a single book, so if they weren't around, neither was their book). Due to limited transportation, we spent most of one summer playing on a 3-way phone chain. Whenever someone's parents needed the phone their character would become an NPC until they could dial back in. No maps — just a lot of trust and imagination.
sudosteph 8y ago
That sounds like a good time! I've actually had some of the most fun role-playing experiences playing with new players who don't really have a preconceived on what the typical limits of role-playing should be. For example, we've got one player who decided to try and buy drugs in-game at one of the seedier cities we were stopping at. Fast-forward many sessions later, and she's now a kingpin of sorts with an owl-delivery service and contacts of varying trustworthiness all over the place. It does help to have a very creative DM who likes creating random effects (inhaling ground up flail snail shell turned out to be particularly silly) and teammates who don't get bent out of shape over "less than optimal" play or whatever.

iheartpotatoes 8y ago

I had a 25+ year gap in my D&D gaming. It started again when I moved to the PNW and met a couple in their 40's who took gaming very seriously, and started playing with them again. They introduced me to something I had overlooked: comic book stores that had Walmart-sized gaming arenas! Now I'm hooked again, but with people who care more about story than treasure. The amount of work my DM puts into backstory is insane, and he asks the same of us (well, not insane levels, but a commitment to character). TL;DR - Playing D&D as an adult, with adults, is vastly different than playing as a teen.

topmonk 8y ago

Just figured I mention tabletop simulator which is a sandbox and editor that allows you to recreate and play nearly any boardgame ever created. I'm using it to play a tabletop RPG with some other people I met online, and it works very well. https://store.steampowered.com/app/286160/Tabletop_Simulator/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/286160/Tabletop_Simulator...

brandoncordell 8y ago
And you can find almost any game you can imagine in the workshop for free. Best part is that some of the complicated games are scripted with Lua so you don't have to worry about setting up the game yourself.

nevster 8y ago

For anyone interested in checking out what their old collection may be worth, head over here : https://www.acaeum.com/ https://www.acaeum.com/

irrational 8y ago

I would think a major factor would be the surge of modern board games. Last year alone 5,000 new board games were published. This is called the golden age of board games, and D&D would seem to be just one aspect of this trend.

cschep 8y ago

offtopic! but very cool to see a story from the Inlander that includes bits and bobs from Spokane, WA come across Hacker News :)

ilaksh 8y ago

I think that D&D is interesting in terms of the contrast with computer roleplaying games. In a way it does a good job of showing both the current strengths and weaknesses of computers. Managing the rules and stats by hand can be fun, but I have seen many recorded sessions where it is obviously a burden that a computer would be perfectly suited for. On the other hand, aspects of D&D like face-to-face interaction and language-based free creativity are things the computer can't handle well. Although video chat is a thing. Computers can't understand language at this point so they can't manage everything for you. Of course DMing is the most fun for many people so they wouldn't want a computer to DM. I wonder if there would be a way to translate the freedom that you get as a DM or player in terms of world creation, scenario management, and freedom of action, to an interactive video-game type experience. Maybe in VR?

sudosteph 8y ago
Neverwinter Nights 2 had some solid tools for campaign building that were the closest I've seen to creating a world with scenarios like those you see in DnD. It helps that the game was almost literalally DnD, but still impressive. I don't think DM'ing is necessarily fun though. Most everyone I know who DMs sometimes, including me, finds it to be pretty stressful and a lot of work. The real value to me, is that a really good DM knows when to break the rules to enhance the game experience, and how to do it without making people angry. They create scenarios that specifically challenge the characters that are playing, not just for combat, but for role-playing purposes. Ie, a Lawful wizard is tempted to steal a scroll that would contain the knowledge he seeks the most, or a cleric who must decide whether to uphold her team's plan to ally with an unscrupulous NPC, or to go rogue in the name of their ethical code and deliver justice to said NPC. Good storytelling and cooperative play is just something that comes very naturally to some people, and having a human in the loop to respond to events in the context of an overarching narrative and party experience is really hard ot beat.
- ilaksh 8y ago
  Thanks for the info on Neverwinter Nights 2. I will check it out. I agree about having a human in the loop. My idea though was that maybe you could have the best of both worlds with a computer to help the DM. The trick would be making the sandbox rich and responsive enough that the DM and characters would really have freedom in the moment. Maybe the DM could have tools that easily allow him to rez and customize appropriate objects and NPCs in the visualization.

hellepardo 8y ago

My friends and I play D&D because we have no real other option. We used to play Minecraft and other collaborative building games as a group, but then one in our group went fully blind. There is a complete lack of good multiplayer computer games for entirely blind players (admittedly that is quite a challenge), but D&D requires only imagination, which all of us still have. Highly recommend if you have friends with vision disabilities.

ravedave5 8y ago
I haven't done anything but one of the quick D&D campaigns with the prebuilt characters but I am REALLY enjoying gloomhaven as an alternative. I know there's some vision required there but it seems similar to D&D.
- ZeikJT 8y ago
  It's an alternative if your favorite part about D&D is fighting (if so I'd recommend 4th instead of 5th). The role playing you do in Gloomhaven is non-existent in comparison.
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mLuby 8y ago
Losing one's imagination seems more common than losing one's sight. :(
- pat_space 8y ago
  This comment inspires me to work on my art.
- tuesdayrain 8y ago
  That sounds like a good thing to me. It would be unfortunate if going blind was more common

jimjimjim 8y ago

My interest was rekindled by the Acquisitions Incorporated Podcasts with Chris Perkins and Penny Arcade.

DaniloDias 8y ago
It is kinda criminal that they are overlooked in this article. Some genuinely hilarious content in these videos. http://www.acq-inc.com/portfolio/category/live-show http://www.acq-inc.com/portfolio/category/live-show

tomc1985 8y ago

What a shame that all this attention goes to D&D. There are so many other good tabletop games with exquisite worldbuilding, languishing for attention... Vampire: The Masquerade, RIFTS (my personal fav)

PhasmaFelis 8y ago
Rifts has a wonderfully gonzo setting saddled with possibly the worst rules system available in this century. The Savage Worlds conversion is pretty cool, though.
- tomc1985 8y ago
  LOL, I loved Palladium's weirdo rules, particularly the SDC/MDC distinction with Rifts and a few others. Don't think I've seen/heard anything about a Savage Worlds conversion. Do you have any details on that? And it's a shame how Palladium died, small company got fucked over by their accountant
  - bitsai 8y ago
    There's a whole raft of "Rifts for Savage Worlds" products now (https://www.peginc.com/product-category/rifts/ https://www.peginc.com/product-category/rifts/), but really I think you need only the following two to get going: https://www.peginc.com/store/rifts-the-tomorrow-legion-players-guide-pdf/ https://www.peginc.com/store/rifts-the-tomorrow-legion-playe... https://www.peginc.com/store/rifts-game-masters-handbook/ https://www.peginc.com/store/rifts-game-masters-handbook/
  - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
    They didn't die. Kevin Siembieda sold a bunch of art prints and asked fans to buy books direct from the web store, and they got back in the black. That was 12 years ago and they're still alive. Siembieda has a habit of going all-in on bad ideas and then blaming everyone but himself afterwards. E.G., there was interest in a Rifts video game, so he licensed a studio to make one...for the Nokia N-Gage, despite all his fans urgently telling him that it was a dumpster fire. Then when the game flopped like everything associated with the N-Gage, he announced that no one could have seen this coming and clearly video games weren't a good avenue for Palladium. More than once he's commissioned a book, talked up the author in a big way, then by the time the manuscript is half-completed he's decided to cancel the book and tell everyone that it's because the author just didn't get it. And apparently a lot of the losses to the crooked accountant happened because Palladium had no inventory control system, so no one realized stuff was vanishing. All of which is to say, I suspect that anyone but Siembieda wouldn't have fallen victim to that guy in the first place. (Oh, and there was a $1.5 million Kickstarter that somehow crashed and burned with 90% of the promised materials undelivered, even though all the tooling was ready and they were actually printing books.)

b_tterc_p 8y ago

5e made great progrsss by stripping down rules and making things more accessible. I think they should do it even further. The core game is fun, but combat is quite slow, tedious, and, in my opinion, not much of a good role play experience. Nix weapon stats, health, spell slots, etc. Differentiate more heavily on specialties. Ward off fear of death with a system of injuries and what not. Fighting can still be a huge part of the game, but it shouldn’t be the underlying goal of most mechanics.

plopz 8y ago
It sounds like you might like Dungeon World a lot more than D&D.

baroffoos 8y ago

I would love to play it but physical games require you to meet up and everyone is too spaced out in this city to visit.

Pxtl 8y ago
Lots of folks play these games in video chats.
- baroffoos 8y ago
  Huh, thats a really good idea
- shadowbound 8y ago
  -or irc or pichat or a hybrid situation, with distance players and table players
- C1sc0cat 8y ago
  I am starting a starfinder (pathfinder in space) that is doing that as well as publishing on yahoo.
pkaye 8y ago
There is roll20.net which lets people play online. Roll dice, manage maps, video chat. You can also search for groups that are open.
zeisss 8y ago
My friends and I play via Google Hangout and Google Draw. Works well enough.

shadowbound 8y ago

Anyone knows how to build alexa skills, i think this is a chance! Alexa activate D&D skill Alexa how many hit dice does a red dragon have? Alexa how many days walking from harkenwald to fallcrest?

ZoomZoomZoom 8y ago
I think there's some precedent using Alexa for DnD, although I'm not a user myself. https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/6f0s97/i_started_using_alexa_with_my_sessions/ https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/6f0s97/i_started_using...

_emacsomancer_ 8y ago

A really nice D&D 'implementation' is Lamentations of the Flame Princess, at least in terms of the supplements, particularly Zak Smith's stuff. The last time I played D&D was during the 2e era (though I stubbornly stuck to 1e), and the LotFP has some of the flavour of the good I remember from that time (with its own twists).

Trisell 8y ago

If you enjoy D&D then Critcal Role[1] is a must watch. Matt Merser is an amazing DM. And the other players(all professional voice actors) are really good as well. It’s great sit on the couch for a while or watch while working type of fare. Each episode is multiple hours of great voice acting and D&D. [1] https://critrole.com https://critrole.com

oliyoung 8y ago
+1 on this. Critical Role is the perfect storm of * great friends just playing a home game on stream * who are excellent voice actors (they have Overwatch, Last of Us, Spider-Man, Horizon ++++ credits) * who aren't afraid of improv and who GET D&D
mcjiggerlog 8y ago
Also relevant - check out HarmonQuest[1], it's Dan Harmon (of Rick & Morty) doing a campaign which is then animated over. It's absolutely hilarious and very well made. Also, given each episode is only 25 minutes it's not quite as big of a commitment as Critical Role! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HarmonQuest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HarmonQuest
C1sc0cat 8y ago
And the players are so well behaved :-) I have found that watching CR has changed the way I Dm and play as a character.
_pmf_ 8y ago
Thanks; as someone who has never played "hardware" DnD, this looks very interesting!

seanmcdirmid 8y ago

I’ve always liked reading the sources and watching people playing RPGs more than playing them myself. So all the new litrpg’s that are coming out these days (eg on royalroaddl) have been great for scratching that itch. I wonder if this is related to the current resurgence?

kriro 8y ago

In Germany there's at least one other big P&P RPG called "Das Schwarze Auge" (sold in the US as "The dark Eye" iirc and not very successful). I think it's a good system and the lore is pretty nice (even though compared to my child-self I now realized a lot of it is heavily influenced by real world history/cultures). Which makes me wonder...what are other native language systems that are popular in the country but might not be known outside? My working hypothesis would be that those exist in many countries because P&P RPGs are language driven after all and so native language systems are the most natural tool for storytelling. Please do share if you're from a non-US country and have an interesting system (and share if it is the go to system over DnD or comparable in popularity).

ekianjo 8y ago
L oeil Noir! Surprised to know it still lives on. Is the scene very active?
- kriro 8y ago
  It's still very popular in Germany with new adventures, boxes and also a lot of novels set in the universe being released. As an aside: I also really like the old PC games "Das Schwarze Auge: Die Nordland-Trilogie" (Realms of Arkania in English iirc) but it's a very unique/strange adaptation. It's very close to the game system but has been criticized quite a bit for the gameplay content (I actually liked the storylines). When you selected the complex rule system it was very fun to just level the characters and try all the spells etc. The round based combat was also very unique/interesting (imo)
  - baud147258 8y ago
    There's a remake of Realms of Arkania which has been released a few years ago.
golergka 8y ago
Age of Aquarius https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%AD%D1%80%D0%B0_%D0%92%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B5%D1%8F_(%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D0%B8%D0%B3%D1%80%D0%B0) https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%AD%D1%80%D0%B0_%D0%92%D0%B... was a pretty popular Russian role-playing game back in the day. Setting is modern urban fantasy (with guns and spells), with spies and magic mixed up together. I used to play it a lot in high school in early 00s, and at my first job in the game industry I actually got to know one of the game's creators, Slava Makarov, who later went on to create World of Tanks. I didn't know the game got the second edition in 2011 until just now, though.

bzingah 8y ago

i have this idea of using VR and a pokemon go approach to LARP D&D. goggles on and wander the area while your goggles respond to various QR codes placed about to produce goblins and treasure or dungeon environments, and on.

etxm 8y ago

I keep thinking I want to get back into D&D. Would love to play some RIFTS or Shadowrun too.

mcv 8y ago
I'm in the process of starting a Shadowrun campaign with old friends. We've played Pathfinder over the past couple of years, but want to try something else, particularly after our biggest Pathfinder-fan quit.

JimRoepcke 8y ago

I'd really like to see someone write "The unsurprising resurgence of Dungeons of Dragons".

quadcore 8y ago

I just realised what was really magical to me with pen&paper rpgs. My uncle used to have this funny / ridiculous trick of his, with a deck of cards where he would secretly see the bottom card of the deck while finishing shuffling it and then ask you: "red or black?". You'd say "red", then if the bottom card was red, he would say "then we take the red", or if the card was black he would say "then remains the black". Basically whatever you would say would lead to the bottom card and you'd supposedly be amazed when he'd show it to you. In a rpg, it's like "you're in the forest, what you do?", "well I walk east". "ok you found a tower". Whatever you do, you'd find that tower haha. It's like whatever you say have fun consequences but with thousands more options than my uncle's trick.

SubiculumCode 8y ago

The saddest thing about having board games is not having anyone come over to play them. In particular for me at the moment, I have Battles of Westeros https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/67492/battles-westeros https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/67492/battles-westeros that many feel is one of the best tactical board games out there: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/979785/battles-westeros-immensely-deep-strategy-experienc https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/979785/battles-westeros-imm... and yet I've played it twice in five years. ;(

tialaramex 8y ago
To be fair, deep strategy games aren't exactly the most friendly thing to just "dip your toe into", especially two player deep strategy. If you wanted more chances for people to come over and play games few things could be worse. Maybe 18xx (very crunchy simulationist games about early railways) or full blown scale wargaming (e.g. Napoleonic). But even lighter variants of those let people ease into it (e.g. skirmish wargaming, you can buy a couple of boxes of miniatures and play skirmish variants of 40K or various WW2 settings, and there are train sim games where you just run trains and don't have a stock market, a territorial map and so on) I know I won't have people over often enough to justify big set piece games, so I carry things like "Love Letter" which you can play in a pub in 10 minutes.
- SubiculumCode 8y ago
  That is very fair assessment that I also share. That is why I have other games. But I do lament it! For the most part, I get my gaming in by playing with people using play-by-post in a Pathfinder roleplaying forum, which I like alot for the creative writing and rp.
mcv 8y ago
I've had the same problem. Then I got married, and my oldest son is now 9, and we played Terraforming Mars this weekend and he loves it. It takes a bit of time and investment, but there is a way out.

kraag22 8y ago

I play something similar to D&D for 20 years and won't stop anytime soon :)

beefsack 8y ago

I've tried and failed to get into some RPG campaigns in a few different systems (my general anxiety didn't help) but I listen to and absolutely adore The Adventure Zone podcast[1]. There's scope for some really wonderful collaborative storytelling in these systems, and the TAZ group are a few brothers and their dad and they gel together perfectly. Helps that they have lots of podcasting experience too, very high quality production. [1]: https://www.maximumfun.org/shows/adventure-zone https://www.maximumfun.org/shows/adventure-zone

thebouv 8y ago
I used to listen to TAZ but once the story started getting more and more away from traditional fantasy or even high fantasy, I got bored with it. Specifically the Crystal Kingdom arc drove me away. Just couldn't get into it.

Angostura 8y ago

I can confirm that my 15 year old daughter and her group of friends got into it because of Stranger things. Now have regular sessions with obligatory pizza. I'm rather jealous.

johnchristopher 8y ago

I don't like the new crop and the new style. Tables I played were overtly aggressive in a bad nerdy/intellectual way. I could sense the influence of mmorpgs and competitive tabletop games. I play for the story and the camaraderie, not to master loopholes in the rules and asserting dominance through numbers.

simonh 8y ago
D&D 5 has a lot less of that than say 3.0 and 3.5 or Pathfinder, they're gone a long way to streamline the system. The general trend in RPGs over the last few decades has been towards lighter weight, more story driven games. I'm not personally a fan of D&D and it's tropes, and even then I'd go for something lighter like Dungeon World, but for what it is D&D 5 hits the nail on the head. If you're interested, Meetup has a lot of local games groups listed you can try out to see if you can connect with a like-minded bunch of people.
- johnchristopher 8y ago
  Thanks. I checked meetup again but there are no groups where I live (Belgium).

projectramo 8y ago

There are two reasons to pick other game systems over D&D: 1. You don't want the medieval + magic world and want to explore other timelines. Maybe futuristic, Star Wars etc. 2. You don't like the mechanics. Maybe the game system complexity slows you down or else there is some weird arbitrage opportunity that messes up the incentives. (Let's spend the whole game killing orc babies to build up XP instead of solving the clues and then just beat up the bad guy at the end). Do people have good recommendations for substitutes that solves #2?

docker_up 8y ago
Isn't #2 solved by a good Dungeon Master? The DM should be able to take control of the game so that players aren't just going around killing orc babies. "In the distance, you see a group of 1000 orc parents coming searching for the killers of their babies..."
- projectramo 8y ago
  I don't like too much explicit intervention by the DM. Part of it has to feel like the player to feel like there are fair predictable rules that the game adheres to. Yes, the DM has to step in to make sure the game feels good, but the extra work to combat game mechanics doesn't feel like a good use of the DM's time. Your solution is a good, creative one but I don't like that poor mechanics got us here.
dljsjr 8y ago
A lot of 5th edition adventure modules have started advocating "milestone levels" instead of XP levels. It requires a good DM to know when it's appropriate to award a level up but it's basically DM fiat leveling; XP is gone entirely and the DM decides when your party levels up typically based on the party achieving certain milestones -- find the McGuffin, defeat the boss, solve the mystery, etc. I'm running Curse of Strahd for my table right now and we're using milestone levels instead of XP and the players seem to really enjoy it.
- projectramo 8y ago

wenc 8y ago

I'm just wondering, are there many casual D&D groups for non-geeks? (like the Adrian family featured in the article) My only exposure to D&D was the episode of the "Community", and it looked pretty fun. I wonder if the demographics of that group is normal. I only ask because most of my friends have this perception that D&D personalities are a little "awkward" and would not give it a chance, but have no issues going to board-game nights.

dljsjr 8y ago
So I felt the same way about it; I'm a card-carrying nerd but most of my friends are decidedly non-geeks who still enjoy board game nights. At first, it started off with me being afraid of introducing them to the less mainstream boardgames. But one night I pitched Settlers of Catan (not exactly underground but also not Monopoly by any stretch) and surprisingly they took to it. And as we started playing more and more esoteric board games (some of them even having faux tabletop/RPG elements to them) I was continually surprised that everyone continued to enjoy them. The most surprising thing to me, though, is that eventually they approached me about trying out D&D. It was something I'd wanted to do for a while but had never communicated it to them because I just assumed they wouldn't be interested. Point being: You may be surprised. You have nothing to lose by suggesting it to them other than them saying "no". The 5th edition starter set even has the option of using pregenerated characters to reduce the friction. Maybe even start by showing them one of the CelibriDnD videos on YouTube; there's one with Vin Diesel and one with Terry Crews, not people who the general public usually think of as geeky.
naravara 8y ago
>I only ask because most of my friends have this perception that D&D personalities are a little "awkward" and would not give it a chance, but have no issues going to board-game nights. The game only has as much awkwardness as you bring with you. If they like each others' company playing Settlers of Catan or whatever, there's no reason that will change playing D&D. That said, it does take a little commitment and pushing out of your comfort zone to really get into role-playing. But in that sense, your D&D group shouldn't be any more awkward than an Improv troupe, music jam session, or Toastmasters meeting. Any time you're asking people to "perform" in some way it can be uncomfortable, but it's the good kind of discomfort that helps you grow as a person.

loydb 8y ago

I am still running a campaign that started in 1979, with many of the same players. We can only manage once/month, because getting 8-9 adults together is a scheduling nightmare (thanks Doodle!), but we still love it just as much.

lordnacho 8y ago
Have the lifestyles of the characters changed with the people who play them?
- Timpy 8y ago
  This is a great question. I can see changes reflected in the characters I want create as I go through different things in life, and I've only been playing for a few years.

packetpirate 8y ago

I got into D&D by chance around 2009. Unfortunately I started with 4th Edition (I know...), but I'm very happy that I did, because all throughout High School I was one of the outcasts, but never had any of these mediums to confide in, and often made fun of "nerds" even though I technically was one. Just playing D&D has given me another way to meet new people and do something other than play video games in my free time. I only wish I had more time in the week. I have too many hobbies.

Graham24 8y ago

I am currently DMing The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, every Sunday at 8:30pm.

Rooster61 8y ago

I love DnD 5e and its approachability/newb-friendlyness. That said, the game I have become enamored with here recently (one that I feel is underrated) is Shadowrun. It gets a bad rep (somewhat deservedly so) because of its overwhelming depth and detail/learning curve, and the pretty horribly written core handbook. But once you get past the pointy bits and really learn the utility of the system, it's a pretty fantastic game that really scratches that itch for cyberpunk fantasy. It isn't just DnD plopped into fake leather trenchcoats and hacky-hacky terminals (it has those things, of course). The gameplay is set up differently, and has a heist-movie like flow, consisting of "shadowruns" which are follow a meet client->make plan->prepare->execute flow, and lends itself well to one-off sessions. Give it a shot if someone around is interested and has played it before. You might like it.

Balgair 8y ago

I blame /r/dndgreentext and Critical Roll in part. Those highlights are addictively fun to read/watch. Sir Bearington level DnD is a life goal for sure.

eltoozero 8y ago

How funny, I just started picking up some GURPS material because I wanted some RPG action that wasn’t all dungeon crawling hack n’ slash. Between Cyberpunk, Illuminati, Atomic Horror, and a little Cthulhupunk, should be some good times; if I can get a campaign together...