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Megadungeons Gone Wild

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Megadungeons are something that interest me. As a player I may have played in a megadungeon, but did not know it.

I have read lot of articles and gather lots of notes.

As I think about my own campaign, that I touched on yesterday, and its ten great ancient cities with teleport chambers, I realize that the sewers and tunnels and caverns under each one is its own megadungeon, but each is connected to the other by the teleport chambers. The chambers have a mechanism to specify which destination, so players could end up on the far end of the empire, or on one of the islands they settled across the sea.

Obviously, I don’t want or need to map out all of this that would never be played, but the various megadungeon tables on different sites to help populate them would come in handy if players managed to jump from one ancient city to another.

I think that general areas of the city would be a natural for certain kinds of buildings, structures, events, and encounters. For example, the cemetery/necropolis would have plenty of undead from the time of chaos when the empire collapsed and troops were needed quickly to deal with the dead and defend the city. The nice people fled and the bad guys have set up shop. There would be a near limitless supply of skeletons and zombies. A high magic society would tend to have magical constructs like golems and homonculi. Perhaps trapped demons or elementals. Magic mouths to give directions around the city.

There would be places where treasure in the form of coins might be more likely, and treasure in the form of ancient weapons and other items that might not be magical, but a sage might pay for them. A collector of ancient relics might like a statue or a tapestry. There is more to treasure than just coin and magic.

If there were a zoological garden, would there be small groups of wild animals about the city? A pride or two of lions that fed off the goblins and orcs running around. Other types of creatures attracted by the niche they could fill in such a place.

Whether a city or dungeon, thinking in terms of areas and what was there originally and what is there now will help group what adventurers might find or encounter there.

An ancient cistern overgrown with vines would be a 30 foot or deeper pit, a deadly fall, unless it still held water, then it could still be a deadly fall. Ancient barrows of the early kings could be infested with wights, or other grave loving creatures. Different parts of an abandoned city could be controlled by different factions. Pirates could use the docks to trade goods to orcs or evil humans in the employ of a wizard seeking some powerful device he read about in an ancient tome. Intelligent monsters might control another area, perhaps a dragon of an appropriate size has claimed the ancient treasury. There could be turf wars by the various factions trying to control the city. There could be a big bad trying to consolidate his power and is working to sway other factions to his will and destroy those who don’t come along. Players getting in the midst of such a turf war could be in for a wild ride.

Lots of ideas present themselves, palace, barracks, temples and shrines, colleges of magic, palaces of nobles and the rich, merchants of all kinds, the old bazaar, docks, an abandoned thieve’s guild tower, homes of the populace.

Would each city be built on a similar plan, or would each be unique?

I like to think or areas or pigeon holes for parts of large areas, like a city. All you really need for a map is the rough distance from one “quarter” or section of the city and how long it will take. I just borrow maps for cities online for my use. Of course, to publish my own, if that were every to happen, would take new maps and a LOT more detail for others to be able to use it. There is a HUGE difference between enough notes for a DM to run a session, and enough description for someone new to the campaign to run it. For making your own cities or megadungeons, you just need enough information to keep play moving. You may even have to have some tables for quick random generation of buildings, their condition, and contents.

There needs to be something to break up the sameness. As I wrote this, I recalled a scenario when I GM’d Gamma World and the players found a high rise hotel and in every room were skeletons of people in sexual positions as they obviously were going to do it one last time before the end of the world. Ah the mind of an adolescent teenage boy. After a while I ran out of scenarios for number of people and positions. It was all on the fly. I did not do enough preparation to have more variety. The other guys laughed at what I came up with, so we had fun, but it had an aura of sameness to it. A list of some sort for  100 houses, 100 merchant shops, etc. like many other lists of 100 other bloggers have come up with can go a long way. If you have the spare coin to buy a PDF of a city, you can save Googling for lists, or making up your own.

I would suggest making a list of the different types of things you expect to find in a city, wells, cisterns, fountains, houses, shrines, temples, tombs, etc. and make a list of 100 of them. Use a spreadsheet like Open Office or Libre Office Calc and have a column for a present day, in-use item/building/object and a second column for what it is like in a ruined city or town. You can make your lists as detailed as you need to make it useful for working down the list or picking at random. For a more complex choice and variety, you could have columns for different descriptors to use when applying to the object or building. Obviously, more substantial buildings like temples, palaces, forts, and wizard towers would need more preparation, especially if there is anything there to find or find you. Again, there are lots of maps and free modules describing these very things.

Building your own lists has the power of giving it your own flavor. You don’t have to come up with everything from scratch, you can mix and match ideas and lists from others you find online or in your rulebooks. There is a lot you can do if you are a cash-strapped teen or an adult with other things you need your money for, like bills and trying to save for retirement. Or if you have a few dollars to spend there are a lot of good resources available on DriveThru RPG or RPGNow in the $5 or less range. The D30 DM Companion and the D30 Sandbox Companion are two great resources for the time strapped DM and give lots of ideas for how to organize one’s own tables.

I really appreciate all the other DMs and players who share all their ideas online and so much of it is free. Thank you all, fellow gamers!

RPGs

Resources and Their Source

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I have a BA (Bachelor of Arts) degree in History. I like the ancient and medieval period, Meopatamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, etc. I like following different websites and one of those is the archaeology page on about.com.

Last week they had an article about Roman aqueducts.

That article got me to thinking about other types of construction, like Roman roads, buildings, city walls, etc. I have ancient cities that I will need to plan at some point in my campaign. Large cities need things like water and food, which mean ancient wells, cisterns, canals, irrigation, aqueducts, etc. and ancient fields and farms. Farms for simplicity sake would include cropland, grazing land for herds, fishing banks along the coast or a lake or river.

Huge stone structures require quarries for the source material. Abandoned quarries and still used quarries would be places an adventure might turn. Granite, marble, sandstone, etc.

Large building project of wood, whether a temple, fort, fleet of ships, or housing for the masses will require access to a large amount of forest. Were ancient forests depleted, are they restored to their former bounds after a thousand years? Stone building projects usually rely on wood for bracing and scaffolding. Without fast growing wood or woody plants, like bamboo, a large city would quickly deforest a huge area. How do sylvan creatures, elves, and druids react to this?

Metals require mines for coinage, armor, weapons, tools, etc. Copper, silver, tin, gold, platinum, iron, mithril, adamantite, etc. FYI – Copper and tin make bronze, copper and zinc make brass. The working of metals will require either large forests to supply wood for making charcoal, or coal mines for coal.

The above mentioned herds for food would also supply the leather for armor, belts, pouches, saddles, etc. Exotic herds could be culled for exotic leather items.

Other types of materials used in civilization are bricks, from simple mud dried bricks of earth, straw, and water, to fired bricks of clay. Again back to using wood for charcoal or mining coal to handle a large number of brick buildings and walls.

Glass is not a necessity, but does require sand and other ingredients, plus wood for charcoal or coal from coal mines to fire it.

Add to that the bakers in a huge city and all their ovens for bread.

One does not need to stat out or write up every little detail of an ancient city. However, keep these things in mind when there is a city or town adventure in a living town or the remains of such things in and ancient ruin of a town or city. For example, the fountains of Rome were the pressure release for the aqueduct system and were the source of fresh water for those who could not afford to have water piped to their homes. Will there be ancient fountains that are silted in, but contain coins from wishes? Or fountains filled with rainwater, but stagnant and smelly, but also have coins, or a monster and coins?

Roads are needed to connect cities and towns, to tie an ancient empire together. Roads, walls, and buildings can all be constructed using mud to rock, for sandstone; or wall of stone, for granite. Yes, they can be dispelled, but in AD&D you have to be a high enough level to do it. If an ancient empire was magic rich and had lots of high-level friendly wizards making buildings, it would explain a lack of or fewer quarries than is otherwise needed. Was a temple devoted to creating food for the masses, and the cities thus needed fewer farms and herds? I can see a very lawful civilization doing such things. Would there be ancient magical fountains that never ran out of water? Magic bread ovens that never ran out of bread?

What problems and challenges of modern civilization would a high magic society be able to solve using magic as their technology?

  • Sanitation: Sewers send it all to a pit of a permanent disintegration to avoid stink and disease. Or if they didn’t have that level of magic available, would use carrion crawlers and otyughs.
  • Construction/Infrastructure: Magic to assist with building roads, walls, forts, castles, etc.
  • Ships and wooden construction: Cooperation and trade with sylvan creatures, elves, or druids would provide all the needed wood while preserving the bounds of the forests.
  • Food and Water: Can be created magically, as suggested above.
  • Communication: Crystal balls, palantirs, mirrors, or other devices could facilitate communication between an emperor/king and his governors, nobles, and generals.
  • Travel:  Magically created roads for the less well to do and caravans. Teleportation rooms/chambers/stations for travel between cities, or across cities, or to neighboring kingdoms.
  • Trade: By the use of superior and coordinated magic in the running of an empire, it could simplify trade due to superior communication and travel capabilities.
  • Health: Sanitation as described above. Health care by clerics of temples.
  • Education: There would be great centers of learning, colleges and universities for the study of magic for the benefit of all. Great temples and seminaries for the study of divine magic.
  • Light: Donations to temples or commerce with wizards would mean everyone has a bulls eye lantern with continual light. Streetlights would have continual light. There would be less need for candles and lamp oil, other than for the poor or ritual use.

A strongly lawful society learning to good with a high level of magic would have a tendency to have these things. War would be far off and the orcs and goblins would be far away, just a story to most people. But if something happened like a strange disease that spread rapidly via the teleport system faster than it could be cured, chaos would ensue. The chaos caused could bring down the whole system. Wizards who survive try to keep things going and end up fighting for turf, thus accelerating the collapse. Troops are needed to keep order, generals who are lawful, but not good would be tempted to pay orcs and goblins to help fill their depleted ranks. Soon wizards are mistrusted and on the run. Civilization as we know it is gone, cities are abandoned as the masses flea disease and civil war. All the neat things that the ancients knew are mostly lost to the knowledge of all but a few after a thousand years. This is the scenario of my campaign. The players don’t know or need to know any of this, just that centuries ago, there was a lot of magic and many wonderful things that a brave and successful adventurer can find.

In a way, my campaign is a “post apocalyptic” world, but there is no radiation and mutants. Although there might be strange creatures brought about by ancient wizards and their experiments. There are powerful ancient artifacts and devices that require study to use without destroying one’s self.

RPGs

City Districts Posted on G+ World Building Community

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I posted this comment and question about names for districts/quarters in towns and cities on the G+ World Building Community.

I am working on ideas for different districts/quarters for towns and cities in a fantasy (D&D) setting.

I have come up with a few from memory and my own ideas:
– Temple quarter
– Wizard quarter
– Royal & Noble quarter
– Government/Bureaucracy quarter
– Merchant’s quarter
– Non-human quarter (for areas where they don’t just mingle right in)
– Rich/Poor
– Docks/Wharves/Shipyards
– Thieve’s quarter

I then turned to Google, and Jerusalem and it’s four quarters, based on religion, tends to predominate the results. I found that old cities often had 3 to 5 quarters, Paris has 18 districts. Usually, there is the old town/city which may or may not be a citadel/acropolis/medina.

So a lot of them also have government quarters, lower/upper town, old town/city, and royal quarter.

I am curious what sorts of Districts/Areas/Quarters/Divisions of town and cities do you have/use?

I have one large ancient abandoned city that I am working on ideas to help with dealing with the players running around it. I have a general idea of what is where, and then am adding my own ideas to some city tables I have found on various blogs to generate some things ahead of time, but also to have on hand for on the fly generation as needed.

It is tricky to avoid every other house/building being the same without some options to help mix it up.

NOTE: I see developing large ancient cities whether active or ruins as related to megadungeons, and it may just be the above ground level of a megadungeon.

RPGs

March Madness – Non-D&D OSR Blog Challenge

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The March Madness – Non-D&D OSR Blog Challenge came on my radar as I read other blogs. Just having come off the D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Challenge in February, I was not up to scheduling another month. I will do as many other have done and do one post for all the questions.

March Madness 31 day Obscure Game Blogging Challenge

1 What was the first roleplaying game other than D&D you played? Was it before or after you had played D&D?

It was either Metamorphosis Alpha or Gamma World that came after Blue Box (Holmes) Basic D&D/AD&D.

2 In what system was the first character you played in an RPG other than D&D? How was playing it different from playing a D&D character?

Playing a mutant or human with high-tech gear was in line with a lot of the Science Fiction movies and stories I had read. I was more of a science fiction guy before getting into D&D. I think I comfortably move between genres in my reading. I haven’t played anything other than D&D for decades.

3 Which game had the least or most enjoyable character generation?

It has been so long, I just don’t remember. I have read about other’s talk of Traveller and death as a possible result in character generation, but I don’t remember it.

4 What other roleplaying author besides Gygax impressed you with their writing?

I liked a lot of the regular authors in The Dragon. Kim Mohan comes to mind. I’m drawing a blank as I write this. I no longer have my collection of Dragon Magazines.

5 What other old school game should have become as big as D&D but didn’t? Why do you think so?

Metamorphosis Alpha, Gamma World, Boot Hill, Top Secret, Gangbusters, Villains and Vigilantes, Star Frontiers, Marvel Superheroes, and Traveller were all games that I played back in the day. Part of it may have been not every kid in high school could afford or had parents who could afford to just buy whatever we wanted. I earned the money for all but the AD&D Player’s Handbook, which was a Christmas present the year it came out. I also had to get the others in my group interested in a game. The only RPG that I encountered in college was AD&D. I am sure there must have been others playing other RPGs, but I didn’t have time to go seeking them out. I think the bulk of the hobby was pre-teen and teenage boys back in the day and by the time they were in jobs, real life altered their style. I didn’t pick a wife based on her interest in RPGs. In hindsight, I probably should have.

6 What non-D&D monster do you think is as iconic as D&D ones like hook horrors or flumphs, and why do you think so?

I don’t recall a specific monster/creature from other games, as it has been too long since I last played them.

7 What fantasy RPG other than D&D have you enjoyed most? Why?

The group I played with did Boot Hill and Top Secret the most.

8 What spy RPG have you enjoyed most? Give details.

I have to say Top Secret, since that is the only one I played.

9 What superhero RPG have you enjoyed most? Why?

We played Villains and Vigilantes and Marvel Superheroes. I don’t recall specific game mechanics. I liked the Marvel as it had all the comic book characters, but you could stat them in other games.

10 What science fiction RPG have you enjoyed most? Give details.

Traveller seemed clunky to me and had too many different books. I liked Star Frontiers, but I struggle to recall specifics. The homebrew SF game we made called Scout was my favorite, because it borrowed from every other game we played for different features. I don’t have any materials. If I had any survive to my adult life, they were lost in the water leak incident. My brother, Robert, wrote a series of short stories about Scouts that kept us all enthralled and we kept bugging him to write more after we had our turn of reading his hand-written story.

11 What post-apocalyptic RPG have you enjoyed most? Why?

Metamorphosis Alpha and Gamma World seemed to be the same game in different settings. I know that character generation, etc. was not the same, but that’s how I remember them. You have characters that don’t know what the stuff is that they find and have to figure it out without killing themselves.

We also had Escape from New York. I don’t recall if that was really an RPG, or a boardgame with RPG qualities.

12 What humorous RPG have you enjoyed most? Give details.

I bought Toon but could never get anyone to play. In the groups I have played with, there is always something humorous that happens intentionally or not. In D&D I have played gnomes that were quite the instigators of humor. There is also the hilarity of too much caffeine and not enough sleep. Things that no one else would find funny still bring guffaws and giggles to grown men who were kids and young adults when some said or did something really funny.

13 What horror RPG have you enjoyed most? Why?

Call of Cthulhu is another one we played. I did not like that there was no avoiding going insane. That was before I had read any of the stories. My brother, Robert, did and told me so much detail, I did not read them until the last 6 or 7 years.

14 What historical or cultural RPG have you enjoyed most? Give details.

I never played any of that style RPG.

15 What pseudo or alternate history RPG have you enjoyed most? Why?

I see all RPGs as fitting that category.

16 Which RPG besides D&D has the best magic system? Give details.

I don’t recall the specifics of T&T, which I played once. I think it was Runequest I played once.

17 Which RPG has the best high tech rules? Why?

I don’t recall, it has been too long.

18 What is the crunchiest RPG you have played? Was it enjoyable?

There were a few times we played some other games only once, but I don’t recall the one I am thinking of. It had so much detail it was crazy. I believe it was a fantasy RPG, maybe Runequest.

19 What is the fluffiest RPG you have played? Was it enjoyable?

20 Which setting have you enjoyed most? Why?

MA and GW made the biggest impression on me, other than D&D. I think that is because I grew up in the Cold War when the idea of nuclear annihilation was a common theme in real life, not just books and movies. I was born a few years after the Berlin Wall went up, and I never thought it would come down in my lifetime. I was amazed when it came down when I was in college. The idea of the U.S.S.R collapsing was far from everyone’s mind. The made for TV movie “the Day After” occurred in the Kansas City area, where I grew up. That was one weird and compelling movie to watch, knowing it was new my home. I did love to play MA & GW. I guess trying to find joy in spite of the horror is what we were doing.

21 What is the narrowest genre RPG you have ever played? How was it?

Top Secret and Boot Hill would have to be the narrowest.

22 What is the most gonzo kitchen sink RPG you ever played? How was it?

I don’t know what this means.

23 What is the most broken game that you tried and were unable to play?

I don’t think there were any broken games. GM’s that didn’t know the rules and/or how to run a game were the biggest issues.

24 What is the most broken game that you tried and loved to play, warts and all?

With a GM that knows the rules, but more importantly, HOW to run a game and make it fun for all would do the trick. But I can’t think of a game with broken mechanics.

25 Which game has the sleekest, most modern engine?

Does that mean a post-OSR style rules, or OSR clones of original games? I think old school style rules, like the original games of the 70’s and 80’s were pretty sleek. I like the idea of ascending AC and fewer books and tables needed to play a session.

26 What IP (=Intellectual Property, be it book, movie or comic) that doesn’t have an RPG deserves it? Why?

I can’t think of one. I am sure that there is at least a homebrew set of rules for every little niche.

27 What RPG based on an IP did you enjoy most? Give details.

I guess it would be Marvel Superheroes. The only other would be Call of Cthulhu, which was ok, but not my cup of tea.

28 What free RPG did you enjoy most? Give details.

I haven’t played a free RPG, other than our homebrew. I do have S&W and have read the white box and complete rules and it is a game I could play.

29 What OSR product have you enjoyed most? Explain how.

I like the abundance of free and low cost materials available on the internet, like tables, maps, modules, and other tools to facilitate the job of GM.

30 Which non-D&D supplemental product should everyone know about? Give details.

I don’t know as I have not looked at other genres for supplemental material.

31 What out-of-print RPG would you most like to see back in publication? Why?

I always had a soft spot for Metamorphosis Alpha and Gamma World, but I understand those progressed into newer versions and MA 1e is still on DriveThrough RPG, and I picked it up just last week, mostly for nostalgia sake.

Boot Hill and Top Secret were others I enjoyed. I wouldn’t mind having copies just for nostalgia’s sake.

RPGs

Index For Grouping Types of Monsters

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I have not seen, nor tried very hard to find, a list that cross references creatures in all the add books by types. For example, all the insect or insect like creatures in MM, MM2, FF, OA, etc.

That is something I have worked on because if you have dinosaur island, you want all the dinos from all the books.

If you want an all insect dungeon with ants and thri-keen.

Slimes, molds, fungus, undead, etc.

My working lists have which book and page and hit dice. This way, I can develop areas, dungeons, and encounter tables that are level specific.

This type of index beats having to look through all the books trying to find what you want.

RPGs

TPKS

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A Bullette can kill an entire 2nd level party in 3 rounds. I found this out because I was DM for our next session. We rotated DM and characters were played. It was my first time as DM. I REALLY wanted to have a bullette in play, so I forced an encounter and it annihilated the group. My intent was not a TPK. I was not fully aware of the power of the combat tables and how hard it was to hit and how easy it was for it to hit back. We all called a do over and I did not DM for a long time after that.

A TPK where I was a player. My brother, Robert, was the DM. Brett and I were the players. There were just the two of us. We were in a desert campaign and headed to a canyon with a cave that was ten or twenty feet off the ground. There was some sort of treasure there. Prior to setting out, we learned of a vendor at Abdul’s (Abdul’s is another story.), that had semi-automatic crossbows that could fire several shots a round. It was based on the Chinese crossbow. Some orcs were in the area and spotted us. We figured we would be OK in the cave, but there were like 20 orcs to the two of us. We became lunch because we used swords instead of the crossbows that could unload several shots per round.

I mentioned two other TPKs where I was a player: DM Meta Gaming Oddness and Revenge!

I think the first time I player Traveler we either had a TPK or a near TPK. the guy who ran the game loved Traveler, but was not a good GM.

Board Games, RPGs

Using Game Boards from Boardgames for Other Games

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I ran across this post today that reminded me that my brother, Robert, and I used the game board from Avalon Hill’s Waterloo as a star map for a science fiction space combat exploration game we made up in the 80’s.

My planet/system had the brilliant name of Erloowat, I don’t recall what Robert named his.

There were two or three games we made up back then. A Science Fiction/Space RPG we called Scout, and a space pirate game centered around ship capture/combat. I don’t recall now if our space combat game built on the rules from our space pirate game. The rules for all of them were pretty broad. The space/interplanetary war game was actually more like an RPG without a GM. We didn’t have enough rules to cover certain scenarios to make it truly playable the way we intended. I think we just played at it for an afternoon or two and it faded away.

The problem with making your own game is defining the parameters and limitations of it so that there is an agreed upon framework to make it playable without a GM or the creators on standby to deal with scenarios as they develop.

The benefit of RPGs is that you only need enough rules to build enough framework to be able to have fun, and as play develops, the players and GM work together to fill in the gaps, thus the prevalence of house rules and homebrew games that are a freankensteinian combination of multiple ideas from other RPGs and the experience of actual play and house rules. Our Scout game was just such a one. We took ideas from Traveller, Star Frontiers, Metamorphosis Alpha, Gamma World, and probably others I don’t recall to get mechanics/rules for things we had trouble fleshing out ourselves. Robert also wrote great short stories that tied into Scout. We passed them around in high school and kept asking for more. (I wish he would publish his writings, he could even do the artwork for the book covers.)

As I was writing this I recalled another RPG we had was based on Androids, I think that was more of what would be a LARP. However, we did not run around in costume, it was more a sit around and talk about things our characters did. We drew ships and different kinds of androids and robots and wrote little scenarios and stories. I don’t recall if this preceded our discovery of Blue Box Holmes Basic D&D or not. I know one guy involved moved away at some point, and I don’t recall what grade. It was spring of 7th grade we discovered D&D, I don’t recall when David moved away.

RPGs

Revenge!

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Have you ever experienced revenge in your RPGs?

I’m not talking about characters or NPCs out for in-game revenge. This is personal, where one player does something another does not like and gets back at them in the same or a different game.

In high school, my brother, Robert, and I played in a game of AD&D. We were in the school library. A member of our group decided he wanted a Drow character, an evil Drow character, and the DM allowed it. The problem was that my brother and I had good elf characters. We did not handle it in a good way, but when our group traveled and made camp for the night, when the Drow was sleeping we killed him. Brett, the player vowed that he would kill our Boot Hill characters, because he was the GM for that. So a week or so later, at our house, when we next played Boot Hill, he made good on his word. This was the same guy who ran the high level character mentioned yesterday.

I don’t remember all the details, but the bad guy rode into town with a wagon, and whatever started the conflict,the villain won because under the tarp was a Gatling gun. It sprayed so much lead that we did not stand a chance.

As I look back on this, I see two places where this should have been handled differently.

One, the DM should have advised on an evil character running around with good characters. We were a brand new party and there was no thought to how we would work together.

Second, if we killed him in his sleep, was that really a good thing? An alignment deviation should have been in the mix.

One can argue if the morality of the good players is to kill all evil things on sight, or only after they do something harmful. The DM needs to set the tone.

I don’t recall who the DM was, but they were not very experienced.

Have you ever had this experience?

RPGs

My First Session of Google+ Hangouts and Roll20

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I had my first session of playing an RPG using Google+ Hangouts and Roll20.

Google+ Hangouts are a way to do group conference calls online. They can be just voice, or mix the use of video and voice.

Roll20 is a Virtual Table Top (VTT). It works in your web browser, so it can work on a computer, laptop, tablet, or even a phone. From my experience, I prefer a larger screen. The display has an area that is the “table-top”. It can hold fancy maps of terrain, buildings, dungeons, etc, or just a grid to keep track of marching order or positions of objects, players, and monsters. Roll20 has integration with Google+ Hangouts. You accept the invitation to the G+ Hangout and sign in when it starts. You also sign into Roll20 when it is time. I signed into Roll20 early, so I don’t know if joining the hangout would take me to Roll20 or not.

I have seen YouTube videos of past Google+ Hangouts, and have had invitations to them before, but never had the time to get involved in one. It does not require the use of video. That it only useful if you want to see the other players. If you don’t have a webcam or don’t want to be on video, you just need a microphone so others can hear you, and decent speakers so you can hear them. A headset with a microphone would work, as it appears some other players were using. The nice things about using G+ Hangouts is that it showed who was speaking, either by the video of the speaker going to the center of the screen, or showing the picture displayed by those not using video. Having the hangout window open covers part of the screen. It is not required for it to be open, but I found it helpful to have a window just big enough open to see who was speaking. That made it more like a face-to-face session. If you have two monitors, it would work better to have it on one screen and the VTT on the other.

I have a Roll20 account, it is free to use, but for a fee, you can get some more bells and whistles. Those are not necessary to run or join a game. I have the basic, free account. I have gone through the Roll20 tutorial about how to do things. You can display different maps, with a grid. You can use tokens for players, monsters, and items. There is a library of free tokens and maps, and you can upload your own. For a fee, you can get specialized tokens and maps that give you more options. It also features a dice roller that just says what dice was rolled, pus any modifiers and gives the result. It has an option to show 3-D dice that roll across the VTT, but it is slow and slows down the game. To roll, you either have to type a command in the chat window, or set up a macro with frequently used rolls. For example, “/r d20” rolls a d20. As a GM, you can have multiple Roll20 campaigns/games, and as a player, you can participate in multiple games. There are multiple layers that can be displayed and the GM can see things on the GM only layer

The game I participated was Vault of Time hosted by the founder of the Friday Night D&D: Next Google+ Community. As the name says, it is Friday night. The game was slated to start at 9:00 PM. To play, you roll up a 10th level character using the D&D Next beta play test rules. I had signed up to the D&D Next beta at Wizards of the Coast, so I had the latest rules. D&D Next is D&D 5.0 and is slated for release this summer. This was the more challenging part of the whole thing. I rolled up a character using real dice, then I had to read through a PDF on character creations, then classes, then races, then equipment. I started about 6:30 PM and was “done” with my character about 8:30. I am old school, so I know how to roll up a character and get started in short order. D&D Next can be played that way, but it has been influence by all version s of D&D. I have played D&D Basic and 1st Edition, and had minor exposure to 2nd edition. I have no exposure to D&D 3.0, 3.5, or 4.0. As I understand it, the later versions of D&D, i.e. 3.0 and later, have all the feats, skills, and abilities that are not part of D&D or AD&D. I did not have time to read and understand what choices to make for feats, etc. so I had as close to an AD&D dwarven fighter as imaginable.

Playing the game.

I signed in to Roll20 early and there were only two other players. One invited me to play poker. Roll20 can simulate a deck of cards for situations that require use of cards. The actual game session started about ten minutes late. The GM had been sick last week and cancelled last week’s session. For this week, he had not had time to get maps, etc. uploaded to Roll20, so we just used a grid over a graphic of a stone floor. We have tokens with the names of each player to show marching order, etc. The VTT has a whiteboard type feature, so the GM could draw the rooms and doors we encountered. This game is just a group of players who get together and play through the same dungeon, and my character was just there, no explanation, etc. (I don’t have a problem with this, as the idea was for me to learn and have fun.) The regulars in this game may have started at tenth level, but had over 100 hit points, I only had 71. They were like 20th level or something. The all male group of players were in the 30 to 50 age range, give or take. There were several wizards in the group, and they had all kinds of spells going all over the place. My understanding is that you can play D&D Next with a subset of the rules to be closer to D&D/AD&D, or have all the bells and whistles and make a first level character that is a demi-god. I definitely see why later versions of D&D have been described as emulating video games like WOW or LOTRO. As a basic fighter, my character was only good for taking up space, moving, and fighting. I ended up being the only character in the session to take a hit, and lost 16 hit points, but was healed at the end of the damage inducing encounter of 15 hit points.

I deferred to other players a lot as I was there to learn how this online role playing format worked. I found a group of guys that reminded me a lot of other groups of gamers I have played with over the years. There was a lot of non play related banter, and meta-gaming. The players spent a lot of time trying to decide what to do in some situations, sort of like my ex and I got into when we were trying to decide what restaurant to go to. I kept expecting the DM to have a random encounter come and give us trouble for dawdling. There were no random encounters. We could have done a lot more exploration of the dungeon/caverns we were in, but were caught up in lots of back and forth over what should have been quick decisions. There was no elected leader, and the DM did not enforce order or keep us focused on the game. There was very little role playing of people speaking as their characters. That’s ok, I can play either way. I did try to roll play my dwarf in a way to move things along.

Our first obstacle was a slow moving underground stream about five feet deep and twenty feet wide. We spent 20 or so minutes trying to decide/figure out what to do. The next obstacle was a magic archway with an ominous inscription that could be interpreted as something good or bad. No one wanted to go through it, but we spent 20+ minutes with the wizards arguing about how to dispel a permanent magic item they had no clue what it did. Finally, we went the other way and the next ominous sign only delayed us for about five minutes. We went to a room with a brass door and opened it to find a room with two doors on the north, east, and west walls, total 6 doors. We started working out way around the room and two rooms had two wights we easily slew in two or three rounds, two more rooms had four juju zombies that took a little longer. The DM said that he levelled up the zombies so they would challenge us. I was hit in the second of those rooms. The next to last door had a passage. We decided to check out the other room and it had a wight. We slew the wight and ended the session about 1:30 PM. The DM said we each got 28,775 experience points. That is enough to put me to 11th level. The DM said he did not divide the XP. In earlier rooms we did find a +1 sword and a ring of levitation and one pair of wights was guarding a potion of flying. Not dripping with magic or treasure, but XP wise seemed pretty easy. What is odd is that I needed less than 28,000 XP to go from 10th level to 11th level. All classes use the same experience point advancement chart. The DM rolled actual dice and was on video, so we saw him look down to roll. It reminded me of DMs rolling their dice behind the screen.

My Take:

I had fun learning about the online role playing tools and playing and laughing with a group of gamers. D&D Next is not my thing, at least not all the feats, etc. The players tell the DM what they can or can’t do and what they need to roll to do things. I think the DM should set the parameters. There are so many options for a simple fighter, that it felt like I was playing a spellcaster in AD&D. A fighter should not be so difficult to create or play, but that’s because I learned how over 30 years ago.

As for the tools of online roleplaying I like what I see. Google+ is just the means of gathering together, and Roll20 is the table where we gather round. Roll20 is flexible enough to allow just a blank grid to show marching order, terrain/dungeon, objects, and monsters. You don’t need miniatures or a fancy map to play, but if you want fancy, you can do it. For the harried DM who is short of preparation time, I can see the value of using it to show basic positions and for rolling dice.

I have an AD&D/OSRIC game I plan to participate in on Wednesday to see how another DM does it.

I will do a few more sessions to get familiar with things before I dip my toes in the water to run my own game(s).

Here is a picture of what we saw when fighting the wight in the last room before play ceased.I forgot to mention that one of the wizards created a zombie from the remains of one of the juju zombies. No one seemed to have an issue with that, so alignment did not make a big difference in this game.

Friday Night D&D Next
Friday Night D&D Next

[EDIT] I forgot to mention sound. Roll20 has a feature to allow you to play background music and sounds. There is a collection of royalty free music, and you can upload your own. There are also other music/sounds available if you join their fee plan.

During our play another player was playing music. I don’t have a problem with music during play if it complements what is going on. I found that in the environment of a Google+ Hangout it was distracting from play. It was not my kind of music, I’m not sure what it was, and to me, did not fit. Also it was louder than it should have been at times. A way to put it in the background would have helped.

The other issue was on my end. I live across the street from the house next to the train tracks going through town. We have about five or six streets from one end of town to the other that cross the tracks. The Federal law requires the horn to be blown at each crossing. I am used to it and tune it out, so I was then conscious of it and muted the sound when there was a train. I will have to use a microphone that I can limit what it picks up so I don’t blast out the others and have to mute my microphone to avoid interfering with play. This is a drawback to running a game of my own.

RPGs

DM Meta Gaming Oddness

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Famous player character in one game, very evil.

Two new 1st level characters, one ran by my brother, Robert, the other I ran. All I recall is that my character was a magic-user. Robert posits to the DM that his character’s goal is to eventually go after this high level character.

The DM tells the player of the evil high level character about this. There is no way for the high level character to even know who we are. Let alone know that we want to set our long range goals on him.

Next session , the DM says that the high level bad guy shows up in town looking for us. He trashes us and the only thing my 1st level M-U can do is shoot a magic missile in his eye before he kills me.

I don’t recall now if the revenge story coming tomorrow was before or after this.