I have been away from Role playing games for a while, living in remote areas of Australia for over 15 years or being busy owning and running my own business. After 5 years working, 7 days a week, 12 hours a day in my little cafe, I closed it down after achieving my goal of 5 years in business. Sadly though some other events soured this achievement, Now working part time, I have found myself with a lot of free time again.
Before all this I was very active in an Adelaide gaming shop club known as the Guild Arcane. I used to run D&D or Wolrd of Darkness games every weekend. It has always been a great creative outlet for me, and now in my new life after working all the time, I have found the need again to pick up a new creative outlet to keep me sane.
Recently I unpacked some boxes I have carried with me all over Australia for 20 years, and I found an unfinished work of a D&D campaign I had started writing when about 23 years ago. Our Adelaide D&D club was going to organize something we called Open Realms. In this concept various Dungeon Masters chose parts of Faerun to be in charge of. We used a Organisation like the Harpers for Players to access the many Portals in Forgotten Realms to explain the transporting of characters about the Realms depending on what DM and Players happened to be in the shop looking for a game.
It worked Great and was very enjoyable, One of my favorite characters I ever played existed in this world.
I was tasked with the little Known kingdom of Ugarth in the Shining South. I had hand drawn maps, NPC's back stories, networks of good and bad guys, events, stories, and bardic lore that went back to the time of Giants and the first appearance of Dragons.
It has been a little part of Ed Greenwoods world that keeps popping back into my life and imagination .
I'm getting older now, and a little shy about posting in local public forums like facebook to find players.
So after watching a number of live stream games like Acquisitions Inc and Dungeons of Drakkenheim, I came across Discord groups.
I was wondering how these work? How the dice are rolled? is the player quality base any good?
What are your experiences, or do you have any suggestions on how I could use the creative work that I am developing to keep me sane and happy on any other electronic medium to connect with D&D players?
I am running a campaign exclusively using Discord right now and it is working well. I use a discord bot called Avrae that allows you to import character sheets directly from D&D Beyond. It has an initiative tracker that the players can all join with their loaded characters and that I can add monsters to. The players simply type in a command right into discord and it calculates whether the attack hits, the damage, and any other things that require a die roll. It makes skill checks very easy since all the modifiers are already loaded in. It even has a way to add homebrew creations, but I haven't tested those yet. My players seem to really enjoy it and it still feels quite personal despite never meeting in person. It works much better than you might expect, and I encourage you to give it a try so that you can rekindle your D&D passion!
Also, you don't even have to go that far at first. You can make some friends, hang out in Discord, and then get on voice or video chat to play. Everybody rolls actual physical dice at their desk, wherever they are in the world, and the DM just describes things rather than using a map. Maybe they drop some illustrative images in the text chat ("the monster looks like this" "here's what the tavern looks like on the inside" etc.). As you find the playstyle that works for you all, you can decide how deep to go on integrations if at all.
Also, you don't even have to go that far at first. You can make some friends, hang out in Discord, and then get on voice or video chat to play. Everybody rolls actual physical dice at their desk, wherever they are in the world, and the DM just describes things rather than using a map. Maybe they drop some illustrative images in the text chat ("the monster looks like this" "here's what the tavern looks like on the inside" etc.). As you find the playstyle that works for you all, you can decide how deep to go on integrations if at all.
Good luck!!
This is also very true. While that discord bot works well for me and my group, it might not be everyone's cup of tea. As long as you and your group are having fun it doesn't really matter how you run everything or what tools you use.
Hail and Well met,
I have been away from Role playing games for a while, living in remote areas of Australia for over 15 years or being busy owning and running my own business. After 5 years working, 7 days a week, 12 hours a day in my little cafe, I closed it down after achieving my goal of 5 years in business. Sadly though some other events soured this achievement, Now working part time, I have found myself with a lot of free time again.
Before all this I was very active in an Adelaide gaming shop club known as the Guild Arcane. I used to run D&D or Wolrd of Darkness games every weekend. It has always been a great creative outlet for me, and now in my new life after working all the time, I have found the need again to pick up a new creative outlet to keep me sane.
Recently I unpacked some boxes I have carried with me all over Australia for 20 years, and I found an unfinished work of a D&D campaign I had started writing when about 23 years ago. Our Adelaide D&D club was going to organize something we called Open Realms. In this concept various Dungeon Masters chose parts of Faerun to be in charge of. We used a Organisation like the Harpers for Players to access the many Portals in Forgotten Realms to explain the transporting of characters about the Realms depending on what DM and Players happened to be in the shop looking for a game.
It worked Great and was very enjoyable, One of my favorite characters I ever played existed in this world.
I was tasked with the little Known kingdom of Ugarth in the Shining South. I had hand drawn maps, NPC's back stories, networks of good and bad guys, events, stories, and bardic lore that went back to the time of Giants and the first appearance of Dragons.
It has been a little part of Ed Greenwoods world that keeps popping back into my life and imagination .
I'm getting older now, and a little shy about posting in local public forums like facebook to find players.
So after watching a number of live stream games like Acquisitions Inc and Dungeons of Drakkenheim, I came across Discord groups.
I was wondering how these work? How the dice are rolled? is the player quality base any good?
What are your experiences, or do you have any suggestions on how I could use the creative work that I am developing to keep me sane and happy on any other electronic medium to connect with D&D players?
Kind Regards
Josh
I am running a campaign exclusively using Discord right now and it is working well. I use a discord bot called Avrae that allows you to import character sheets directly from D&D Beyond. It has an initiative tracker that the players can all join with their loaded characters and that I can add monsters to. The players simply type in a command right into discord and it calculates whether the attack hits, the damage, and any other things that require a die roll. It makes skill checks very easy since all the modifiers are already loaded in. It even has a way to add homebrew creations, but I haven't tested those yet. My players seem to really enjoy it and it still feels quite personal despite never meeting in person. It works much better than you might expect, and I encourage you to give it a try so that you can rekindle your D&D passion!
Sounds perfect, thanks!
Also, you don't even have to go that far at first. You can make some friends, hang out in Discord, and then get on voice or video chat to play. Everybody rolls actual physical dice at their desk, wherever they are in the world, and the DM just describes things rather than using a map. Maybe they drop some illustrative images in the text chat ("the monster looks like this" "here's what the tavern looks like on the inside" etc.). As you find the playstyle that works for you all, you can decide how deep to go on integrations if at all.
Good luck!!
This is also very true. While that discord bot works well for me and my group, it might not be everyone's cup of tea. As long as you and your group are having fun it doesn't really matter how you run everything or what tools you use.