Dungeons & Dragons: The Nerdening

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Dungeons & Dragons: The Nerdening

Postby Irishjava » Wed Oct 14, 2015 9:31 pm

Since my wife and I had our giant baby, we don't get to go out too much. We missed seeing our friends, so I started organizing board game night. Regular board game night begat nerdy board game night, which begat Magic night, which finally begat Dungeons and Motherfucking Dragons night.

A lot of us had seen the "Community" D&D episode years ago, and that kind of sparked an interest that got brought up about 2 months ago. Nobody knew how to play, but that didn't seem super important. I picked up the 5th Edition books, taught myself the basic rules and kind of ran with it. Now I'm DMing an 8-person campaign that has been surprisingly eventful.

I like this game a lot, because it affords a freedom of action that really can't be replicated in a video game. In our second session, a new player's FIRST ACTION was to throw a javelin at the townmaster because he "looked shady". Another player tried to grab it in midair, missed, and it killed him instantly. She was legitimately shocked that she had just turned a "get quest from guy, do quest from guy" thing I had all set up to a "cover up a murder" thing that permanently changed the course of the adventure as their wizard scrambled to burn the body and dispose of the ash. It's a kind of reactive, shared storytelling that lends itself to really memorable moments.

Any other fans, or at least people who like that one (weirdly accurate) episode of "Community"?
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Re: Dungeons & Dragons: The Nerdening

Postby Anglerphobe » Wed Oct 14, 2015 9:48 pm

I don't really like the D&D system. I last played 3.5, which was ok, but still not to my liking. I still haven't really picked a roleplaying system I would stick to (short of making my own) but Runequest is better than D&D in my opinion. I actually enjoyed Dungeon World quite a lot, because I'm a dope and I don't understand complicated things.
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Re: Dungeons & Dragons: The Nerdening

Postby A Warrior Bunny » Wed Oct 14, 2015 10:40 pm

Irishjava wrote:I like this game a lot, because it affords a freedom of action that really can't be replicated in a video game. In our second session, a new player's FIRST ACTION was to throw a javelin at the townmaster because he "looked shady". Another player tried to grab it in midair, missed, and it killed him instantly. She was legitimately shocked that she had just turned a "get quest from guy, do quest from guy" thing I had all set up to a "cover up a murder" thing that permanently changed the course of the adventure as their wizard scrambled to burn the body and dispose of the ash. It's a kind of reactive, shared storytelling that lends itself to really memorable moments.


I don't watch much television and so don't really have interest in "Community", but you'd better keep me updated on the bolded.
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Re: Dungeons & Dragons: The Nerdening

Postby sunglasses » Wed Oct 14, 2015 11:05 pm

I don't watch Community.

I've always wanted to play D&D but have never been able to do so. Also, I so don't trust random Craigslisting of groups. Not as female anyway. I've heard the stories and it is horrifying.


I just wanted to say: Fuck Paladins. Fuck them hard.
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Re: Dungeons & Dragons: The Nerdening

Postby BROWNRECLUSE » Wed Oct 14, 2015 11:29 pm

Are Gelatinous Cubes still in the game?

I haven't played since middle school. They were the bane of my existence in the short time I played D&D
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Re: Dungeons & Dragons: The Nerdening

Postby ghijkmnop » Wed Oct 14, 2015 11:38 pm

Redacted
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Last edited by ghijkmnop on Mon Mar 18, 2019 5:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Dungeons & Dragons: The Nerdening

Postby sunglasses » Wed Oct 14, 2015 11:42 pm

BROWNRECLUSE wrote:Are Gelatinous Cubes still in the game?

I haven't played since middle school. They were the bane of my existence in the short time I played D&D



I dunno but you can get a plush one here.
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Re: Dungeons & Dragons: The Nerdening

Postby pikajew » Thu Oct 15, 2015 12:29 am

BROWNRECLUSE wrote:Are Gelatinous Cubes still in the game?

I haven't played since middle school. They were the bane of my existence in the short time I played D&D


4th edition, yes, no idea about 5th. I haven't played it since it was in beta and was called "D&D Next" which made it much more similar to 3rd. In other words, yes, I play D&D. Quite hilariously (which spawned the house rule "if pikajew says "I have an idea!" everyone must stop and listen). This has grown to include Shadowrun, which is a futuristic, steampunky D&D that combines fantasy with technology. Nothing will ever quite beat climbing inside a skeleton or playing dragon tether ball though.
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Re: Dungeons & Dragons: The Nerdening

Postby Andropov4 » Thu Oct 15, 2015 12:58 am

D&D is awesome. My favourite roleplaying system these days, though Pathfinder is also really good.
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Re: Dungeons & Dragons: The Nerdening

Postby NathanLoiselle » Thu Oct 15, 2015 1:42 am

There's a 5th edition??? I'm just coming to terms with there being a 3rd edition and there's a 5th edition???
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Re: Dungeons & Dragons: The Nerdening

Postby Andropov4 » Thu Oct 15, 2015 1:47 am

Nathan is like the Rip Van Winkle of RPGs.
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Re: Dungeons & Dragons: The Nerdening

Postby Irishjava » Thu Oct 15, 2015 5:03 pm

A Warrior Bunny wrote:I don't watch much television and so don't really have interest in "Community", but you'd better keep me updated on the bolded.


A paraphrased retelling:
Spoiler: show
"Shit. Shit shit shit. Why'd you do that? Shit! He was just sitting there! SHIT." exclaimed Mr. Popo, the halfling Paladin, as they stare at the still-gurgling corpse of Townmaster Harbin.

"He was all cowardly and stuff! He said the bandits weren't a problem! Wait, is he seriously dead?" queried the half-orc Yvelda, somehow confused at the causality of throwing a javelin at an unarmed man.

"Everybody shut the fuck up. Shut that door. He's dead now, and I'm not going back to wizard jail. Hang on." Flipping through his spellbook, Felix's face lights up with an idea. "Shut up. You guys. I just learned burning hands, can I just like... burn him to ash if I focus it right on him? You guess? Ok, everybody else pour some water on the floor around him." With great concentration, Felix funnels fire onto the fat, surprised corpse. In a matter of minutes, it is reduced to ashes.

"Put them in his desk or some shit. Nobody has to know."
"I'm so sorry you guys, was he important?"
"HE RAN THE TOWN, YVELDA"


Additional nerd story info. I ommitted a ton to make this somewhat manageable:
Spoiler: show
(16 hour) LONG story short, it resulted in a power vacuum that several factions were trying to fill, with half the party aligned with the Zhentarim (the evilest one). Their agent, who had contracted the party to remove the local gang leader, revealed herself and took control of the local gang and the town while the party was away for a few days. Upon returning, a disguised Harper (good faction) agent secretly approached the non-Zhentarim members of the party with a request.

At this point I split up the two factions to take their actions separately. The Harper told the good characters that a police force (warned via communication paper by Popo the Paladin during a previous session) was coming to wrest control of the town from the Zhentarim in the morning, and many people would die as hostages if the gang was still led by the Zhentarim agent. She suspected they would break if their leader was dead, and had the (good) players assassinate her in the night. They broke into the town hall, cast sleep on the guards and threw them in the jail cells, and attacked the leader in her office. Once they killed her, they propped her feet up on her desk. When the evil players came to report later after completing a separate secret night mission, they found her dead. The evil players were about to kill the good players when they met in the morning, but the police force showed up before they could. All of those characters were always in the town, but they really weren't going to be used like that at all. That's all COMPLETELY tangential to the main quest.

Because one player threw one javelin. It's fun, you guys.
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Re: Dungeons & Dragons: The Nerdening

Postby Irishjava » Wed Jan 13, 2016 2:47 pm

Necro/Update: After gaining 10 regular players, we FINALLY finished the "Lost Mines of the Phandelver" intro booklet. I spent 10 dollars for the starter kit, and we probably played for 100 hours. Not bad at all. They burnt down a magic tower, killed a goblin king, made deals with literal devils and did a lot of breaking and entering.

At the climax I made the main bad guy, The Black Spider, more complicated than the book outlined. He was trying to stop existential threats to the realm (because what fun is being evil if you're dead), and, after watching the party thwart everything he threw at them decided to treat with them instead. I used him to send half the party south to find a magic book referenced earlier in the game, and the other half to determine the source of elemental disturbance to the east that had been changing weather patterns in the area.

So, finally, I get to play the game. One of the players agreed to DM the excursion south while I run the Elemental Evil campaign to the east.

Here's my problem some of you might enjoy helping with: all 10 people are still coming over, and I want a way to include the other 5 occasionally. They'll usually be playing video games or something, but I'd like to give them control of fun, easy to role play NPC's occasionally: misunderstood goblins, ornery shopkeepers, zealous wandering knights, that kind of jazz. If any of you suggest simple, memorable side characters that would fit into either:
1) A town of about 50
2) Frontier wilderness
3) An elemental cult
I'll let one of the non-players drop them in the game at an appropriate point. Then I'll let you know what the party did with them after it's done! What can go wrong?
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Re: Dungeons & Dragons: The Nerdening

Postby DashaBlade » Wed Jan 13, 2016 4:25 pm

NathanLoiselle wrote:There's a 5th edition??? I'm just coming to terms with there being a 3rd edition and there's a 5th edition???


There are no editions after 2nd edition. I "disbelieve" and made my save vs marketing illusions!

All you half-orc, tieflings, dragon-born, bird people, giants and other freaky deaky monster player-characters, get off my (stronghold's) lawn.

/signed, Cranky Old 2nd Edition Half-Elven Bard.
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Re: Dungeons & Dragons: The Nerdening

Postby CarrieVS » Wed Jan 13, 2016 4:44 pm

DashaBlade wrote:
NathanLoiselle wrote:There's a 5th edition??? I'm just coming to terms with there being a 3rd edition and there's a 5th edition???


There are no editions after 2nd edition. I "disbelieve" and made my save vs marketing illusions!

All you ... tieflings ... get off my (stronghold's) lawn.

/signed, Cranky Old 2nd Edition Half-Elven Bard.

*Puts Warlock's Curse on Dasha*

I don't believe in any 5th edition either, even though the only rulebooks I possess are bewitched with illusions of such a concept - if you know what you're looking for it's easy to see it's not real. Half the alignment system is simply missing, the racial ability modifiers are now all bonuses instead of balanced, and all the advantages of Small characters are gone, so that's a penalty incurred by certain races instead of a balanced feature. And the real, unique and interesting Gnome race is replaced by a sort of knock-off miniature Eladrin.

But dammit, Tieflings are real! And so are Warlocks.
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