The Fancy Bastard Forum

I'd certainly like to play, but I've never played 4e. For that matter, I've never played. I only DM. I own many dice!

Posted By: DramI'd certainly like to play, but I've never played 4e. For that matter, I've never played. I only DM. I own many dice!

We can have an intro session before the game begins in proper. Reading through the 4e Player's Handbook should get you pretty well up to speed, though. The basic mechanics are pretty much the same as with 3.5. A few differences (diagonals always count as 1 square, allies don't provide cover for enemies, etc.). Really the main difference is how the characters and monsters are put together. It loses a little bit of verisimilitude, but the learning curve is also much shorter. Good tradeoff, I think.

Really, as long as some of the players are familiar with what they're doing it will be easy to get everyone else caught up.

Anyway, I'm of course interested in playing. mikebrady@ieee.org

In the "A few Question About D&D" thread, I specifically asked if a player with no experience (me) would be welcome, and got an affirmative response, so I hope that's still the case. I think I have most of the basics down, but my main exposure to how a game actually flows is the recent Penny Arcade podcast series. With a little bit of help from the other players, I think it would be a lot of fun to learn and play, especially when that advice would be coming from my fellow Fancy Bastards.

So again, count me in!

mchale.sean@gmail.com

And as for the questions posed, I have heard that 4th ed. is pretty friendly to new players, so that would obviously be my preference if it's true. As for classes, I would probably lean toward a rogue for both the combat and role-playing possibilities. But I'm certainly open to input from more experienced players. For playing time, I would suggest one evening a week, depending on the work/school schedules of the players.

I can make time during the week, but my best times are friday evenings, saturday all day, and sunday afternoons

I'm not particularly familiar with 4e, but I think I could swing it. Also for character sheets, I would suggest a Google doc so we can all check each other's work, not that I think any of you would lie, but mistakes are made.

Posted By: DramI'm not particularly familiar with 4e, but I think I could swing it. Also for character sheets, I would suggest a Google doc so we can all check each other's work, not that I think any of you would lie, but mistakes are made.

Ya and no "rolling" ability scores. Standard or point-buy arrays only. And yes, my players have made mistakes both in their favor and to their detriment so double-checking sheets is advisable.

My preference is for 4th edition as well. As for DMing - if we go with a published adventure series we could even rotate DM responsibilities (among those that are up for it). I think that might work the best, but I'd also be happy to be the DM if nobody's up for it. As a player I'll fill in whatever class roles we might need, although I'm slightly more interested in Cleric Warlord and Wizard. Maybe Paladin. So yeah, anything really.

I agree that once a week is probably right. Friday night (late) is typical for my home campaign, though, so that's out for me.

Sounds interesting. I'm a DnD n00b, though. My boyfriend will probably play. He's pretty well-versed in 3.5e.

I'd love to play but i can't really help with the organising or anything because like a few others i'm a D&D noob. Just need a time and a place and some patient folk willing to spend the time explaining the rules and stuff.

Id be interested in playing, but its been 8-10 years since I've played, so I'm pretty much a noob.

Sadly, I'm already a huge geek, so my Friday nights and Saturday afternoon/evenings are already claimed for roleplaying games with my local friends. Although, I'm unavailable to play with them both this weekend and next since I'll be working all the way through to the end of the month. So, I'm down for really anything right now that's not workday time.

Let's go back to addressing the issues too before we get sidetracked.

Game version: I officially nominate 4th Edition DnD since it's brand new, readily available (via legal and illegal means), and most importantly I already own a PHB.

DM: I'm DM'ing another DnD game for my local friends, so I'm not really that excited to prepare for another one in the little free time I have. I imagine some of the other people here with the proper skills/experience feel similarly. I don't know what to suggest for this. Looks like Dram, Mike Brady, and myself are the only ones with a modicum of experience. Rock, paper, scissors?

Players: At current count for this thread there's Muttonhead, Ferros, Bill + boyfriend, Mike Brady, Dram, FrakTruck, Sean, and myself. That makes 9, which even with a great DM could be stretching things. I think most people know about the DnD tangent rule (often, early, and they will last as long as they have to). I don't want to ask people to leave since that just sucks, but this many people might strain things a bit. Then again, I may not have time to play some times, and I'm sure others will have things come up when they can't play. So maybe we'll end up with an average of 5 players+DM showing up to play. Again, this one needs some thought.

OpenRPG: I'm willing to use OSS, in fact I've already installed the Mac version when I first saw the link in the other thread. But.... I have no idea how to use it. I suppose reading the instructions/faq on the site may help, but I'm not sure. The reason this is suggested is for a game mat and chat, correct? Chat could be covered by any number of IM/IRC/VoiP programs, but the game mat is something we should make a decision on. If any of us can get OpenRPG working, post in here and talk about it and we'll try to use that. If not, we'll have to look for another solution, or perhaps go freeform and just describe everything more ambiguously, though that's something more of a DM decision.

Classes: Mike - Cleric, Warlord, Wizard or Paladin (I'd like to see all those in a multi-class, yowza). Sean - Rogue. Me - Ranger. Everybody else - hasn't said.

Playing time: I think times around the weekend may work best for most people here, so why don't we pin a time down for a Saturday night or Sunday afternoon.

I vote for Sunday afternoon personally. Dinner with the in-laws is usually Sunday at 6:30 (Eastern), so I'm typically available from morning until then.

Gotta go pick up the handbook....

Version: I'm going to go ahead and make an executive decision and say we're going with 4th edition. The only reason to stick with 3rd would be if we had a lot of veteran players that had invested a lot of money in it and really wanted to stick with it. That's not the case here, so 4th it is.

Players: LockeCole and Kyleblakely expressed interest on the other thread. That brings us up to 11, meaning we could potentially run two "tables". The main disadvantage to this would obviously be that a 2nd DM would be required. However, DM prep time would be slightly reduced (only one person would have to prep maps for each session). In addition, if we're running the same adventures - but have two scheduled sessions per week - then if somebody has to miss their regular session one week they can jump in on the other one so as not to fall behind. I like the idea, but it's contingent on a second DM.

The other option is to use a seat cap for each session. I'd suggest a cap at 6 - beyond that is not really manageable. Each week people sign up for seats, first come first served. Maybe two alternate seats in case people don't show up. We'd have to institute level "bumps" for people that fall behind, but that's not too difficult.

OpenRPG: I'll give it a shot some time this weekend.

I'm a long-time D&D player who would be interested as well - I have access to both 3rd and 4th, and while I prefer 3rd, I'd play either. I'd be willing to DM if needed, but would prefer to play, as it's been way too long since I've had the chance.

One note about Open RPG - it's honestly not all that great. It's map program is buggy and unreliable. You might want to look into MapTools (never used it, no experience), or IRC (no map, unfortunately) instead. If you do decide to go with either OpenRPG or IRC, I can help give a tutorial with that.

My email is dragonchild12@gmail.com, and AIM is kariusii.

if we dont use openrpg or some other program My idea would be to use a webcam of sorts. I dont have one unfortunately

There's another idea. We could use something like UStream.tv to broadcast the game map from a webcam, or even use it to share a desktop shot if someone has a map system.

Just got home from Borders, and I'll spend tomorrow reading up on just what the hell I've gotten myself into.

I'm perusing the maptool site and it looks like it's more robust (and supported) than OpenRPG. I nominate Maptool for our game needs. More commentary to follow as I try to figure out how it works.

Oh, and you can reach me at theppb@gmail.com or through Skype username theppb. Just make sure you say who you are so I can sort out legit stuff from spam. Thanks!

Thanks Karrius! Looks interesting!

If you don't have a map given to you by a computer program, don't even consider it - the webcam is too much work. Too often, the DM is drowning in multiple books, dealing with his computer, etc, anyway. Combat would also go exceedingly slow with a webcam due to the players having to tell the DM where to move the minis, then having him have to move them, confirm it's the exact spot, etc. If the players aren't able to interact with the battlemap, it will become a real pain. Think chess-by-mail levels of slowness. The DM will also have to have the proper minis, and it's an extra layer of setting stuff up. Not to mention getting a flat table near a computer, having a place to play on, etc, is hard.

The main problem with Open is that the map tends to bug out, sometimes. Its colors will randomly dissappear, it will sometimes not load for players, lag some machines, and not all features work - Fog is notorious for crashing the servers. I used to use it a lot, but slowly started to use mapless IRC for my games more and more, just because of reliability.

If you do choose to use Open RPG, this: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mix/gallery (official D&D mini gallery) is a great link to get mini pictures from. Good selection. No idea how well the pictures work with maptools.

On a similiar subject, a lot of people have been trying to use Skype as a medium for online D&D recently. I highly suggest sticking to text, or at least text for all the IC stuff. I've found it helps people stay IC a lot easier, especially if they're new (we all have some 'I feel silly doing this!" part of us when we're talking about RPing), and multiple people can type in chat at once. Not true for voice chat, where generally only one person can talk at a time and be understandable. Voice chat for OOC information and questions works, however, but it can very quickly become distracting.

gahhhh why 4.0? lets totally bastardize dnd, and make it like an mmo..

Just a thought - if 2 DMs are available, what about some collaboration between the two, essentially making up one adventure for both groups? It might ease the strain for each DM, and will let the groups swap stories afterwards.

Posted By: SeanJust a thought - if 2 DMs are available, what about some collaboration between the two, essentially making up one adventure for both groups? It might ease the strain for each DM, and will let the groups swap stories afterwards.I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy

Yeah, that was the idea. The assumption that I'm making is that we'd be running some sort of published campaign. Either the "H" series or the new adventure arc starting in Dungeon magazine next month. If we have two tables' worth of players then the DMs could run the same adventure in the same week - just at two different times. If you have plans during your regularly-scheduled game time, you can drop in on the other session instead. That way players can try and avoid falling behind, and it mixes things up a bit too. But I'm not sure we have two DMs.

I'd be willing to DM, as I mentioned before. I've been wanting to give 4e a try. I'm wary of the Dungeon magazine arc though - there's no telling if it'll come out often enough for a weekly (or however else often we want to play) game. If it's anything like the old Dungeon ones, it's hard to do more than twice a month and stick to the adventure. It's not like 4e is particularly difficult to design adventures for either, though. I think the first step would be trying to divide the players up based on time slots and group preferences, trying to figure out what sort of campaign each group is after, and then going from there.

Great! You're more than welcome to put together a campaign! I'm busy writing my home campaign so I'm certainly not up for writing a second myself. The advantage with going with published material, of course, is that if a DM gets burnt out somebody else can easily take over so the players aren't left in the lurch. Since we don't really know each other I think it would be challenging for a DM to motivate himself/herself to keep at a campaign every week for 18 months straight. Maybe I'm being pessimistic.

As for the Dungeon adventure path, it's supposed to span all 30 levels over 18 months. That works out to around 16-17 encounters per adventure. At 4-5 encounters per session that should easily keep us busy, even if we go every week without breaks. That depends on WotC holding up their end of the bargain, of course, but now that they're getting ready to court subscriptions I think they have a lot of incentive.

It appears that WotC has launched their D&DI Compendium. You'll have to be a D&D Insider (which is free, for now) to check it out, but it looks decent. It doesn't currently offer hyperlinked browsing like the d20 SRD, and it doesn't have anything about game mechanic rules, but it could be a handy tool for looking up a power or class feature when books are in limited supply around the table. This discovery via Dragon Avenue.

What you say about burn out is true enough. I'm used to doing online games, however, and as long as people actually show up, I haven't had much issues. Socializing and meeting new people is my favorite part of starting up with a new group. :)


As for the Dungeon adventure path, it's supposed to span all 30 levels over 18 months. That works out to around 16-17 encounters per adventure. At 4-5 encounters per session that should easily keep us busy, even if we go every week without breaks. That depends on WotC holding up their end of the bargain, of course, but now that they're getting ready to court subscriptions I think they have a lot of incentive.

Oh? Wow. I hadn't read up about it much - the only experience I have with published stuff is with Age of Worms (which wasn't so great) and Red Hand of Doom (which was marvelously excellent). My usual group tends to be a bit too much "Let's jump off the rails, and set them on fire while we're at it.". But yeah, that's a whole lot meatier than what I was expecting. The previous Dungeon stuff usually only had about a single level's worth of material each month, which was more what I was expecting. That rate of advancement seems playable as it comes out, though. Definitely an idea worth considering, but worth looking over first, just in case. If we do end up not going with the adventure paths, I have a few campaign ideas, depending on the group's preference.

Times and dates should probably be worked out now. Day wise, any day but Friday or Wednesday is good for me. Any time after about 5pm and ending before about 2am eastern is preferred. I'd suggest about a 4 hour time block, with maybe some allowances for going a little longer. Prepare for most games to end after 4 hours, but be OK with some being longer if we're in the middle of a combat or something. Tables should be kept as consistent as possible, IMO - I'm not big on the idea of shuffling things around, as it'll create a bit of a headache.

We should start to see about getting everyone on the same page - making sure we have a workable time slot, everyone can use whatever program we choose, and if we do two groups, make sure they're split nicely. I personally don't like any more than 5 players in a single group- I find that's pretty much the ideal number for online games - and 4e seems designed around that number as well. Does anyone want to take over the task of trying to make sure everyone interested has a time slot they'd be OK with?

Friday and saturday nights are usually best for me, anytime after 4pm est to whenever. I can make time for other days during the week though if it comes to that

My home group usually meets on either Friday or Saturday (but usually Friday). Other than that I could do pretty much any time except Tuesday nights.

Friday nights, Saturdays, and Sundays should be good for me. Josh's schedule is up in the air for the time being, but I think he has the same availability as me. I'll poke him until he creates and account and can speak for himself.

Karrius mentioned this thread to me while the podcast was going on yesterday.
I'd like to join as well. I can probably make any time we agree on. I can be contacted at zhinz1@gmail.com .
I'd be willing to help get things set up in either OpenRPG or RPTools, but I can't quite figure out how to do so. For RPTools, I think we would need to create a form for the Character Tool that is E4 compatible. There's a form that 3.5 compatible, but I don't know if we can make that work. The documentation says it can display any form created with Abeille, but I can't figure out how to do that either.

I've created a spreadsheet to help me see what effect my class and race has on my skills, and stats. It's here if you're interested in seeing it. I had to make it open for editing, but please don't save any changes to it.

Posted By: DrPepperMDI've created a spreadsheet

Thanks for posting the spreadsheet! Is it meant for 3.5 or 4?

Whenever DnDinsider gets their character creator up and running, that might be the way to go (although I haven't found out when it'll be live yet). The tool itself will be free, but you won't be allowed to save the character or use it online without subscribing. A simple printscreen could take care of that, along with perhaps an editable .pdf of the official character sheet. It might even be worth joining for a month just to see if the group thinks it's worth.........OK, I just looked at the pricing for it, and at $10-15/month, I think it's way too overpriced for what we're looking to do. If they went with $5/month, $40/year, then I'd say the group should consider it. At any rate though, using the tools to create characters might be helpful.

Here is the .pdf I referred to above. It's posted by the creators, so I figure it's OK to post the torrent link.

Dungeons & Dragons DnD 4E Utilities - PDF Character Sheet 2.0 - SSD

My spreadsheet is for 4.0. It looked better in OpenOffice because I made the class and race fields drop down lists so that you could only enter valid entries.

Actually, after doing some searching I found a spreadsheet someone else made. It puts mine to shame.
Go to http://dnd4.com/dd-4th-edition-character-sheet and click the top link for Ron R.'s character sheet.
Amazingly, it does it all without macros.

<Bill>Added linkification</Bill>

Wow, great find! Somebody put a TON of work into that.

I was recently informed by my regular gaming group that my characters are being written out of the campaigns. This is a reaction to me announcing that I'll be leaving for college soon. I'm not upset, though I will miss being a part of those games. But, this makes me more available for a hopefully inevitable Fancy Bastard DnD game. How we coming on that, by the way?

Good question. Have you had any luck with MapTool? I'm embarassed to say I haven't even tried yet. Assuming it works (and I have no reason to believe otherwise) I see this as the most effective way to get this finally organized:

1. Declare DMs
2. DMs announce the times they will be running their sessions
3. People sign up under a specific DM

The Scales of War adventure path will be starting any time now! I'm ready to go!

I've played with MapTool only a little bit. I'm not quite sure how to import overlays into the program. I'll spend some more time on this today and tomorrow.

The latest build of their CharacterTool is supposed to support 4E. Alas, the last time I tried to use it, it wouldn't load. I'll see if there's a newer build or something else I can try. Perhaps I should try it in Windows.

The Character tool is still in version 0.1 beta. I wouldn't spend too much time trying to get it work yet. The spreadsheet that DrPepperMD mentioned a couple posts up is pretty exceptional though.

Character tool loaded up just fine in Windows, but they only have standard support (at the moment) for DnD 3.5, GURPS, and Hero (I'm assuming the latest versions). They're working on a 4th edition build, but it may be a while.

As far as the most important 3 things, I think you're the leading nominee for DM, Mike.

Fair enough. Here it is then! I'm opening my table for players. First come, first served. All players must have a copy of the 4th Edition Player's Handbook. If you know what class you would like to play please include it. (I will accept the Artificer class recently posted at DnDinsider.com) The first session is pending release of the first adventure in the campaign (some time this month), but we will hold a dry run before then to make sure we are all familiar with the online tools (and to help anyone that needs a hand with character creation).

ETA: Keep in mind that I will probably switch to the DnD Insider tools when they are released. There will be a beta period during which we can test/use them for free, but when they are fully released it will be $10-15/month. I don't want that to come as a surprise to anyone when the time comes!

Table #1: Adherents of the Repeated Meme (name subject to change)
DM: Mike Brady
Meeting Time (tentative): Sundays, 2 PM EDT
Campaign: Scales of War
Map Client: MapTool
Chat Client: TBD
Max. Players: 6
Players (Class):
Sean - Karch Silvertongue, the Tiefling rogue
Flanked - Human ranger
DrPepperMD - undecided
Now we've got a party!
Fifth is the charm
What took you so long?

Posted By: Mike Brady
Table #1: Adherents of the Repeated Meme (name subject to change)
DM: Mike Brady
Meeting Time (tentative): Sundays, 2 PM EDT
Campaign: Scales of War
Map Client:MapTool
Chat Client: TBD
Max. Players: 6
Players (Class):
Sean - Karch Silvertongue, the Tiefling rogue
Someone else's name here
Another name here
Now we've got a party!
Fifth is the charm
What took you so long?

Should we have a common place to post character sheets?

Yes, that would be great! Do you have an idea?

A Putfile account under the DM's name might be the best way to go. I would say we use Dr. Pepper's suggested tool for the Lv1 creation, and then the one I posted for updating after each session.

Posted By: Mike Brady
Table #1: Adherents of the Repeated Meme (name subject to change)
DM: Mike Brady
Meeting Time (tentative): Sundays, 2 PM EDT
Campaign: Scales of War
Map Client:MapTool
Chat Client: TBD
Max. Players: 6
Players (Class):
Sean - Karch Silvertongue, the Tiefling rogue
Someone else's name here
Another name here
Now we've got a party!
Fifth is the charm
What took you so long?In Soviet Russia, Hoop-Dee-Doo reviews you!

Is this starting today? If so, count a level 1 Human Ranger in there as well.

No not starting today. First session is TBA - still plenty of time to join!

Incidentally, we have two Strikers now. If you're on the fence over which class to play, we should fill the following roles:

Leader: Cleric or Warlord or Artificer
Defender: Fighter or Paladin
Controller: Wizard

That said, it's not strictly necessary to have every role in the party - play what you want and find ways to compensate if something is missing.

I'd like to join. I'm not sure of my class though. I'll let others choose theirs and I can fill in wherever I'm needed.

How were the two DM's going to work, Mike? Were they going to share preparation duties?

I was thinking a 2nd DM could run a second table. We'll have to prepare maps and tokens for MapTool, so we could alternate that duty between DMs if we're both running the same adventures. Anything to save a little time.