Dungeons and Dragons

[Blackthorne519]

Bret. Present. Jemaine. Present. Murray. Present.

Did you get your biscuit? No? Why not, Bret?

Where it said purpose I put "N/A".

What about you Jemaine.

I put I was gonna eat it.


Bt

[thehawk]

On Topic:

For online play, I seem to remember people once upon a time talking about AIM having a plug-in of some sort to do the random number generation, and a quick search also came up with this: http://www.catchyourhare.com/diceroller/ which, at least at first, seems like it might work alright. Another alternative is to just have the GM do all the dice rolling. At first this puts some people off, but who is the story-teller anyway? And who does the most fudging of rolls anyway? This goes along with the absolutely necessary the GM's word is final. Some things may allow for discussion, but in the end, it is final. Period. No ifs ands buts or whatevers.

One of the things we -did- use the online for was information. I set up a message board (using YABBSE/SMF) for each campaign. Then the boards were divided up into sections for fairly static player information and GM information (like notes on cities, the region, people), each guild had its own section, news items, you know, whatever the group (and GM) was up to. Groups (with permissions, this becomes important in a minute) were created, and each person (we only allowed one character per campaign per person) had an account that was for their charactor, which was assigned to the appropriate group. Because of permissions, as an example, the thief people could all see the thieves guild boards, but no one else could. Each charactor also had his or her own board for those private messages or whatever. Which sounds a little complicated, but since you can only see the boards that are relevent to you, it really wasn't too bad. This was done instead of private messages, because at the end of the campaign, it all got opened up for everyone to see, and we spend a couple of sessions talking about all of it.

Because all the notes were online, it also made it pretty portable, since anywhere with an internet connection would let you look/work. Of course, that is all a lot more prevelant now, so even easier.

Random Comments:
'smart enough' is subjective
what constitutes 'nerd activities' is also subjective- execpt I have never heard anyone contest WorldofWarCrack as being such
Planescape: Torment is one of my most favorites ever
work is absolutely work, and does not count towards anything except paying for what is actually important to you; this is why your job is called 'work' and not 'play'
my dog doesn't howl when the firetrucks go by, but I think she could wake the dead when the ice cream man comes around
I'm sure I could write some more, but it is Wednesday; and you know what that means

[Lady Pyro]

I love that all my ridiculous habits can be excused in some way, but I think anyone who spends over 100 hours getting halfway through a video game takes it out of the mainstream. I still consider everything except the most casual of gaming nerdy, but like thehawk said, it's pretty subjective I guess.

Flight of The Conchords: Hilarious.

The online forum based D&D sounds pretty hardcore. I guess I sometimes forget the capabilities of todays technologies to bring it all together. I'm actually extremely impressed, and may have to try that out.

[thehawk]

The online forum based D&D sounds pretty hardcore. I guess I sometimes forget the capabilities of todays technologies to bring it all together. I'm actually extremely impressed, and may have to try that out.

I wouldn't call it 'hardcore', exactly, as it was born out of me being lazy- what is the easiest way for me to make information available to the right people with the least amount of work? Nevermind the fact that it takes a little bit to set up, the payoff is always (to me, anyway) in the long run. I will put a -ton- of hours into something up front in order for me to put a minimal amount of time into it later (I am a Systems Admin/Systems Engineer, what can I say).

If I were to do it now, I would probably also set up an IRC server for the private discussions, then copy/paste those logs into each person's private section later. I would also turn off the internet for all of the players during the session.

One of the things that has come up recently in the discussion groups for the mapping software I use (Campaign Cartographer, http://www.profantasy.com/) is the concept of the RPG virtual tabletop. A quick search brings up this page (http://www.rpgvirtualtabletop.com/index.html) among some others, and looks like it may be a decent starting point, even tho it is dated and its forums gone (lots of links, several names of things, and some articles).

Speaking of, does anyone know whatever happened to WeatherMaster (Millieu Simulations), and whether there is a way to get ones hands on a copy these days? Aside from the torrents?

---
-thehawk
current project: http://thehawk.thehawkonline.com/gallery/

[Lugh]

I read comics and science fiction and play roleplaying games and video games. I'm also married, have a job and shower. Most of my reading is done on the train to work, and I also read mainstream and classic fiction.

Can I play!?

I've honestly never heard of a group making rules about "normality" before. Ironically, that actually seems a little nerdy, doesn't it? Oh sure, many roleplaying groups don't want weirdos, but it's usually a case by case basis, and you can usually tell who the creeps are by their hot sauce stained Daredevil t-shirt from the early 80s. Also the whole nerd vs geek thing... They both mean the same thing.

I'm with you on the quoting thing. I'll admit to quoting the Simpsons once in a great while... but that's about it.