[OOC] DnD 5e - Beginner's Game

[JBRam2002]

@Ms Ravenwinter@ErmineI've DM'd campaigns before, so I feel knowledgeable enough to do so, but there are a few things that are holding me back at the moment.

1) I'm new here. That might not mean much in this group since I've been working to help out, and you all know that, but I still want to get my feet wet first.

2) I've only DM'd live. I need to see how this will go on PBP, since a lot of things feel like they could go very differently.

3) I just booted up my FF13 RP (link in sig), and need to get that off the ground.

4) Real life things are a bit crazy at the moment, and because of that, I recently had to end my live game.

Maybe in a while, I might be willing to give it a go, but for right now, I don't think it's a good idea. I need to be able to commit 100% to something, and I don't feel like I could yet.

[Ms Ravenwinter]

@JBRam2002 Fair enough sir. Good luck with the final fantasy rp. (If it were a 14 rp I'd be jumping on that so fast. Evyrless had her debut in that game's RP scene)

[JBRam2002]

@Ms RavenwinterCid from FF14 is my Cid. Does that count? :P

[Ms Ravenwinter]

@JBRam2002 If Lightning is in it then no ^-^

[Landaus Five-One]

@Ms Ravenwinter Its in the Past so the only two characters from FF13 is in it, Vanille & Fang. lol

[JBRam2002]

@Ms RavenwinterShe's not :P The RP is set 600 years before the game.

But I don't want to spam this thread with my RP. Feel free to check it out if you want~

[Big Dread]

I'd run a game but, pretty much the same reasons as JB only with slightly altered details. Hahhaha! I'll think up something to run though once I have a little less internet stuff and real life stuff going on. I love DM-ing. I'm kind of control freak. Hhahahah!

[The Harbinger of Ferocity]

@Ms Ravenwinter, @Ermine, while I have considered running a game, I am more specialized in Third Edition than I am anything else. At the very moment this would be somewhat difficult until at least this weekend, but also because the genre I Dungeon Master over is not for everyone. I am a low magic, gritty, dark, "savage fantasy" storyteller and I focus, invest and put most of my time into the balance of the game as much as I do the plot, to the point I have my own setting partially completed. Regardless, if I were to run it, even with the same group of players, I think it would have vastly different tone and direction.

Not because I disagree with @Ermine, not at all, but because of the edition difference, the game being E6, but also settings and themes. @Big Dread and @Landaus Five-One have heard some of my recounting and stories about my players and setting, and I was in fact prior to this game, attempting to run a Third Edition game in the Planes. Also, when I say "Third Edition" I do mean "3.5e", not Pathfinder or anything else. Any changes and supplemental additions I would mention explicitly as well, so think massive damage thresholds, some class rebalancing, flavor variances, and so on.

It is possible I could, but the reason I do not do Fifth Edition is because I legitimately have no plot. Everything I built and still am is for the older version because it just fits mechanically and thematically better.

[Big Dread]

@The Harbinger of Ferocity I have heard the stories and you know I am so down. :P Plus, while 3.5 isn't the best in my opinion your reasons for using it make perfect sense. If you ever think about trying to run another game you got me as a player for sure. Well, unless I am swamped or something, but, you know what I mean.

[Ms Ravenwinter]

@The Harbinger of Ferocity I agree with Big Dread on this. 5e is my baby but I can understand someone else's preference to something else and I'd be very willing to jump in on something like that. I don't mind the low magic thing (as long as I can be party utility because I despise playing PCs that can do nothing but combat >-<) and as far as dark and gritty, that's probably something that you all would expect to be sorta my thing. I'm a big geek when it comes to Soulsborne stuff and, while Dark Souls might not be very low fantasy, I think that fits in quite accurately with the 'savage fantasy' idea. So you have my endorsement, but I wouldn't want to take the place of someone else because the party gets too packed ^-^;

[Landaus Five-One]

@The Harbinger of Ferocity This is my first time delving into anything that is D&D and it had to be 5e. Since it is easier for me to understand. But I love your stories they are funny. I might try 3.5 sometime but Idk. >.>;

[JBRam2002]

@The Harbinger of Ferocity I'm personally not a fan of 3.5e... can't stand skill progression, and a few other details that just make it very frustrating to play. PF fixed most of those issues, but that version is miles harder than 5e to pick up and play. 5e, in my opinion, is much easier to use for a beginner's style game.

That said, I'm not sure what you plan for a 3.5e story, but I can’t think of anything that 5e's mechanics would preclude in terms of story. A 5e campaign can be just as dark and gritty as any 3.5e game. A few quick tweaks to keep players on edge: treat long rests like short rests in terms of regaining hp, and reduce the hit die recovered. For short rests, reduce the hp gained to maybe a single hit dice. On death saves, increase the DC for successive KOs between rests. Perhaps stack this increase with the number of times someone has died and been raised (so one death increases the dc of all death saves to 11, and it goes up grom there). Just those two changes significantly alter the difficulty of the game, and force characters to be smarter about using health as a resource. In terms of magic, I've never played a true low-magic game that put any restrictions on PC abilities beyond the rules. Unless you're planning that, 5e mechanics should suffice. Otherwise, you would have to rewrite neatly every class, but that's the same with 3.5 too.

In short, anything you plan in PF or 3.5e can be done in 5e, with maybe a few rule tweaks. But I find tweaking 5e to be simpler than tweaking the older versions.

[The Harbinger of Ferocity]

The changes and adjustments I have made are too comprehensive to facilitate going from one edition to another, @JBRam2002. The conversions do not always equate one for one, both lore and function wise. For example, I strongly enforce how prepared spells and magic as a resource play out, or how characters heal but a hit point a day, how some skills work now - that no longer even exist - or how races have almost all been rebalanced, Level Adjustments, and so on.

It would be more work to port it again to a new edition than it would be to teach someone the Third Edition rules and give a list of rules that have changed for the setting.

To everyone else, Third Edition is a more complicated Fifth Edition, nothing that cannot obviously be learned especially if you understand the basics, but it would take me some time to consolidate all the information and or finish critical parts of the wiki.

[Ms Ravenwinter]

@The Harbinger of Ferocity I don't really see why it would need a port of the full comprehensive list of changes you made to 3.5e. I'm not sure what you did with lore but as far as mechanics all you really need is to make the hp and spell slot regeneration systems less forgiving and throw nastier bads at people to make a campaign feel grittier. In my experience, 80% of the grit for any system is setting and tone.

Look at Eclipse Phase, a sci-fi tabletop that's basically made to play off cosmic/eldritch horror. In that game you can have your physical body die as much as you want and it doesn't matter, what matters is the psychological state your mind is left in after all the shit you've just been through.

For reference, Eclipse Phase is in a far-future scenario where humankind has transcended the need for their natural bodies because they managed to digitize their minds and implant them in manufactured bodies. Mechanical, biological, biomechanical, alien, whatever. So if you die, you can just have your mind be recovered and downloaded into another fleshy sleeve and keep going. The point of this is to show that the new list of dangers taken form by the advancement of technology is far more terrifying than something as mundane as death. Put that alongside the fact that resources in the game are far from plentiful because the solar system is on the brink of collapse. You have to be careful about what you get because everything is a finite resource.

I might have gotten a little carried away and I don't plan on making this thread into a different tabletop discussion. The point is that you don't need to change every little mechanic to make things gritty and have the world brutally indifferent to the players' existence. All you need is to put them in the right situation where everything is not plentiful and even if you get out of the situation physically unscathed you're still far from fine.

Or maybe I'm being dumb. Maybe I just wanna play EP now. Whatever. I'm going to focus on this RP now and if you make your own campaign then do what you want with it, I won't bitch at you. Promise. I'll probably still try and join up regardless of what you do with it.

[The Harbinger of Ferocity]

I will have to formally state that I will not be, in the foreseeable future, operating a Fifth Edition game for the same reasons I spoke to previously. As it is, I should begin compiling a list of those changes in preparation thereof for the future, but any progress we are speaking of and on about it would take close to a month to get it solidified and consolidated to the Guild.

Coming from an optimization background, Third Edition is regularly a very high magic system that has a number of pieces that rely on this. However, it is not difficult to learn or use as I said before. The only real difficulty one might take in the base d20 System is how skills are managed and spellcasting classes having to manage so much paper.

Which to me is part of the draw. I am one for system mastery, with complexity and a learning curve. Mind you this is not as prevelent at the levels we would be playing, 1st then immediately to 2nd after the introduction and on up to 6th, but if you are familiar with the regular system or Pathfinder this would feel tangibly different.

Regardless, all present here would get first call if and when I do this.

[Landaus Five-One]

@The Harbinger of Ferocity I can see why you can't simply transfer to a different edition since yeah, mastering a different edition is hard work and time consuming. Aka the one you have mastered that is. While I am a plain old newbie who is just graspin' at straws, in trying to understand. Holy Christ, 4 pages worth of stuff for a 3.5e Sheet. Jeez, I can see why the 5e isn't as complex compared to this monster aka 3.5e that is.

The 5e Sheet is only 3 pages. Sorry I meant to say 3, I forgot... lol

My eyes opened up wide when I saw the difference. I guess the complexity is a lot more in depth than other table top games.

[Ermine]

Oi. Let's just talk about this game. Because this game is going to be awesome, too. Just need one sheet and I can start it, and we know that sheet is coming soon. We're good. ^~^ Let's all be as excited as I am, k?! I get to have people play with me~

[Big Dread]

YEAH! FUCKING SUPER HYPE! MEGA AMPED! 10,000%! FUCK YEAH!

Currently amped this much!

[JBRam2002]

@Big DreadI'M JUST AS AMPED AS YOU. AMPED TO THE MAAAAXXXXX! WHOOOOOOO!

[Ms Ravenwinter]

*unenthustiastic wooing*