DnD 5e DMs and Players - be sure to mention RW in current survey

This is why I like to run my games from RW and not from paper. Rules readily searchable and, even better, hyperlinked in context. Then there is the ability to use storyboards and smartmaps as navigation. Even if the content makers don't make the best use of RW, just having it in RW will make the adventures and rules many times more helpful than the print resources.

This discussion reminds me of one of my favorite XKCD strips:


http://www.xkcd.com/393/

@ShadowChemosh, thanks, I tried the beginner box already!

I have found Paizo's written adventures to be probably the least bad of the bunch. I found the PF beginner set to be noticeably better than the 5e starter set for example. So trying to stay reasonably on topic I do hope LWD will work with publishers to make content clear in RW like in a well-done page.

But I have abandoned PF I'm afraid, so even if the strategy guide (which I haven't seen) is really good - and it reads from the reviews like they wrote it to try and fix the mess that is the core book - I have already jumped ship.

So I'd like to see 5e adventures available in RW really.

I told them my truth about GenCon: I could care less. It's a convention in another country that I don't foresee having the money to attend any time soon. The only thing I care about it is the news that trickles back. Also, jealousy of all the exclusives I'm missing.

Wizards seems to tend towards getting new players engaged and since GenCon is already full of roleplayers who have played D&D, they likely don't see the need to promote too much there. GenCon also seems like a small exclusive club, most roleplayers will never go or even know what GenCon is!

Ghost Matter said:

GenCon also seems like a small exclusive club, most roleplayers will never go or even know what GenCon is!

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This can totally be the case if you live in another country but here in the states I have never meet anyone who does not know about Gen Con. Not saying that everyone goes but everyone seems to know what it is. At least here...

ShadowChemosh said:

This can totally be the case if you live in another country but here in the states I have never meet anyone who does not know about Gen Con. Not saying that everyone goes but everyone seems to know what it is. At least here...

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I haven't lived in the USA so I can't judge that much. I was thinking mostly about non-hardcore roleplayers. The ones that join their friends for their weekly or monthly D&D game and don't go on dedicated forums or the like.

GenCon is a very big convention. It gets a certain amount of national media coverage.

For instance this past spring when the host state temporarily passed an antigay law a significant part of the coverage was about the response by GenCon.

So basically everyone who plays RPG's, CCG's and hobby board games in North America has heard of GenCon.

FWIW, I've met plenty of tabletop gamers who don't know/care about Gen Con. There are also folks who go to Gen Con who haven't played D&D or its closely derived systems, or don't play RPGs there at all. For example, I know a few people who only go to play board/card games and some of my friends' kids focus on trading card games. (Judging from the size of the TCG hall, there's plenty of adults there too.)

For those in Europe (and nearby) this may be a fair comparison: how many tabletop gamers know or care about the convention we call Essen? (Internationale Spieltage SPIEL.) Essen is the only tabletop gaming convention I've heard of that's about the same size as Gen Con, which may be more a reflection of my lack of knowledge of tabletop gaming conventions than anything else. (Note that here in the US the PAXes, Dragon*Con, and San Diego Comic Con have similar or larger attendance but aren't focused on tabletop gaming.)

It is easy to forget that most people who play RPGs don't play outside their core group and don't care about what happens outside of their own home game. (That's something WotC found doing research for D&D 3.0, and I forget about it at times myself.) We're the exception merely by talking to other gamers about the hobby!

Those exceptional folks are the ones you want to reach out to at large events, because they are the ones from which you hope to derive a network effect. The question is whether it's worth it financially vs. other efforts. Perhaps not in this case.

One's attitude to GenCon may have something to do with one's age. For those of us who came of age before the geeks not only won, but fully inherited the earth and reshaped our culture, GenCon was a Mecca. A pilgrimage to be made in an era when playing roleplaying games were not only uncool but also, in many parts of the United States, seen as an evil, subversive, gateway to suicide, murder, and devil worship (I wish that sentence was hyperbole). GenCon was a place where one could easily meet other game enthusiasts and openly play and discuss the game without fear of bullying, religious interventions, and police interrogations.

Now that the geeks have own and even the cool kids play fighting and adventure games on their iDevices, whose mechanics have DnD in their DNA, I don't think that GenCon plays that same role, at least not nearly to the same extent. I would not be surprised if those who have strong emotions about DnD needing to remain a strong presence at GenCon are older players who are nolstalgic about the GenCon they remember in the 70s and 80s.

Interesting.

As one living across the pond I only know of GenCon and similar because I am - apparently - somewhat of a geek (my wife would surely agree...).

I only know about GenCon from seeing it mentioned here, I wouldn't have come across it otherwise.

The UK has the UK Games Expo: http://www.ukgamesexpo.co.uk which will be held on 3rd to the 5th of June 2016 in Birmingham (obviously that would be the Birmingham in the UK...)

I've never been, but I'm very tempted to go along.

I highly recommend going to local and regional game conventions. It's good to see how others run your favorite RPGs and to try things your home group may not want to play. Play new games with new people!

Locals and regionals are also cheaper than a huge con and (depending on how you want to do it) it's easier to be in the same hotel as the convention or to travel to the site and back home at night.

MNBlockHead said:

One's attitude to GenCon may have something to do with one's age. For those of us who came of age before the geeks not only won, but fully inherited the earth and reshaped our culture, GenCon was a Mecca. A pilgrimage to be made in an era when playing roleplaying games were not only uncool but also, in many parts of the United States, seen as an evil, subversive, gateway to suicide, murder, and devil worship (I wish that sentence was hyperbole). GenCon was a place where one could easily meet other game enthusiasts and openly play and discuss the game without fear of bullying, religious interventions, and police interrogations.

Now that the geeks have own and even the cool kids play fighting and adventure games on their iDevices, whose mechanics have DnD in their DNA, I don't think that GenCon plays that same role, at least not nearly to the same extent. I would not be surprised if those who have strong emotions about DnD needing to remain a strong presence at GenCon are older players who are nolstalgic about the GenCon they remember in the 70s and 80s.

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This may have something to do with how I view Gencon.

I was a gamer and all around geek growing up in the 70's and 80's in the south. The school I went to sent our gifted program to a counselor when they found out that a bunch of us played D&D outside of school. That first trip to Milwaukee, my first GenCon was also the first year it was in Milwaukee, was liberating.

Not to start an edition war, just providing another point of view...I've been playing for a bit as well (red box), so my group has done it pretty much all. We tried out 5e and immediately gave up Pathfinder for it (and we were a very early PF group.)

Pathfinder was just as over-expanded as 3.5 by late this year, and we found the simplicity of 5e reignited some of the 1st Edition feel that got most of us started in the first place.

I'd say if you prefer tactics, then Pathfinder is still the best. If you like the story to move along at a faster pace, then the quick combats of 5e makes that much easier.

I just really, really wish that RealmWorks and HeroLab supported it like they do Pathfinder!

No desire to flame an edition war, but PF players always tell me that just because PF has lots of rules, you don't have to use them all. If you are a DM making your own campaign, you can dictate what rules will be used. I am DMing a 5e campaign and even I have made it explicit what will be allowed. Right now, I'm ignoring any crunch, such as new playable races, in the adventure books. I use the non-magic rangers discussed in an Unearthed Arcana article and am looking at some of the suggestions in a more recent ranger article.

I could be that even the most base rules of PF are much more tactic dense. I thought that was a complaint of D&D 4e.

I'll say for me, even 5e battles can be a bit of a slog at times. Part of is is that I'm still finding my groove as a DM, but I also think that the initiative mechanic is partly to blame. I don't mean the time to roll initiative...you can just set initiative once and use it for all encounters if you want. But that fact that you have to go turn by turn. So you might be sitting there for a few minutes just waiting your turn. I think it would be more interesting for everyone to say what they are going to do at one time. Initiative only determine the order in which you resolve the results. Though, that may just have everyone waiting for the DM to calculate results.

This just sent me off to Google up initiative and alternative to that mechanic and I've fallen down the rabbit hole...

I actually like putting minis on a gridded map for combat after decades of theater of the mind or ungridded maps for combat. Once the GM and all the players are used to moving on the grid and how the turn sequence and actions work it flows pretty smoothly.

I can run a 5 player vs. roughly the same number of NPC combat in less than 5 minutes per combat round on average. It's mostly a matter of experience with the system, on both my side and my players' side.

On the subject of dictating rules used, of course as a PF GM I dictate what rules are allowed. There are a huge number of PF and 3.5 books out there. There is simply no way I would allow all of that into my game.

I own both pathfinder and 5e and can see the advantages of 5e and PF. 5e is a much easier game to jump into for players. Just get a Players Handbook, some dice and maybe a mini and you're all set.

PF players start off with the core rulebook but can add on to that literally dozens of additional books, with a guarantee of one new one coming out every month. That is a lot of options for the power gamer type. It is also a lot of stuff for a GM and group of players to pick and choose in building their preferred game world.

For instance my present campaign setting is roughly classic fantasy in feel while I know someone working on something best described as PF gaslight using the occult classes and some of the other appropriate classes and options. So two radically different worlds built from what is essentially the same game.

I like using a mixture of both. For small, uncomplicated encounters, especially outdoors, I may use nothing but words. Other times I use a wet-erase battle map. I also regularly use DM Scotty's 2.5 cavern system (search for DM Scotty on You Tube. Video #100 gives the overview for his cavern system). Sometimes I use printed battlemaps (which I like especially for ships since you will have movement on the ships as well as movement OF the ships. I have some print and cut models that I've not yet used but plan to eventually.

I've yet to use a VTT but I may be trying that out as well.

I'm still re-learning how to GM, so I experiment a lot. But I also think it is good to mix it up a lot, especially in long sessions (mine are 8 hours per session).

MNBlockHead said:

I'll say for me, even 5e battles can be a bit of a slog at times. Part of is is that I'm still finding my groove as a DM, but I also think that the initiative mechanic is partly to blame.

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Really interesting discussion - I still play and run AD&D2e and Call of Cthulhu, and though people say that AD&D2e battles take a long time, I find that they take no longer than the CofC battles. Not that CofC has many battles because most of the adventures I run are investigative, and that's the sort of scenario I write for AD&D too. I don't find using initiative really makes them take longer, either.

We usually use figures to indicate who's where, with no grid. Quite often, the 'opposition' is indicated with dice, because we don't have a wide range of figures to call on. Gone are the days when we had boxes and boxes of them - I think they must have disappeared in a long ago house move and my hands aren't steady enough these days to paint my nails, let alone figures.