Watching Johnny DM for the Oxventure was my first time watching anything D&D related. That led to Critical Role, which led to playing at my local adventure league, which led to my about to DM my first home brew campaign this week. That's for the gateway Johnny, it's been a blast.
I am the same. Its thanks to Johnny that I play D&D, that I’ve made so many new friends and so many ridiculous memories. So thank you Johnny, from the bottom of my heart for changing my life for the better ❤️
I've been playing for 20 years; here are some character creation tips - *Have loved ones:* There are WAY too many orphans running around; having loved ones will create cool story opportunities. *Have a goal:* Good characters are highly motivated, and quests write themselves when you have important things to chase *Have a habit:* Smoking, telling jokes, meditating; it doesn't matter. A habit makes your character feel more alive. *Have disadvantages:* Your weaknesses often give you more substance than your powers. So be afraid of things, have asthma, break out in hives; give yourself something to overcome on a daily basis. *Play nice:* If your friends are lawful good, don't be chaotic evil. If they're master hunters, don't be a vegetarian. Being a contrarian in character creation will kill fun later down the road, and the joke dies pretty quickly.
Totally agree on the weaknesses, in a campaign im playing there is one guy that bought off his weaknesses. He has absolutely no background no aim or enemies, hes just a boring twat. The last thing about being opposites, not totally agree on, like there is this one guy in our group who likes to act like a nobleman, and im the barbaric guy that keeps getting into brawls and the like, our characters are bloody rivals but they know they need each other and its genius
Me and a friend want to start our own DnD group, because we are both kinda annoyed with our current groups. As neither of us has previously played the role of DM before and because we are relatively unsure on how to go about it, we decided to take turns on being the DM for each adventure while sharing one character, an elfen druid. Buuut because we couldn't decide on the animal she could turn into, we decided to make her have a split personality, one for each of us with differing animal transformations and skills depending on who's playing. We both totally freaked out when we came up with this twist. It's going to be amazing.
Oh man, you could also treat it like Lorwyn/Shadowmoor from MtG as well (though you don't have to make one explicilty good/evil). That's a very clever solution!
I've never really fancied the idea of tabletop RPG (or any type of RPG) but wow, the way you described it in this video with the example scenario has really opened my eyes. I'm now quite interested in playing. Thanks for yet another great video 😀
I started a D&D 5e campaign at university for a group of people & we had lots of varying experiences with the game (most had never played before, some had watched shows like Critical Role & High Rollers). What started as a simple one session story turned into a weekly campaign in a homebrew world. I loved being the DM for this group and, after we finished our campaign, the group still keep in touch. So pen and paper RPGs have an amazing knack for bringing together a group of strangers & making them real friends - the fiction of the game & the characters becoming a real party was mirrored at my table.
Thank you for this. I'm in the middle of running my first (proper) game as GM, and I still need a lot of help. Also looking forward to hearing about other systems than DnD. Scion is a big interest to me as a concept
Scion is a whole hell of a lot of fun. I GMed a Hero campaign a while back, and am probably going to continue on to a Demigod campaign eventually. It's great fun to explore and express a love of mythology, and it's a simple enough system that, if something's not represented, you can pretty easily slot it in; I had one player as a Scion of Rhiannon, for example, and another as a living Buddha. If you've got any questions, let me know!
If you haven't found Seth Skorkowsky yet you should go check him out here on youtube. Doesn't matter which game or topic he handles, there's always great advice in every video.
Just another of these days where I try to create my own Pen&Paper, it's always already so much fun to think out the world, the setting, the circumstances and if existing races, classes, places etc. And videos like these are really nice to get into the right mood and getting some inspiration, thank you for that :)
I’ve always known DnD existed but about two weeks ago I came across the oxventurer sessions and completely fell in love with it and was really excited and finally got the nerve to ask a few people I thought may be interested in playing. And they said yes and asked me to DM because I was the one to bring us to the game as none of us have played ever and the past two weeks have been looking up guides and dm tips and stuff to assist me to basically not screw it up and make it as fun as possible and honestly watching how Johnny DM interacts with the oxventurers and play style is what inspired me so I’m trying something similar but the first “campaign” we are doing is the starter set one with my own twists I’ve been trying to work into it to start us off and get into it and go from there :D thank you for al you do and I really took to heart the lessons videos you made with “Dob” to help him in his first DM experience. I took a lot of notes while listening to it. The session “zero” is this coming weekend to get character creation and expectations and such out of the way and the first part of the starter set at the end hopefully I can put my studies to use to allow everyone to have fun. Thanks again for the inspiration and joy your bringing to our lives in these dark times. Much love from California.
Been waiting for this, I've never played any tabletop RPG's before but watching the Oxventures has peaked my interest. Great idea for a series for people like me.
I do have a tip for anyone trying to find an online group, when you apply, try to start a conversation, it will increase your odds of being picked greatly and will also inform you on if the DM is right for the game you want.
Can't wait for more of these videos. I've been wanting to play D&D for ages but none of my friends play it, so it's up to me to DM for them and, hopefully, getting them into it. So, the more I get to know, the better. Thanks for this and everything there is to come!
Nice to see these fun little informative pieces. I get the gist of DnD etc because I've watched a little bit on UA-cam (Oxventures of course, Critical Role, Twits & Crits, and Playstation Access doing Cyberpunk 2020), but I've never played myself. I enjoyed video game RPGs and Fantasy fiction as a kid but never ended up playing it, nor as an adult. None of my friends did it. Video games, board games and card cames yep, but not tabletop roleplaying/DnD. I'm 35 now and would still love to try, heh. One day!
I'm 41 and I am the second youngest in my group (after the GM's 18 year old son). Age is certainly no barrier to entering the hobby. I got into it via MMORPGs when I found a lot of the people I was in a guild with lived near me and also played D&D so I decided to try it out.
Thanks, Johnny. That was a brilliant video. You really can't give a much better explanation of tabletop RPG than this one. Liked the way how you described the difference between a good roll and bad roll by using examples.
So looking forward to the rest of this series. Moving out for uni this year and really wanting to try some Tabletop RPGs, with a few already interested friends.
Is there any chance we might see a Blades in the Dark-oneshot/campaign on the channel? Johnny mentioning it on Eurogamer was the reason I picked it up and introduced my game group to it, and it's been a blast!
I'm trying to sponsor a D&D for my students at my high school and I'm totally putting a link to this video in the pitch to the principal. This explains things so well!
Already started to get interested by seeing the Oxventure and started to get in touch with friends who played pen-and-paper before. Can't wait to see your upcoming videos on the topic. And by the way, like your taste for music according to the band shirt. Keep up the good work :)
What a great series, I can't wait to see more episodes. Hearing Johnny speak about pen and paper games is like listening to a cat purring, absolutely delightful
My biggest piece of advice is to not be afraid of GM-ing (even if you've never played before) Its arguably the most rewarding role in Pen & Paper games, it also requires the most work but that work is scale-able. Running a pre-made adventure is less work than creating your own world but both are fantastic experiences. Plus if you're GM its a lot easier to find players :D (also not to take away from future videos but I recommend fiasco to newcomers, especially if you have a dark sense of humor)
I've been thinking about getting into these types of games for a while now, but it all seems a bit overwhelming from the outside looking in. I'm really excited for this series!
For all aspiring GMs, the most important rule I have found is: if everyone had fun, you did well, and it doesn’t matter if you forgot some rules, or some story, or anything.
caelreth 100% this! And if you forget a rule or can’t remember a detail, do whatever you want in that instant and look it up to do it correctly the next time. There’s nothing worse than stagnant play while people flip through pages!
Well, I'm very much on board with this. Top banana, best of luck with the channel! Spent a lot of time years ago working on games with friends, but nothing quite clicked back then, a real shame. Then I played Quake, remembered how much Elite fascinated me as a kid and swapped horses. Heretic! So this channel has reignited my ancient interest. You filthy bunch of pen and paper pirates! Nice. Onward to mainly rule based dice driven story world building glory! (...can I still play NMS and E:D though? Yeah? Sweet). You're a level 2... frost troll with a bad back and dodgy knees who only talks in half remembered Opeth lyrics. Wait, what?
Everybody that helps pen and paper rpgs tp stay popular, making this particular brand of creativity accessible deserves an applause. Said as a, not to put a fine point on it, 40 year rpg veteran (yes older than that by now rpg dad😉) that has seen us gamers being bad at inviting new players. Well done rpgdad, well done!
5:12 say to the highwayman "but I have to move to gather my belonging to deliver to you" and roll for deceive probably, then try again. Btw pretty good selection there on the table. And I'm waiting for loads of tabletop rpg one shot from you guys
Had a character once.... So unlucky that we called him the jester. I rolled so many ones with him. One critical failure bounced my head off a rock and landed me at the bosses feet.... I was supposed to be a hunter/thief...
Love the idea for a series! I stared to play Pen&Paper RPG like 1.5 yers ago (DD, Neuroshima and Cthulu so far, all campaign on going) and on next few month will be GM by myself! Hope to learn some things from you!
I'm really looking forward to this series. I've been curious about tabletop gaming for a few years, and immediately became hooked on the Oxventure and a local live D&D show. I've since played a couple of games in the 'New World of Darkness' universe, but haven't really enjoyed the world or the gameplay. I've got a D&D-based game coming up, though, and I've got high hopes.
I got into dnd through Johnny and outside xtra. About 8 months ago I started playing dnd with a friend's party who had been playing years. I'm a goliath paladin and it took me a while to start role playing as Klaus instead of just swinging my axe a lot (from the numbers of misses he may also be blind). It wasn't until this week that I started really thinking about who he is and his motivations and it has started to change the game entirely for me. More advice on how to become our PCs please Johnny, or others to enhance the role playing component!
I've been playing RPGs for a little while, so I must say that I'm really the most excited about seeing you go into games like Night Witches (which I haven't really played myself) and Blades in the Dark. Like, I'm interested in how they work mechanically and what makes them different from other games on the market. I'm also just crazy into both those games and would love to see a one-shot of some kind.
That's a question with a complex answer, but if you have the D&D Player's Handbook, it has a whole section on the races and what their respective attributes are. Compare that to the "quick build" section at the start of every description of the classes, and you'll find which races have bonuses that would complement a certain class. It can be fun to min/max a character this way, but it's also fun to try suboptimal combinations and see how it affects roleplay.
I will add there are no "wrong" races. Sometimes it can be fun to play a halfling barbarian, or a half-orc wizard or whatever and they are still perfectly viable choices even if they aren't the most optimal. Look at Dob the half-orc bard for example. Half orcs don't get bonuses to any of the stats that are useful for a bard and yet the character is really effective as well as fun to play.
@@misterthegeoff9767 lol thanks, tbh it does seem like fun to have a race with a completely unexpected and unrelated class, peoples faces will probably be hilarious if nothing else
I can't wait to see more videos like this. I'm really proud of you Johnny , the channel is great :) Sadly I've only ever played card games like Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokémon or video games, I've never had friends into pen and paper stuff , I'm hoping to find some soon lol :) I've been waiting so long haha.
Thanks for the series. I started DMing a 5e d&d campaign for 5 players a few months ago and I specifically struggle with balancing combat. So far it feels like my players tear through encounters with ease and combat just feels unimaginative. Some of them are experienced players that like to min max their stats, and I feel like they always know exactly the right move to take. Basically, how can I keep even veteran players on their toes in combat? Also, if you have players in the group that are shy and dont interact with the party much, what are good tips as a DM for getting them to open up and share their ideas?
In terms of encounters, if I'm having trouble, I usually start looking at the challenge scores and balance it from there. Most of the time, I try to associate the combatants with the story arc that I'm presenting. For veteran players, what you could do is debuff a higher level monster, say a lich, to a lich that isn't wholly transformed. That way it is a challenge and has some interesting abilities, but it won't TPK the party. I've found it helpful to look through the monster manual and find things that fit in the story and interest me. Then I level them appropriately to the party, that way everyone is challenged and seeing something new. As for the new players, sometimes I just have a talk with them after a session and see what's on their mind. With experienced players, it can be intimidating sometimes. A way to fish for interactions is to also have an NPC direct a question at the particular player asking for an opinion. If that player doesn't feel comfortable or doesn't have anything, then just simply move on and open it up to the group. I'd advise to to do this a lot because it could make a shy players more so, but it could also assist in making them feel comfortable as well. Hope this helps. Sorry for the long responses
Johnny. You're an inspiration. I'd never even considered pen & paper RPGs before I saw you and the Oxventurers. I've been DM for my own homebrew campaign now since about the Wild Wild Woods was posted. It has become a combination of the Witcher, How To Train Your Dragon, Marvel's Avengers and even an epic Bank Heist adventure! We don't meet often, but boy do have stories for weeks afterwards! I'd love to hear your thoughts about DM styles for RPGs. I run my games with a Fun > Story > Rules motive. If one of my PCs wants to do something that's kinda not allowed - or a bit rule area gray - but it's much cooler than anything I'd prepared for, I always just try to go with it. I just love to see the smile on their faces :)
Thanks for this, Johnny. I got into GMing (Numenera in my case) thanks to your particular style of running the Oxventures. I hope this series will offer some helpful insights and I am absolutely looking forward to this. I'm particularly interested in hints on how to run games for casual groups that can't get together often. I try to use loosely connected one-shots that can be done in one afternoon (again much like the Oxventures I guess?) although I would really like to delve into a big campaign. Any advice coming on this area?
Recent Tabletop story? In my most recent D&D game, I got to bust out my new Spell "Crown of Madness" against one of two vampiric dudes, and the DM allowed me to command one of these vampires to grapple the other one. The second one grappled one of the players and an additional player grappled the initial vampire and managed to roll a good strength check to drag the conga line into sunlight and kill one of them!
Wheels mentioned one-shots on the stream and one type of one-shot that me and my friends find highly entertaining is GM-less RPGs like Fiasco. (Nice t-shirt btw, that's my local band. :D)
D&D has always been a game I've wanted to play myself, but am unlucky enough not to know anyone who I could play with. Looking forward to getting to know more about the game style, even if I never get to play it.
While probably not a priority, I would be interested in a series that tries to introduce players to new settings and rulebooks as I feel some channels seem to focus on the same few. Like, you could do videos on each systems setting, how to make a character etc etc and then end in a one-shot of that system if you plan to do any actual plays in the future.
Great video! These always inspire me to try and get into TTRPGs with my friends but finding the time is difficult. Can you guys make a video explaining some more general tabletop/board game jargon? I really like this channel already despite the fact I don’t really play anything tabletop (came here from Eurogamer and OX) so a lot of the terms go straight over my head, like what the hell is a ‘legacy game’?
WillSawyer - A "Legacy" game is a board/card game that's meant to be played multiple times over multiple sessions, with events in each iteration of the game changing the game for both the playthrough they occur in AND in each successive playthrough.. New pieces and mechanics are introduced gradually and unexpectedly over time to all parties involved (i.e. new rules and game pieces contained in sealed envelopes or boxes that are only opened when certain conditions are met).
Looking forward to more in this series. My questions are, "What do you do if you have no friends? How do you run solo campaigns?" and "How do you coordinate tabletop RPGs with strangers over the internet?"
Would a overview of venue be a useful vid for you, online with Roll 20 or Fantasy Grounds, physical venues such as at home with friends or the to some daunting idea of finding group or club at a store or other collective venue and the challenges involved such as communication when online, establishing when to play, etc.
This is a great idea for a series. Personally I'd love to see the idea of player stage friend explored a little more. I recently started a campaign that's heavily story focused and I really want to get better at roleplaying. I'm naturally pretty nervous about performing, even in front of friends, so I tend to clam up and panic during extended story sections. I feel like I'm missing out on the awesome world our DM has created because I'm too nervous to get lost in it properly!
For a 9 year old with ADHD dungeons and dragons gave me a way to go wild with my imagination. I'll never forget the first time I picked a lock with success, or got bonus damage from a successful backstab. Or died from failing to disarm a trap. It's a wonderful and exciting world to explore, and would encourage anyone to try it.
Something I have wondered (I apologise in advance if this is a rude question, I know so little about tabletop gaming and its etiquette) If you know a player is very attached to their character but they make a really bad in-game decision or roll a 1 in a situation that could lead to that characters death, how is it dealt with and is it something that varies from DM to DM?
That's a discussion that you should ideally have had with your players before the adventure even started. Some players want there to be real stakes and a real possibility that their character dies. Others just want to see the story unfold to a satisfying conclusion and don't think death in the middle of the quest would be satisfying. They surely want their actions to have consequences (or else the story would lose weight and become far less interesting), but they want to be able to deal with those consequences by playing out their character. If this discussion between the GM and players doesn't happen, the GM might assume the players/characters "know what they're getting into" while the player might, in fact, be shocked and extremely disappointed if their character dies. Luckily, as the GM, you basically control the universe and while I can't speak for every game out there, death need not be the end in D&D. There's plenty of ways to bring player characters back from the dead, but if you go that route, you should make it feel like the death still matters. There are consequences. For example, maybe the rest of the party must give up something precious and important in order to get back their comrade, or maybe they come back, but different. Perhaps they are undead and no longer benefit from healing magic and must slowly regenerate at the rate allowed by the necromantic magic that keeps their unliving body animated. Perhaps they were brought back by an evil god of death, and they now owe this deity a favor. All of these are possibilities, and more could be come up with, with a little creativity and some time spent thinking about it, in the event you kill the character of a player who wasn't ready for such an event. But it's good to talk to your players about how fatal they want their game to be.
Depends on the DM I give alittle leniency if I realise half way through that I screwed something up other than that if they roll incredibly poorly consistently then I'm afraid they're dead.
I've always gone with the "Do you want to die today?" rule, in which when a character looks like they're about to die I take their player aside and ask if they'd rather die (some people like character death, especially if they go down in a particularly heroic manner) or want to be saved. If the latter, I come up with something that keeps them alive but still disadvantages them (often involving owing a favour to somebody, such as a deity who wants to use them as a pawn or a local wizard who teleports them to safety). It doubles as a useful source of quest hooks: "now you have to go to Somesuchplace and retrieve the Plotstone, lest you anger the mighty wizard Steve who saved you". That said, it very much varies from DM to DM and I'm on the very lenient side. Plenty of DMs say "-10 HP, you're dead now" and plenty of players like that system.
Some of my best memories have come from the times my character has died. From the poor rogue who got caught in the area of effect of a spell aimed at another player, then the bad guy raised him as a zombie and sent him to attack the party the next night, to the gnome sorcerer who got his wisdom score reduced to 4 and then tried to talk his way into a drow fortress by pretending to be a traveling entertainer and asking the guards if they wanted to see a magic trick. Sometimes even a beloved character can meet an end that makes a tale to be told years later. Also in d&d death is not always the end. Raise Dead is a spell in the game for a reason.
I would love it if you ever get the chance to cover the recent Kickstarter TRPg "Quest" -- its a simpler style of RPG that's designed as kind of a "my first RPG" but it has a lot of interesting classes and mechanics, and I'd love to get your take on it!
Notes from A CLUE Enthusiest; I've played (and DMed) tabletop rpg's for 30 odd-years now,and it's been a blast in front&behind the Screens.Some of the highlights are: --Running in a 4 year RIFTS game while in HS --spending 4 hours Dressing up my Greyhound mix dog as a Hellhound for Halloween --having an actual Memorial service for our Party after we got TPK'd --rolling a Nat20 to convince a trio of High level Priests that my Wizard not only wasn't Necromancer(he totally was,btw),but that we legally owned the keep they were in. --Running a Deadlands game where,instead of having a shootout with a "mini-boss",one of my Players managed to talk him into helping them for a cut of the loot,forcing me to give him an actual background on the fly. Some of the above listed i'll explain when my fellow DM get's another video like this up.Now if you'll excuse me,Ms.White wanted to see me in the living room... May you never run out of Dice "Mr.Body" Trevelyan
One great thing about Pen and Paper is it lets you get creative with your skills and abilities, solving problems in unconventional ways, because there are no limitations. I'm pretty new to it, but I play pathfinder with a group as a half-elf rouge. One of the first times I thought about how to use my skills was when a military camp we started in on our first session was attacked by mercenaries. One mercenary approached me to start a fight. I realized that while my strength was only middling, my charisma is off the charts. And the DM had explained that my sneak attack ability allowed me to roll for extra damage. So I offered to pay him off to let us go. When he approached to take my money, I drew my dueling blade, and ran him through! It didn't kill him, but it nearly did, and I felt very cool. In another recent session we were trying to capture a member of this evil cult so we could find out about their plans. We set up an ambush in the trees near a mysteriously toxic lake. Some cultists came, and we waited until two were sent to deliver a message so we could tackle them in separate groups. We knocked out one, and killed another, but made enough noise that the three remaining noticed us. Now one of them looked to likely be of Noble blood, so I told the group to only focus on the other two. We made quick work out of them, and I started my gambit. One of our players is a child raised in a swamp by living plant creatures (or something) and can roll to pull random things out of her many mysterious pockets. One of those things was a marshals badge for the kingdom we were in, which she gave to me. So I pulled this badge out, and rolled to bluff saying, "You're mission's over agent. We were sent to bring you in to report, you're coming home." I knew there was n undercover agent, but my goal was to make him think it was a case of mistaken identity, and he could survive by playing along. It worked and he agreed to go with us, but then some horrible tentacle pulled him into the lake.
Sadly, I have no idea where they are at the moment, but I have 3 rule/reference books from the original Star Wars West End tabletop RPG series. At the time I was much to young to understand what they were or what they were for, but as of recently I have started getting more interested. Honestly need to try and find them at some point
This! I'm kinda interested in giving one a go since watching oxventure but don't think any of my friends would be interested enough that I could convince them to join me
Copy pasted from my reply on another thread here: My experience is that if you have friends that are into computer/video/board/ccg games they will instantly "get" tabletop rpgs. Just make good preparations for an adventure and ask them to join your game for a session and they will be hooked. People interested in acting and/or theater are usually easy to get on board as well. Rpgs are basically improv. theater with dice. For other people you can try some of the boardgame/rpg hybrids that are out there. It might work as a gateway drug when trying to introduce the hobby to friends. Gloomhaven seems perfect for this, but I haven't tried it myself. This is all if you are willing to learn the craft of being GM. If this doesn't interest you and you just want to play I suggest googling around for gaming groups in your area. Contact them, let them know you are a noob who wants to get into the hobby and ask if they'd have you. Tabletop rpgs:ers are a friendly bunch.
This looks like a great series. I’m currently trying to get my gaming group to start a Werewolf: the Apocalypse game, but have had issues getting it started. Most seem interested, but currently only two have started characters. It seems like each get together it keeps getting put off, and it’s rather frustrating
I played a session one time where I was a wizard. Started at a bar, drunk and fading in and out. Stopped a bar fight with magic, prevented myself from getting my neck slashed by a small goblin in a back alley, and increased my scythe/staff physical weapon stats by one D6 die. All while still drunk lol. My drunken wizard made some great choices.
The oxventure d&d was what gave me the boost to try rpgs after not playing for about 10 years. It's been great, d&d didn't last but we moved onto wfrp and it's been tense and exciting every session. My main question/plea is how do i get others to have the the confidence to be dm/gm so i can be a player? 😂
'Imagine you and I are playing a game....' God, I wish it was more than imagination. If I ever gett the chance to play in a D&D group with Johnny as DM, I would take that in a heartbeat! Good job on the content! By the way, I am familiar with D&D and with technology like Discord distance is no longer a big factor (apartt from time zones)...always willing to DM or play in a one shot (a adventure that can be finished in a few hours) with people who want to play and maybe find it hard to get into it because tthey cant find anybody.
Can you make a video on how to find people to play with? You and the oxventurers were the first look into dnd for me and it’s something i’d like to try but don’t know where i could start
In college, I started with AD&D, but it was 2nd edition and our DM didn't like the system but dearly loved Talislanta. Talislanta is such a great pen and paper system that no one has ever played or heard of it and it has jumped publishers at least three times. 5th edition seems like it has addressed most of the mechanical issues that made 2nd edition such a hassle.
aw man, i have the very same blades in the dark book. niiiice taste. my favorite term for a GM is probably "Control", from LACUNA. because that's what you do, you control the setting. kinda.
I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on making your own system, or choosing the right system as a GM. I was asked to run a P&P for something that had no system to reference, and the end result has pretty much been an amalgamation of many systems, mostly centered around TriStat.
Watching Johnny DM for the Oxventure was my first time watching anything D&D related. That led to Critical Role, which led to playing at my local adventure league, which led to my about to DM my first home brew campaign this week. That's for the gateway Johnny, it's been a blast.
If it's your first time DMing, Wheels gave some great advice for first time DMs on their first livestream.
Are you me? I did (almost!) the exact same journey! By now I've DM:ed for a year and almost finished Critical Roll campaign 1!
@@hamstsorkxxor haha, according to this ua-cam.com/video/h6fcK_fRYaI/v-deo.html
I am you.
I am the same. Its thanks to Johnny that I play D&D, that I’ve made so many new friends and so many ridiculous memories. So thank you Johnny, from the bottom of my heart for changing my life for the better ❤️
Woah, woah, one at a time. We can't have literally everyone else in the world talking at once!
First
THE VOICES! SO MANY VOICES!!
Do you really want to force poor Johnny to switch accents every sentence?
Yes. Yes we do.
3:10 sometimes they're also called Literally Everyone Else In The World.
I've been playing for 20 years; here are some character creation tips -
*Have loved ones:* There are WAY too many orphans running around; having loved ones will create cool story opportunities.
*Have a goal:* Good characters are highly motivated, and quests write themselves when you have important things to chase
*Have a habit:* Smoking, telling jokes, meditating; it doesn't matter. A habit makes your character feel more alive.
*Have disadvantages:* Your weaknesses often give you more substance than your powers. So be afraid of things, have asthma, break out in hives; give yourself something to overcome on a daily basis.
*Play nice:* If your friends are lawful good, don't be chaotic evil. If they're master hunters, don't be a vegetarian. Being a contrarian in character creation will kill fun later down the road, and the joke dies pretty quickly.
Playing to your disadvantages is so much fun. Played a child vampire in Vampire the Masquerade. Had alot of fun.
Amen to Weakness, weakness are always the best bit about a character.
Totally agree on the weaknesses, in a campaign im playing there is one guy that bought off his weaknesses. He has absolutely no background no aim or enemies, hes just a boring twat. The last thing about being opposites, not totally agree on, like there is this one guy in our group who likes to act like a nobleman, and im the barbaric guy that keeps getting into brawls and the like, our characters are bloody rivals but they know they need each other and its genius
Mark Wijnands ... ‘ he’s just a boring twat ‘ hahahahaha.. love it 👍...
@@markwijnands5440 The good old "Batman & Joker" Dynamic :D
Haven't played D&D, but I really want too. So I'm excited to get some knowledge.
Same here
welcome to the both of you!
I've played since I was a teenager. It never gets old. Big and expansive as your imagination and not really complicated at all.
Always lovely to have new people but if you like RPing don't limit yourself to D&D, there is so much more out there
Well I really want to play but I don't have any friends really interested in d&d game
As a DM I've adored watching my players react and interact with the world I've made so I can't wait to expand out into more RPG games :D
i love pen and paper too. but i love more that Ghost T-shirt
Hard same. He spoke highly of Ghost during one of his Souls playthroughs and I was like "nice". Lol
Me and a friend want to start our own DnD group, because we are both kinda annoyed with our current groups. As neither of us has previously played the role of DM before and because we are relatively unsure on how to go about it, we decided to take turns on being the DM for each adventure while sharing one character, an elfen druid.
Buuut because we couldn't decide on the animal she could turn into, we decided to make her have a split personality, one for each of us with differing animal transformations and skills depending on who's playing.
We both totally freaked out when we came up with this twist. It's going to be amazing.
Oh man, you could also treat it like Lorwyn/Shadowmoor from MtG as well (though you don't have to make one explicilty good/evil). That's a very clever solution!
This is coming just in time - just yesterday, I was starting to think about playing D&D.
DO IT!
I also recommend that you do it.
I've never really fancied the idea of tabletop RPG (or any type of RPG) but wow, the way you described it in this video with the example scenario has really opened my eyes. I'm now quite interested in playing. Thanks for yet another great video 😀
I started a D&D 5e campaign at university for a group of people & we had lots of varying experiences with the game (most had never played before, some had watched shows like Critical Role & High Rollers). What started as a simple one session story turned into a weekly campaign in a homebrew world. I loved being the DM for this group and, after we finished our campaign, the group still keep in touch. So pen and paper RPGs have an amazing knack for bringing together a group of strangers & making them real friends - the fiction of the game & the characters becoming a real party was mirrored at my table.
Thank you for this. I'm in the middle of running my first (proper) game as GM, and I still need a lot of help.
Also looking forward to hearing about other systems than DnD. Scion is a big interest to me as a concept
Scion is a whole hell of a lot of fun. I GMed a Hero campaign a while back, and am probably going to continue on to a Demigod campaign eventually. It's great fun to explore and express a love of mythology, and it's a simple enough system that, if something's not represented, you can pretty easily slot it in; I had one player as a Scion of Rhiannon, for example, and another as a living Buddha. If you've got any questions, let me know!
If you haven't found Seth Skorkowsky yet you should go check him out here on youtube. Doesn't matter which game or topic he handles, there's always great advice in every video.
Just another of these days where I try to create my own Pen&Paper, it's always already so much fun to think out the world, the setting, the circumstances and if existing races, classes, places etc.
And videos like these are really nice to get into the right mood and getting some inspiration, thank you for that :)
I’ve always known DnD existed but about two weeks ago I came across the oxventurer sessions and completely fell in love with it and was really excited and finally got the nerve to ask a few people I thought may be interested in playing. And they said yes and asked me to DM because I was the one to bring us to the game as none of us have played ever and the past two weeks have been looking up guides and dm tips and stuff to assist me to basically not screw it up and make it as fun as possible and honestly watching how Johnny DM interacts with the oxventurers and play style is what inspired me so I’m trying something similar but the first “campaign” we are doing is the starter set one with my own twists I’ve been trying to work into it to start us off and get into it and go from there :D thank you for al you do and I really took to heart the lessons videos you made with “Dob” to help him in his first DM experience. I took a lot of notes while listening to it. The session “zero” is this coming weekend to get character creation and expectations and such out of the way and the first part of the starter set at the end hopefully I can put my studies to use to allow everyone to have fun. Thanks again for the inspiration and joy your bringing to our lives in these dark times. Much love from California.
Very cool Johnny!.i know this channel will grow fast because of the hard work you put into it.i hope the best for you!.
I'm on a break from D and D this year and watching this and watching all the Oxventurers really makes me miss it
Been waiting for this, I've never played any tabletop RPG's before but watching the Oxventures has peaked my interest.
Great idea for a series for people like me.
I do have a tip for anyone trying to find an online group, when you apply, try to start a conversation, it will increase your odds of being picked greatly and will also inform you on if the DM is right for the game you want.
Can't wait for more of these videos. I've been wanting to play D&D for ages but none of my friends play it, so it's up to me to DM for them and, hopefully, getting them into it. So, the more I get to know, the better. Thanks for this and everything there is to come!
Nice to see these fun little informative pieces. I get the gist of DnD etc because I've watched a little bit on UA-cam (Oxventures of course, Critical Role, Twits & Crits, and Playstation Access doing Cyberpunk 2020), but I've never played myself. I enjoyed video game RPGs and Fantasy fiction as a kid but never ended up playing it, nor as an adult. None of my friends did it. Video games, board games and card cames yep, but not tabletop roleplaying/DnD. I'm 35 now and would still love to try, heh. One day!
I'm 41 and I am the second youngest in my group (after the GM's 18 year old son). Age is certainly no barrier to entering the hobby. I got into it via MMORPGs when I found a lot of the people I was in a guild with lived near me and also played D&D so I decided to try it out.
loving the tshirt Johnny!
You had me at the Ghost T-Shirt.
❤ same heee
Thanks, Johnny. That was a brilliant video. You really can't give a much better explanation of tabletop RPG than this one. Liked the way how you described the difference between a good roll and bad roll by using examples.
So looking forward to the rest of this series. Moving out for uni this year and really wanting to try some Tabletop RPGs, with a few already interested friends.
This is what was needed!!! I'm so happy for it!!! Thank you so much!!!
This. This is the series I've needed forever.
So much more of this please Johnny!!!
Oxventure D&D looks so fun I wanna do it myself!
Is there any chance we might see a Blades in the Dark-oneshot/campaign on the channel? Johnny mentioning it on Eurogamer was the reason I picked it up and introduced my game group to it, and it's been a blast!
I'm just here to shout out great t-shirt choices
I'm trying to sponsor a D&D for my students at my high school and I'm totally putting a link to this video in the pitch to the principal. This explains things so well!
Already started to get interested by seeing the Oxventure and started to get in touch with friends who played pen-and-paper before. Can't wait to see your upcoming videos on the topic.
And by the way, like your taste for music according to the band shirt.
Keep up the good work :)
Extra points for the Cyberpunk rulebook :)
What a great series, I can't wait to see more episodes. Hearing Johnny speak about pen and paper games is like listening to a cat purring, absolutely delightful
Thank you so much for doing the thing that needs to be done! To tear down the illusion of exclusivity that shrouds games like D&D.
My biggest piece of advice is to not be afraid of GM-ing (even if you've never played before)
Its arguably the most rewarding role in Pen & Paper games, it also requires the most work but that work is scale-able. Running a pre-made adventure is less work than creating your own world but both are fantastic experiences. Plus if you're GM its a lot easier to find players :D
(also not to take away from future videos but I recommend fiasco to newcomers, especially if you have a dark sense of humor)
Love the shirt, great band
I've been thinking about getting into these types of games for a while now, but it all seems a bit overwhelming from the outside looking in. I'm really excited for this series!
I spy the character sheet of the Algernon Breakspear who went mad in my house. I'm impressed you kept the sheet!
For all aspiring GMs, the most important rule I have found is: if everyone had fun, you did well, and it doesn’t matter if you forgot some rules, or some story, or anything.
caelreth 100% this!
And if you forget a rule or can’t remember a detail, do whatever you want in that instant and look it up to do it correctly the next time.
There’s nothing worse than stagnant play while people flip through pages!
Well, I'm very much on board with this. Top banana, best of luck with the channel! Spent a lot of time years ago working on games with friends, but nothing quite clicked back then, a real shame. Then I played Quake, remembered how much Elite fascinated me as a kid and swapped horses. Heretic! So this channel has reignited my ancient interest. You filthy bunch of pen and paper pirates! Nice. Onward to mainly rule based dice driven story world building glory! (...can I still play NMS and E:D though? Yeah? Sweet). You're a level 2... frost troll with a bad back and dodgy knees who only talks in half remembered Opeth lyrics. Wait, what?
My reason for watching was the tshirt 🤘
Yess
I need more looking forward to this series
Everybody that helps pen and paper rpgs tp stay popular, making this particular brand of creativity accessible deserves an applause. Said as a, not to put a fine point on it, 40 year rpg veteran (yes older than that by now rpg dad😉) that has seen us gamers being bad at inviting new players. Well done rpgdad, well done!
5:12 say to the highwayman "but I have to move to gather my belonging to deliver to you" and roll for deceive probably, then try again.
Btw pretty good selection there on the table. And I'm waiting for loads of tabletop rpg one shot from you guys
Had a character once.... So unlucky that we called him the jester. I rolled so many ones with him. One critical failure bounced my head off a rock and landed me at the bosses feet.... I was supposed to be a hunter/thief...
Johnny, you forgot the most important DM/GM equivalent title of all: Dice Chieftain!!!
Sick ass Ghost shirt. Also, as a new DM, I really appreciate this video.
What do you mean “if it all goes a bit sideways” the point when it goes sideways is usually where the game gets fun
Wow, a mention of Nobilis. I'm super impressed.
Love the idea for a series! I stared to play Pen&Paper RPG like 1.5 yers ago (DD, Neuroshima and Cthulu so far, all campaign on going) and on next few month will be GM by myself! Hope to learn some things from you!
I'm really looking forward to this series. I've been curious about tabletop gaming for a few years, and immediately became hooked on the Oxventure and a local live D&D show. I've since played a couple of games in the 'New World of Darkness' universe, but haven't really enjoyed the world or the gameplay. I've got a D&D-based game coming up, though, and I've got high hopes.
I got into dnd through Johnny and outside xtra. About 8 months ago I started playing dnd with a friend's party who had been playing years. I'm a goliath paladin and it took me a while to start role playing as Klaus instead of just swinging my axe a lot (from the numbers of misses he may also be blind). It wasn't until this week that I started really thinking about who he is and his motivations and it has started to change the game entirely for me. More advice on how to become our PCs please Johnny, or others to enhance the role playing component!
You have a lovely day as well! Johnny, always so polite :)
I've been playing RPGs for a little while, so I must say that I'm really the most excited about seeing you go into games like Night Witches (which I haven't really played myself) and Blades in the Dark. Like, I'm interested in how they work mechanically and what makes them different from other games on the market. I'm also just crazy into both those games and would love to see a one-shot of some kind.
I played dnd for the first time the other day actually, and am hoping to play again real soon, this series is excellent timing really
Saw Oxventure in the preview, just couldn't leave this video to later
i need more johnny in my life
Hell yea I love the Ghost shirt. I've seen them the most out of any band ever.
What are to adv/disadv of the different DnD races and what classes are they best suited for?
That's a question with a complex answer, but if you have the D&D Player's Handbook, it has a whole section on the races and what their respective attributes are. Compare that to the "quick build" section at the start of every description of the classes, and you'll find which races have bonuses that would complement a certain class. It can be fun to min/max a character this way, but it's also fun to try suboptimal combinations and see how it affects roleplay.
@@Jayman1clone I unfortunately to not have a handbook but will definitely look into getting one sometime soon :)
@@mechakieran124 I hope you have fun with the game! :)
I will add there are no "wrong" races. Sometimes it can be fun to play a halfling barbarian, or a half-orc wizard or whatever and they are still perfectly viable choices even if they aren't the most optimal. Look at Dob the half-orc bard for example. Half orcs don't get bonuses to any of the stats that are useful for a bard and yet the character is really effective as well as fun to play.
@@misterthegeoff9767 lol thanks, tbh it does seem like fun to have a race with a completely unexpected and unrelated class, peoples faces will probably be hilarious if nothing else
I can't wait to see more videos like this. I'm really proud of you Johnny , the channel is great :)
Sadly I've only ever played card games like Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokémon or video games, I've never had friends into pen and paper stuff , I'm hoping to find some soon lol :)
I've been waiting so long haha.
Thanks for the series. I started DMing a 5e d&d campaign for 5 players a few months ago and I specifically struggle with balancing combat. So far it feels like my players tear through encounters with ease and combat just feels unimaginative. Some of them are experienced players that like to min max their stats, and I feel like they always know exactly the right move to take. Basically, how can I keep even veteran players on their toes in combat?
Also, if you have players in the group that are shy and dont interact with the party much, what are good tips as a DM for getting them to open up and share their ideas?
In terms of encounters, if I'm having trouble, I usually start looking at the challenge scores and balance it from there. Most of the time, I try to associate the combatants with the story arc that I'm presenting. For veteran players, what you could do is debuff a higher level monster, say a lich, to a lich that isn't wholly transformed. That way it is a challenge and has some interesting abilities, but it won't TPK the party. I've found it helpful to look through the monster manual and find things that fit in the story and interest me. Then I level them appropriately to the party, that way everyone is challenged and seeing something new.
As for the new players, sometimes I just have a talk with them after a session and see what's on their mind. With experienced players, it can be intimidating sometimes. A way to fish for interactions is to also have an NPC direct a question at the particular player asking for an opinion. If that player doesn't feel comfortable or doesn't have anything, then just simply move on and open it up to the group. I'd advise to to do this a lot because it could make a shy players more so, but it could also assist in making them feel comfortable as well.
Hope this helps. Sorry for the long responses
Johnny. You're an inspiration. I'd never even considered pen & paper RPGs before I saw you and the Oxventurers.
I've been DM for my own homebrew campaign now since about the Wild Wild Woods was posted. It has become a combination of the Witcher, How To Train Your Dragon, Marvel's Avengers and even an epic Bank Heist adventure! We don't meet often, but boy do have stories for weeks afterwards!
I'd love to hear your thoughts about DM styles for RPGs. I run my games with a Fun > Story > Rules motive. If one of my PCs wants to do something that's kinda not allowed - or a bit rule area gray - but it's much cooler than anything I'd prepared for, I always just try to go with it. I just love to see the smile on their faces :)
Thanks for this, Johnny. I got into GMing (Numenera in my case) thanks to your particular style of running the Oxventures. I hope this series will offer some helpful insights and I am absolutely looking forward to this.
I'm particularly interested in hints on how to run games for casual groups that can't get together often. I try to use loosely connected one-shots that can be done in one afternoon (again much like the Oxventures I guess?) although I would really like to delve into a big campaign. Any advice coming on this area?
Recent Tabletop story? In my most recent D&D game, I got to bust out my new Spell "Crown of Madness" against one of two vampiric dudes, and the DM allowed me to command one of these vampires to grapple the other one. The second one grappled one of the players and an additional player grappled the initial vampire and managed to roll a good strength check to drag the conga line into sunlight and kill one of them!
Wheels mentioned one-shots on the stream and one type of one-shot that me and my friends find highly entertaining is GM-less RPGs like Fiasco. (Nice t-shirt btw, that's my local band. :D)
D&D has always been a game I've wanted to play myself, but am unlucky enough not to know anyone who I could play with. Looking forward to getting to know more about the game style, even if I never get to play it.
Love the T-shirt massive Ghost fan
Same here
While probably not a priority, I would be interested in a series that tries to introduce players to new settings and rulebooks as I feel some channels seem to focus on the same few. Like, you could do videos on each systems setting, how to make a character etc etc and then end in a one-shot of that system if you plan to do any actual plays in the future.
Great video! These always inspire me to try and get into TTRPGs with my friends but finding the time is difficult. Can you guys make a video explaining some more general tabletop/board game jargon? I really like this channel already despite the fact I don’t really play anything tabletop (came here from Eurogamer and OX) so a lot of the terms go straight over my head, like what the hell is a ‘legacy game’?
WillSawyer - A "Legacy" game is a board/card game that's meant to be played multiple times over multiple sessions, with events in each iteration of the game changing the game for both the playthrough they occur in AND in each successive playthrough.. New pieces and mechanics are introduced gradually and unexpectedly over time to all parties involved (i.e. new rules and game pieces contained in sealed envelopes or boxes that are only opened when certain conditions are met).
Jeffrey Wells ah thank you!
WillSawyer - You're quite welcome.
Looking forward to more in this series. My questions are, "What do you do if you have no friends? How do you run solo campaigns?" and "How do you coordinate tabletop RPGs with strangers over the internet?"
Was supposed to ask this from the Q&A, people from the school org told me it's easy to get on d&d even for beginners, hopefully I will.
Would a overview of venue be a useful vid for you, online with Roll 20 or Fantasy Grounds, physical venues such as at home with friends or the to some daunting idea of finding group or club at a store or other collective venue and the challenges involved such as communication when online, establishing when to play, etc.
This is a great idea for a series. Personally I'd love to see the idea of player stage friend explored a little more. I recently started a campaign that's heavily story focused and I really want to get better at roleplaying. I'm naturally pretty nervous about performing, even in front of friends, so I tend to clam up and panic during extended story sections. I feel like I'm missing out on the awesome world our DM has created because I'm too nervous to get lost in it properly!
words of encoragement! lots of them!
For a 9 year old with ADHD dungeons and dragons gave me a way to go wild with my imagination. I'll never forget the first time I picked a lock with success, or got bonus damage from a successful backstab. Or died from failing to disarm a trap. It's a wonderful and exciting world to explore, and would encourage anyone to try it.
Something I have wondered (I apologise in advance if this is a rude question, I know so little about tabletop gaming and its etiquette) If you know a player is very attached to their character but they make a really bad in-game decision or roll a 1 in a situation that could lead to that characters death, how is it dealt with and is it something that varies from DM to DM?
That's a discussion that you should ideally have had with your players before the adventure even started. Some players want there to be real stakes and a real possibility that their character dies. Others just want to see the story unfold to a satisfying conclusion and don't think death in the middle of the quest would be satisfying. They surely want their actions to have consequences (or else the story would lose weight and become far less interesting), but they want to be able to deal with those consequences by playing out their character. If this discussion between the GM and players doesn't happen, the GM might assume the players/characters "know what they're getting into" while the player might, in fact, be shocked and extremely disappointed if their character dies. Luckily, as the GM, you basically control the universe and while I can't speak for every game out there, death need not be the end in D&D. There's plenty of ways to bring player characters back from the dead, but if you go that route, you should make it feel like the death still matters. There are consequences. For example, maybe the rest of the party must give up something precious and important in order to get back their comrade, or maybe they come back, but different. Perhaps they are undead and no longer benefit from healing magic and must slowly regenerate at the rate allowed by the necromantic magic that keeps their unliving body animated. Perhaps they were brought back by an evil god of death, and they now owe this deity a favor.
All of these are possibilities, and more could be come up with, with a little creativity and some time spent thinking about it, in the event you kill the character of a player who wasn't ready for such an event. But it's good to talk to your players about how fatal they want their game to be.
Depends on the DM I give alittle leniency if I realise half way through that I screwed something up other than that if they roll incredibly poorly consistently then I'm afraid they're dead.
I've always gone with the "Do you want to die today?" rule, in which when a character looks like they're about to die I take their player aside and ask if they'd rather die (some people like character death, especially if they go down in a particularly heroic manner) or want to be saved. If the latter, I come up with something that keeps them alive but still disadvantages them (often involving owing a favour to somebody, such as a deity who wants to use them as a pawn or a local wizard who teleports them to safety). It doubles as a useful source of quest hooks: "now you have to go to Somesuchplace and retrieve the Plotstone, lest you anger the mighty wizard Steve who saved you".
That said, it very much varies from DM to DM and I'm on the very lenient side. Plenty of DMs say "-10 HP, you're dead now" and plenty of players like that system.
Some of my best memories have come from the times my character has died. From the poor rogue who got caught in the area of effect of a spell aimed at another player, then the bad guy raised him as a zombie and sent him to attack the party the next night, to the gnome sorcerer who got his wisdom score reduced to 4 and then tried to talk his way into a drow fortress by pretending to be a traveling entertainer and asking the guards if they wanted to see a magic trick. Sometimes even a beloved character can meet an end that makes a tale to be told years later. Also in d&d death is not always the end. Raise Dead is a spell in the game for a reason.
Starting my first campaign as a GM soon, thank you for this lol.
Good luck, I hope you have a lot of fun! :D
I'm GMing for the second time in my life tomorrow!
I would love it if you ever get the chance to cover the recent Kickstarter TRPg "Quest" -- its a simpler style of RPG that's designed as kind of a "my first RPG" but it has a lot of interesting classes and mechanics, and I'd love to get your take on it!
Notes from A CLUE Enthusiest;
I've played (and DMed) tabletop rpg's for 30 odd-years now,and it's been a blast in front&behind the Screens.Some of the highlights are:
--Running in a 4 year RIFTS game while in HS
--spending 4 hours Dressing up my Greyhound mix dog as a Hellhound for Halloween
--having an actual Memorial service for our Party after we got TPK'd
--rolling a Nat20 to convince a trio of High level Priests that my Wizard not only wasn't Necromancer(he totally was,btw),but that we legally owned the keep they were in.
--Running a Deadlands game where,instead of having a shootout with a "mini-boss",one of my Players managed to talk him into helping them for a cut of the loot,forcing me to give him an actual background on the fly.
Some of the above listed i'll explain when my fellow DM get's another video like this up.Now if you'll excuse me,Ms.White wanted to see me in the living room...
May you never run out of Dice
"Mr.Body" Trevelyan
A Nobilis reference! The Hollyhock God has got to be the most absurdly overwrought title for the game master of any game. I still love it though.
One great thing about Pen and Paper is it lets you get creative with your skills and abilities, solving problems in unconventional ways, because there are no limitations. I'm pretty new to it, but I play pathfinder with a group as a half-elf rouge. One of the first times I thought about how to use my skills was when a military camp we started in on our first session was attacked by mercenaries. One mercenary approached me to start a fight. I realized that while my strength was only middling, my charisma is off the charts. And the DM had explained that my sneak attack ability allowed me to roll for extra damage. So I offered to pay him off to let us go. When he approached to take my money, I drew my dueling blade, and ran him through! It didn't kill him, but it nearly did, and I felt very cool.
In another recent session we were trying to capture a member of this evil cult so we could find out about their plans. We set up an ambush in the trees near a mysteriously toxic lake. Some cultists came, and we waited until two were sent to deliver a message so we could tackle them in separate groups. We knocked out one, and killed another, but made enough noise that the three remaining noticed us. Now one of them looked to likely be of Noble blood, so I told the group to only focus on the other two. We made quick work out of them, and I started my gambit. One of our players is a child raised in a swamp by living plant creatures (or something) and can roll to pull random things out of her many mysterious pockets. One of those things was a marshals badge for the kingdom we were in, which she gave to me. So I pulled this badge out, and rolled to bluff saying, "You're mission's over agent. We were sent to bring you in to report, you're coming home." I knew there was n undercover agent, but my goal was to make him think it was a case of mistaken identity, and he could survive by playing along. It worked and he agreed to go with us, but then some horrible tentacle pulled him into the lake.
Can't wait for the next installment! Are you gonna go into how to GM?
Sadly, I have no idea where they are at the moment, but I have 3 rule/reference books from the original Star Wars West End tabletop RPG series. At the time I was much to young to understand what they were or what they were for, but as of recently I have started getting more interested. Honestly need to try and find them at some point
Something talking about how to find a group of players would be great.
This! I'm kinda interested in giving one a go since watching oxventure but don't think any of my friends would be interested enough that I could convince them to join me
Copy pasted from my reply on another thread here:
My experience is that if you have friends that are into computer/video/board/ccg games they will instantly "get" tabletop rpgs. Just make good preparations for an adventure and ask them to join your game for a session and they will be hooked. People interested in acting and/or theater are usually easy to get on board as well. Rpgs are basically improv. theater with dice.
For other people you can try some of the boardgame/rpg hybrids that are out there. It might work as a gateway drug when trying to introduce the hobby to friends. Gloomhaven seems perfect for this, but I haven't tried it myself.
This is all if you are willing to learn the craft of being GM. If this doesn't interest you and you just want to play I suggest googling around for gaming groups in your area. Contact them, let them know you are a noob who wants to get into the hobby and ask if they'd have you. Tabletop rpgs:ers are a friendly bunch.
Oooooo, this should be an interesting series. If nothing else, I hope this will help demystify pen and paper RPGs to someone like me.
This looks like a great series. I’m currently trying to get my gaming group to start a Werewolf: the Apocalypse game, but have had issues getting it started. Most seem interested, but currently only two have started characters. It seems like each get together it keeps getting put off, and it’s rather frustrating
Righty-o, love you Johnny, I’m off to rematch the oxventure
I heard you say "Hollyhock God", and now I love you.
I played a session one time where I was a wizard. Started at a bar, drunk and fading in and out. Stopped a bar fight with magic, prevented myself from getting my neck slashed by a small goblin in a back alley, and increased my scythe/staff physical weapon stats by one D6 die. All while still drunk lol. My drunken wizard made some great choices.
I really want to try out a game like this. My main obstacle is finding the right group of people.
Instant like because of the Papa Emeritus T-shirt.
The oxventure d&d was what gave me the boost to try rpgs after not playing for about 10 years.
It's been great, d&d didn't last but we moved onto wfrp and it's been tense and exciting every session.
My main question/plea is how do i get others to have the the confidence to be dm/gm so i can be a player? 😂
'Imagine you and I are playing a game....' God, I wish it was more than imagination. If I ever gett the chance to play in a D&D group with Johnny as DM, I would take that in a heartbeat! Good job on the content!
By the way, I am familiar with D&D and with technology like Discord distance is no longer a big factor (apartt from time zones)...always willing to DM or play in a one shot (a adventure that can be finished in a few hours) with people who want to play and maybe find it hard to get into it because tthey cant find anybody.
Savage Worlds and Deadlands Reloaded in that stack of books. My favorite system and setting right there! I approve so hard! :D
Can you make a video on how to find people to play with? You and the oxventurers were the first look into dnd for me and it’s something i’d like to try but don’t know where i could start
Me sees Johnny's shirt: Ah we have the same taste in music.
" Not to put too fine a point on it" Johnny, if that was pun intended, you've failed your stealth check :-P . Great video by the way!
In college, I started with AD&D, but it was 2nd edition and our DM didn't like the system but dearly loved Talislanta. Talislanta is such a great pen and paper system that no one has ever played or heard of it and it has jumped publishers at least three times. 5th edition seems like it has addressed most of the mechanical issues that made 2nd edition such a hassle.
aw man, i have the very same blades in the dark book. niiiice taste.
my favorite term for a GM is probably "Control", from LACUNA. because that's what you do, you control the setting. kinda.
I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on making your own system, or choosing the right system as a GM. I was asked to run a P&P for something that had no system to reference, and the end result has pretty much been an amalgamation of many systems, mostly centered around TriStat.