Ooh Mr. Sands, can we talk? Can I pick your brain sometime? I can HAS some (lots) questions for you...
Ooh Mr. Sands, can we talk? Can I pick your brain sometime? I can HAS some (lots) questions for you...
Sure! Drop me a PM and we can arrange something.
Is anyone running a Pathfinder 2e game on a VTT like Foundry that I can come watch? I purchased the bundle and want to at least get an idea of the flow of the game before jumping in and running a game.
I am running through the PF2E beginner box on Foundry. You're welcome to spectate one of our games or I can show you around how it works outside of the game sometime if you're interested. Msg me on Discord or Steam.
Wow. I had no idea this thread was going. Thanks notifications. 
All I’ve got to add about the OGL stuff is it pushed me over the edge not to depend on any of it for my homebrew system. I’d been considering it for safe harbor access to some terms like “armor class” and “saving throw”, but I’m not touching it now even with the backtrack and CC-BY release of the 5.1 SRD.
And now my own crowdfunding campaign is live:
Codex of Worlds is the new supplement for Monster of the Week, bringing you team playbooks and a bunch of new and different settings to play in.
Backed!
Sexy Battle Wizards is a hoot. Our villain's were the sexy police and sexy librarians. It reminded me of a fantasy based zoolander.
Sounds like Guilty Gear: The RPG.
Sounds like a college Halloween party.
Also, Extreme Meatpunks Forever is finally available for purchase as a pdf on itch.io!
Oh, this looks like a delight! The last Grant Howitt game I played was Jason Statham's Big Vacation, which was fun as hell the 3 different times I played/ran it, so this should prove to be a wild time as well. Many thanks for spreading the word, Mix!
I am going to be giving a presentation of "An Introduction to Dungeons and Dragons" as a Lunch and Learn at work in late April. I work for a software company of ~1000 employees and I've given Lunch and Learn presentations in the past but they've been dry subjects like how to get the most out of Teams or Excel. This is my first time doing one on something I really like and want others to like.
I plan on focusing on why you want to play D&D and I'll go into some basic mechanics but I want them all explanations to go along with examples of why it's fun. If anyone has any suggestions I'd love it!
I am going to be giving a presentation of "An Introduction to Dungeons and Dragons" as a Lunch and Learn at work in late April. I work for a software company of ~1000 employees and I've given Lunch and Learn presentations in the past but they've been dry subjects like how to get the most out of Teams or Excel. This is my first time doing one on something I really like and want others to like.
I plan on focusing on why you want to play D&D and I'll go into some basic mechanics but I want them all explanations to go along with examples of why it's fun. If anyone has any suggestions I'd love it!
I too do a lot of training and teaching, but have rarely covered something related to my hobby. This grants me the ability to maintain an objective position on the topic I'm covering. However, what you have here is a veritable trap, as a certain space bound admiral once said when faced with insurmountable odds.
While I appreciate your desire to evangelise D&D, I would caution against this as you will be talking to people who have no knowledge or understanding of the subject matter. If you kick off with superlatives and attempts at tugging at the audience's emotional heart strings, you're likely to alienate them and they will stop listening.
To overcome this I would follow the tenets below:
1) Assume the audience does not know anything at all about what a role playing game is, let alone D&D
2) Focus on the abstract aspects of D&D e.g., to determine the outcome of an action, dice are rolled
3) Highlight the collaborative nature of D&D
4) Explain how D&D relies a lot on lateral thinking and deductive reasoning, which are useful skills to have
5) Let D&D speak for itself.
Your talk is on the introduction of D&D, so let it be just that. Explain what it is and how it's played. Once you have established the above, you can then express your own opinions as a small sign off at the end of the talk. That way you demonstrate an emotional attachment to the subject, which the audience can take away with them and relate to. Yes it's manipulative to a point, but it does mean they will recall the contents of the talk rather than shrug it off as yet another lunchtime talk.
If it was me, I'd probably start with a slide saying "D&D is a rule-based tactical fantasy game", then walk through a typical round of combat - here's a scenario, here are several actions the player could take, here's how the DM might ask them to roll some dice to resolve their action, etc.
Then halfway in there'd be a slide saying "actually I lied, there are literally no rules," and talk about how the players are free to take actions not in the rulebook, how the DM might ignore or invent rules to improve the story, how some DMs plan far ahead and others improvise moment-to-moment, etc.
Then I guess the wrap-up would be it's actually both, a tactical stats game and an improvised storytelling game, and each group decides together how best to something something, thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
It's a software company. How do they not already know what D&D is?
I just have one thing to add: if it's an in-person talk, have some dice out for people to fiddle with.
I would emphasize that it is primarily an exercise in collective storytelling in which a "director" has greater knowledge of the overall plot. I think the problem that so many folks have first understanding it is how "winning" is not really an element of the game.
A fellow player describes D&D as a group choose your adventure book where dice rolling helps determine success or failure, and I like that as a description. Those old choose your adventure books had some structure like D&D does, but still let you feel like you had loads of freedom to do different stuff.
It's a software company. How do they not already know what D&D is?
One presumes the audience will know generally what it is, but not what it's like to play it moment to moment. So probably no need to make grand analogies, just walking through a few concrete examples of stuff a player might do and how the DM might respond would probably get the point across.
A fellow player describes D&D as a group choose your adventure book where dice rolling helps determine success or failure, and I like that as a description. Those old choose your adventure books had some structure like D&D does, but still let you feel like you had loads of freedom to do different stuff.
These days I'd bet that a lot more people have heard of D&D than CYOA. Actually I suspect that was true even when CYOA was in its prime.
I say emphasize how you can seduce dragons and make really pointed eye contact with the same audience member every time like you know something.
For real advice I would say know your audience, will they want to know about the game or are they going to want to hear something about synergistic team building to maximize optimal transaction times? I also think Paleocon has the right idea for how to best pitch the game in way that will help people actually frame how they should go about playing it
Thank you for all of your advice! I am determined to stick with the format Aeoringas suggested. I don't know who will show up, this is a virtual Teams meeting using Powerpoint. I know the guys on my team have played D&D and I know the CEO has played it in the past. The company is roughly 1000 employees though and there's a huge demographic range. I'm definitely going to keep it simple and avoid getting into the weeds of rules.
Here's the beginning of my outline so far:
1. What is D&D?
a. A game where players take on the role of a hero
2. Why D&D?
a. For adults it provides a vehicle for imagination
b. Team building
c. Fun activity for Adults and kids together
3. DM and Players
a. The DM runs the game like a narrator and coach
b. The majority of the game takes place in our heads
4. Dice Rolling
a. Dice is rolled to determine outcomes
b. Players describe their actions and the DM instructs how to roll
5. First Example
a. DM describes the players walking along a road and then an encounter
b. A player tells the DM they want to x
c. The DM has them roll and explains the outcome
d. Describe an experience I had
Consider adding a "There are other games besides D&D out there" slide. Many people only know about D&D, like all consoles being Nintendos or whatever, and don't know that the width and breadth of the hobby even exists.
Wizards tweeted this out today, and if you want something tactile to hand out at your talk, maybe there's something in here you could use? Puzzles, Mazes, and Mysteries Inspired by Dungeons & Dragons
Wizards tweeted this out today, and if you want something tactile to hand out at your talk, maybe there's something in here you could use? Puzzles, Mazes, and Mysteries Inspired by Dungeons & Dragons
Thanks that's a good idea but this will be 100% virtual. My employer's office is in Nashville and I'm comfortable at home in Denver!
I am putting various iconic monsters into the slides of my D&D presentation. So far I have:
Dragons
Mimics
Owlbears
Goblins
Gelatinous Cubes
Illithids
Beholders
Revenants
Any others you think are iconic and should go in?
I am putting various iconic monsters into the slides of my D&D presentation. So far I have:
Dragons
Mimics
Owlbears
Goblins
Gelatinous Cubes
Illithids
Beholders
RevenantsAny others you think are iconic and should go in?
Kobolds?
I would also add-in typical races.
Displacer beast
Rust monster
FLUMPH
Skeletons or zombies, too.
Otyugh
Mind Flayer
Purple Worm
Shambling Mound
Bullette
Rust Monster
Troll
Orc
Ogre
Pages