Latest hardcopy book in my ever expanding collection of hippy RPGs I will never play but enjoy reading: Farflung. A far-future weird sci-fi PbtA. Still reading the basic mechanics section, but love the art and layout so far.
Last week I started DMing the published adventure Descent into Avernus. Due to busy schedules there's often delays on when we can get to the next session. This leads to people forgetting what has happened, especially when a story beat doesn't update every session. As the DM it's less of a problem for me but it can still occur.
So my solution was to create a blog that I will update after each session. Has anyone else done something like this? I'm open to all ideas and suggestions.
https://descent2avernus.wordpress.com/
https://descent2avernus.wordpress.co...
This is my first in-person campaign since the pandemic. I've done a few online and I'm happy to get back to playing at a table.
In my Pathfinder 2e game, I award an extra hero point each session to one of my players who takes notes for us. So maybe free inspiration in a 5e game to get PCs more engaged? Or maybe see if any of them would post something in-character from a session. That could be fun.
I know in one of the GWJ community games they had some in-character recapping
My group gives a level-appropriate consumable item for people willing to write recaps of sessions. Some do it very dry, others get into character to do it, but it's definitely encouraged people to get involved.
I write up all our sessions from Enemy Within Campaign 59 and counting, with still 2 books to go. Really helps to go back and recap.
Very cool, thank you everyone! These are all great suggestions.
New D&D Player's Handbook out today. While it's compatible with 5e and the rules really don't seem radically different yet, there's 48 "new" subclasses, 4 for each class. Have been going through it and genuinely think there are a lot of nice quality of life improvements here.
Due to busy schedules there's often delays on when we can get to the next session. This leads to people forgetting what has happened, especially when a story beat doesn't update every session.
As a player, I consider it the responsibility of the group to take notes and review them before each session. My old-school DM would laugh at the notion that he's responsible for note taking, and he's right.
As a DM, I'm horrified at how much my players forget, so I write recaps for them: but I only write brief, one-or-two sentence ones, on a spreadsheet. They have to keep their own detailed notes about important trivia. I keep my notes, a list of important characters, and shared artwork in a Google Drive folder.
New D&D Player's Handbook out today. While it's compatible with 5e and the rules really don't seem radically different yet, there's 48 "new" subclasses, 4 for each class. Have been going through it and genuinely think there are a lot of nice quality of life improvements here.
I'm withholding judgement on the quality of rules changes until I've played with them, but I think the new PHB is without a doubt a much better document. Better introduction for new players, better organization, better quick reference.
MilkmanDanimal wrote:New D&D Player's Handbook out today. While it's compatible with 5e and the rules really don't seem radically different yet, there's 48 "new" subclasses, 4 for each class. Have been going through it and genuinely think there are a lot of nice quality of life improvements here.
I'm withholding judgement on the quality of rules changes until I've played with them, but I think the new PHB is without a doubt a much better document. Better introduction for new players, better organization, better quick reference.
Got together with friends this weekend and we did a test run-through of a few things, and initial take is the updated character options feel really great. Weapon Mastery is such a game-changer for martial characters, and instead of just choosing the weapon with the biggest number after the "d" on the damage die, you have to make more tactical decisions, because that weapon can knock people prone, push them back, force disadvantage on attacks, slow them, or do other things. Completely changed how I approach the test Barbarian I built, and made combat far more engaging than old-school "Me hit thing with pointy stick."
Going to do a real game this weekend with new characters and will learn as we go, but first take is pretty positive. They've really gone a long way into making some of the things that felt standard to take in 5e (Great Weapon Master, Sharpshooter, Counterspell, Spiritual Weapon) and changing them to make them less essential, and, instead of just pure nerfs, making other things feel just as viable.
Also, and this is bizarre to write, both True Strike and Witch Bolt look great, and those were two of the worst spells in the game. Really nice changes across the board so far.
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