I did that with some friends. We took an incredibly long time to do anything. Some of the monsters were pretty strong too.

What's the line? "I'm not trying to kill you, the enemies are."? I think you've got the right attitude.

But yeah, while I don't know much about Storm King's Thunder I've heard good things about Lost Mines of Phandelver. Are your players similarly new to the game?

My first time playing, and we're up against an aboleth. Level 10, but still.

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Yeah, I've been reading up on reviews and tips of Storm King's Thunder to prepare and help avoid my players taking a long time do any certain thing.

Thanks!

I've got six players. All friends of mine in another online community that I've been apart of since about late 2010. Of the six, two started playing TTRPG's at the same time (we played in the same game) as me back in 2014. That was Pathfinder. We all switched to 5e in 2015. Of my other four players, three will be playing for the first time and the other has only played 15 sessions of DnD in our current game.

One of the reasons I'm even running my game is because in my other community, we have too many people wanting to play DnD but not enough Dungeon Masters.

We never finished it because we took so long. Four or five sessions only got us to the first major town.

I have had DMs that try to kill everyone or put the players in situations where we kill each other by accident. I have also had DMs that put my character is uncomfortable situations.

I think I have only had one consistently good one where we would have short campaigns that would end in two to three days.

That makes me question your DM more than anything. It's the DM's job to prevent stuff like that.

You've had a lot of bad DMs. I'm sorry your experiences have been mostly negative.

If it's any consolation, aside from Dungeon Masters being in high demand in my other community, my main inspiration behind trying my hand at DM'ing is because I haven't really played in a game that has been to my satisfaction. I've been chasing that "epic campaign" feeling for 3 years now and I've been disappointed every time. I realized that if I don't do something, if I don't run the game, I might never get to take part in my "dream game."

Though I don't post about my worldbuilding on SoL, (because I don't really care for this community, frankly) I am an avid worldbuilder and have been homebrewing settings long before I started playing TTRPGs. I'm feeling very confident in my game and if all goes well, I will certainly run more. The goal is always to have fun, though. Trying to kill my players or get them to turn on each other is not just bad DM'ing, though. It's immature.

Sorry if I'm ranting a little.

My DM got sick so missed our session today. So we're still in limbo over our Rogue/Warlock dying. Good news is we got two new folks to replace the tank who left.



You totally should, you seem really positive and excited about it. Sorry to hear you're not comfortable sharing your worldbuilding stuff here though, hope that changes in the future.

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My Worldbuilding:
http://bloodinkworlds.tumblr.com/

It is something I always get invited to do but there has been only one DM I really liked. We had a DM that would kill people's characters when they couldn't show up and he set up a scenario where three characters were trapped and there was two levers to pull for someone else. She picked one at random and all the trapped characters were killed. I had a DM that had my character get raped one time.

The other guy that was entertaining was always very comedic. He was an avid cosplayer and very imaginative and cheerful. His campaigns were always fun and they went at a good enough pace and the conclusions were meaningful I thought. He acted out the NPCs we had to deal with and I think that is more enjoyable than any of the paper filling or dice rolling.

I wouldn't mind trying out being a DM one day. I like to think of stories and create things. You don't need to apologize for your rant. I understand your feelings completely.

Ahh, I still remember the first and only time I RPed. (Not D&D.) My first character got raped by a friend's, got pregnant and had to marry his character because of "traditions". I suicided her.

I intentionally gave my second character a lower appearance score to avoid going through this again.

Anyway, we stopped playing soon after, and despite everything, I still remember the experience fondly. Would've been fun to play in a more serious group, but we were... what. Ten? Eleven?

Holy Sister Mary Lou Francis Nazja I'm sorry you had to deal with that

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My Worldbuilding:
http://bloodinkworlds.tumblr.com/

I don't have too many Magical Realm experiences to share. Most of my drama from games has been on an OOC basis.

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More players than people willing to DM sounds like a pretty common problem, but it's important to remind people that, at some point, even the best DM in the world was just trying things out for the first time.

That said, I've only ever played pen and paper RPGs with my meatspace friends, so while I've heard a lot about how various online tools like skype (or more specialized tools like Roll20) can make online campaigns run just as smoothly (or even moreso), I wouldn't know where to begin with running a campaign virtually.

But hey, you've played before. And you know more or less what you're getting into. I'm sure you'll do fine. Only piece of advice I have for you right now is don't get bogged down trying to plan everything out. Your session zero will probably help you get a feel for what makes your players tick.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Probably eleven, now that I think about it. That was also the birds and the bees year, so it can't have been before.

Wait, hold on, your 'friend' imagina-raped you at the age of eleven?

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Kids don't really understand that kind of thing at that age. Not that it's common or right, just that they don't know any better. "Marriage is good right? And babies are good right? So we should make sure it happens, right?"

I'd totally play a VoIP D&D game. With things like Google Drive you can even do a live game map that everyone can interact with.

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Rationalizing the irrational since 2005.

That's really creepy on your DM's part. Sorry you had to deal with that.

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See WoW in a way you've never imagined it.

"He came to Ahn'qiraj for the strife... instead, he found a wife! She's my qiraji love-bride, next on Sick Sad World of Warcraft!"

A recent Dark Heresy session had one of the players solicit the services of a high-class prostitute.

A few (failed) willpower rolls later and the GM had his character getting pegged in the ass and loving every minute of it.

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Or they're just pervs.

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I haven't played AD&D or similar games in ages, and I probably no longer have the patience to really get involved. It could be pretty fun though.

Most of the games I played were pretty light on story, since we'd spend half the session goofing off of or making off-color jokes. I respect groups that can actually stick to an involved storyline, because I've never been able to do that.

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See WoW in a way you've never imagined it.

"He came to Ahn'qiraj for the strife... instead, he found a wife! She's my qiraji love-bride, next on Sick Sad World of Warcraft!"

I think there's a happy balance. Most of my friend's attempts were too far into the joke direction though.

Speaking of...
This is how a joke needs to be played out.

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Rationalizing the irrational since 2005.

I'm opening to running (DM'ing) a game of something via Roll20 for SoL'ers if there's interest.

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Sweet, it'd depend on WHEN though

I work 2PM to 10:30PM CST and have an existing game on saturday evenings around 7PM CST (it alternates saturdays though so it could still be viable, but sundays or mornings are better for me)

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My Worldbuilding:
http://bloodinkworlds.tumblr.com/

I'm in GMT (well, BST right now) which is... six hours behind you. So an earlier start is definitely possible.

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Yeah, Roll20 is the program we've always used for our campaigns. It's a little tricky at first to use (as a DM) but I've got to say: once you master it, it can be incredibly nifty.