Dungeons and Dragons, a return

I really cannot recall when I started, but it is possible it was the very end of the 1970s, I would have been in third or possibly fourth grade. That seems pretty young, but I think it is possible.

I recall Twighlight 2000 and Villains and Vigilantes, I believe I played those a little bit with friends in high school, around the same time we did D&D.

I had the Top Secret game but only tried to play it once or twice, I was a miserable GM at the time.
Yeah, my older cousin introduced me to D&D in 3rd grade. I had no idea how to GM and was terrible at it for years, but we had fun anyway. To be fair to my younger self, a fair number of the professionally published modules were kind of terrible back then too, and the whole hobby was in its infancy so there wasn't a lot to guide me.
 
Wow, that is quite the collection! I see there is a game based on Thieves’ World. I read those books back as a teenager, didn’t know there was a game based on it.
Back in the 80's Chaosium made it easy for people to publish settings using their Basic Roleplaying system, so there were Thieves' World supplements, some stuff from Midkemia Press (the gaming group that created the world where Raymond Feist set his Riftwar novels) and others that I'm forgetting. It was often some of the better stuff available at the time.
 
Yeah, my older cousin introduced me to D&D in 3rd grade. I had no idea how to GM and was terrible at it for years, but we had fun anyway. To be fair to my younger self, a fair number of the professionally published modules were kind of terrible back then too, and the whole hobby was in its infancy so there wasn't a lot to guide me.
Very true, that.

Funny thing, it has taken on something of an inflated position in my mind, because I think my subconscious has turned it into something bigger than it needs to be. I mean, there is all this HISTORY behind the game and there are TOURNAMENTS and CLUBS and GEN-CON and such, and it’s funny but I actually let it intimidate me. I bought the starter set and read the rules a dozen times and agonized over the minutia and put off starting the play because I had to know I was getting it RIGHT. I finally realized, it’s a bloody game and I’m playing with my wife and son, for Thor’s sake. If I get stuck, MAKE IT UP!!

So now we are just playing and I can relax.
 
Check out Vox Machina. It’s awesome. There is even an animated show based on their campaign.
The podcast is Critical Role. Vox Machina is the name of the group of characters played in campaign 1. Followed by the Mighty Nein in campaign 2 and Bells Hells in campaign 3.
Given that the entire group are voice actors, the role playing is a few steps above anything the rest of us can hope for.
 
Very much appreciated. If I find myself heading in that direction I’ll definitely get in touch.

And of course if you ever find yourself in the Sacramento area, please do get in touch.
One of my closest training brothers live in sac. He is the director of veterans resource center. pm me contact info. He might be close enough to come check out your class. He is one that moved away from humboldt but trained and gamed with us for many years.
 
The podcast is Critical Role. Vox Machina is the name of the group of characters played in campaign 1. Followed by the Mighty Nein in campaign 2 and Bells Hells in campaign 3.
Given that the entire group are voice actors, the role playing is a few steps above anything the rest of us can hope for.
Yes that is correct! Thank you for that clarification. I thought it was really quite good in both iterations, and I look forward to more Vox Machina. The title of which seems to be a play on words.
 
It’s on the first page of the phb. The DM is the final arbiter…
That's rule zero. Which is itself a reference (I think) to Asimov's Robot series, in which his Three Laws of Robotics eventually evolved to include a Zeroeth Law. My favorite unwritten rule is the Rule of Cool. If what a character wants to do would be funny/cool/awesome/entertaining without breaking the game, let them do it.
Yes that is correct! Thank you for that clarification. I thought it was really quite good in both iterations, and I look forward to more Vox Machina. The title of which seems to be a play on words.
The Critical Role people did a Kickstarter to raise money to produce an animater short. That ended up raising so much that they changed gears and started working on a series based on their entire campaign.
Campaign 1 starts (online) mid-campaign. They just took the campaign they'd been playing at home and started doing it on YouTube. 2 & 3 start from 2nd level.
The names are always word play. In campaign 2, one of the characters had a German accent. One session, it seemed that all anybody could roll was a 9. Combine those, and you get the Mighty Nein. Which led to lots of role played confusion, since there were only 7 party members.
 
That's rule zero. Which is itself a reference (I think) to Asimov's Robot series, in which his Three Laws of Robotics eventually evolved to include a Zeroeth Law. My favorite unwritten rule is the Rule of Cool. If what a character wants to do would be funny/cool/awesome/entertaining without breaking the game, let them do it.

The Critical Role people did a Kickstarter to raise money to produce an animater short. That ended up raising so much that they changed gears and started working on a series based on their entire campaign.
Campaign 1 starts (online) mid-campaign. They just took the campaign they'd been playing at home and started doing it on YouTube. 2 & 3 start from 2nd level.
The names are always word play. In campaign 2, one of the characters had a German accent. One session, it seemed that all anybody could roll was a 9. Combine those, and you get the Mighty Nein. Which led to lots of role played confusion, since there were only 7 party members.
I have been waiting for this kind of thing for 40 years. As a child I always fantasized how we could turn our campaign into a watchable film.
 
BTW, the trailer for the new D&D movie coming out next year looks way better than I would have expected.
If nothing else, they’ve got the bestiary which helps distinguish D&D from a generic fantasy setting. Owlbears, displacer beasts, mimics, gelatinous cubes, black dragons… We’re probably going to organize an outing to the the with our game group.
 
BTW, the trailer for the new D&D movie coming out next year looks way better than I would have expected.
If nothing else, they’ve got the bestiary which helps distinguish D&D from a generic fantasy setting. Owlbears, displacer beasts, mimics, gelatinous cubes, black dragons… We’re probably going to organize an outing to the the with our game group.
I was utterly unaware of this. It looks great, I can’t wait!
 
BTW, the trailer for the new D&D movie coming out next year looks way better than I would have expected.
If nothing else, they’ve got the bestiary which helps distinguish D&D from a generic fantasy setting. Owlbears, displacer beasts, mimics, gelatinous cubes, black dragons… We’re probably going to organize an outing to the the with our game group.
I think it looks amazing. The other attempts have fallen flat, mostly (I think) because the actors were mediocre at best, and the special effects budgets were about $1.75.
I'm really looking forward to this one.
 
BTW, the trailer for the new D&D movie coming out next year looks way better than I would have expected.
If nothing else, they’ve got the bestiary which helps distinguish D&D from a generic fantasy setting. Owlbears, displacer beasts, mimics, gelatinous cubes, black dragons… We’re probably going to organize an outing to the the with our game group.
This looks terrific. I’m looking forward to seeing it with a very large group of nerds. :)
 
Setting the mood for last night’s play.
 

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Who made the weapons if you can say or remember?
The battle axe came from a website years ago, Hbforge.com, if I remember correctly. I made the hickory handle for it.

The kukhri came from an Etsy shop in Nepal, I believe the shop name is Everestforge. It was either them or a competitor, one of them split from the other, I don’t remember exactly which way it went.

The sword blade was made by Angus Trim and I built the hilt and scabbard.
 
Ex D&D nerd here glad to see I am in good company. Haven't played since the early nineties, but I owned and am familiar with rulesets up to 2nd edition. Also a big Warhammer(Fantasy only) and Magic the gathering geek.. well met kindred spirits! D&D was what got me into martial arts in the first place. I figured why play a fictitious warrior when I could become one in real life? Because I usually played warrior/thief or assassin characters I started off training in Ninjutsu, then evolved into training in more full contact arts. The rest is history!
 
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