it's been so long since I played tabletop that I am thinking in terms of DDO but when I play a cleric I love getting to totally rule an undead dungeon since the rest of the time all I really get to do is buff or heal.

I have joined an LGBT online gaming community.

D&D 5th Ed: the Starter Set arrived last week, and Ryan had his first session of proper, more-or-less grown-up D&D on Saturday. It was fun, I think he got a kick out of it, and it was pretty easy to keep his own decisions simple enough to prevent him being overwhelmed. (His choices generally resolved into "I want to cast a spell". For his first game I think he'd be best off playing the archer, but he wanted spells, so he's the dwarven cleric. Eric the cleric. he likes helping people, cleric is a good fit for him. He was pretty excited afterwards that two of his colleagues were down to 1 hit point and he healed them both. We also had a discussion about whether he'd ever be likely to use a Cure spell on a baddie.)

We just had the one combat, against four goblins, and then he found his way to the next encounter setting. Not really enough for it to feel like a distinct edition - we didn't even have any rolls with advantage or disadvantage - but that was ok. It was clearly D&D, and most important was that it was simple enough for a fairly bright five-year old to have fun with it. (And he likes the sound of advantage, because rolling more dice is cool.)

Next weekend he'll be trying a rescue mission. We might even persuade his mother to play, to help him out.

That's awesome, BT.

I ran a little of the Pathfinder Beginner's Box for my son about a year ago (he made an elven fighter named Link) and he enjoyed it but we haven't had the time to break it out since and some of the stuff was a little overwhelming for him.

I'm planning on giving 5e a try with him when I get the PHB. I think the mechanics will be a bit easier for him and the fact 5e doesn't require a grid means we'll be able to play without clearing off the dinner table.

For our own play test the other week we had Aryk the Cleric (the fantasy spelling just makes it more amusing to us) Kief the Thief Rogue, Bashmore Stonefist (race and class should be obvious) and Melifundous the Magnificent (I would have named him Sage the Mage but he already had Sage add his Background and I thought it would be too confusing.)

If you'd like to try Final Fantasy XIV for free (for 14 days) email me (Lagarat at Gmail).

You get a 20% xp bonus and I get a draught chocobo!

Ooops. Darn it, I'd already started the trial.

For those who signed up for the Firefly Online Game, they have delayed release, as they are getting lots of stars to voice characters. They have also changed their programming (or some such), and require you to log in to update the new database. If you do it before the end of August, you get a Kepler ship (the ship Tim Earls flew). Head on over to keepflying dot com. Oh, and it doesn't seem to be iOS friendly just yet, so, do it on a regular computer.

t x-post with firefly thread

No worries, chris. How are you liking it? Which server are you on? What class did you make? Tell me everything!

I've got a Roegadyn Gladiator on Zalera. If you see an eight-foot Drow woman with sword and shield, that's probably me.

ooh tanking is hard. I'm mostly on Gilgamesh these days.