As much as I sometimes miss the feel of the old school (roll 3d6 in order, roll for 1st level hps and you get 2 randomly-determined spells in your spell book) game, I don't think I'd ever want to back to actually playing that way.

I do miss the unique characters that that method of character-gen created (point buy builds tend to look very cookie-cutter) but I certainly don't miss the wildly-varied power levels that could create within the same party.

I also like that the spell write-ups are a little more clear (though some do still leave room for creativity.)

What, you don't want to run the risk of dying of acne again?

Ah, playing the magic-user that had to fear the deadly swipe of a housecat's claws!

Especially in the days before the "death's door" mechanic where 0hp = Dead.

Does Civ VI require a Steam account to play? IIRC, Civ V did, and got rid of my copy it as soon as I saw that it required me to sign up.

Yup, still requires the Steam account. I'm willing to put up with an Evil Overlord to play the game; although, I do prefer Civ IV to any of the other iterations. I'm just not sure I can find a version that runs on Windows 10. I was too lazy to look for one and I wanted a version of Civ, NOW.

Bah. Still no character sheets from anyone, though one of the players did call me after I sent out a slightly pissy email about the fact that everyone missed the deadline. He said his M-I-L has been visiting all week, so he and his wife haven't had a chance to work on their characters. Also, he and his wife have an event next Saturday (which was supposed to be the first session) that they can't miss. Though he did insist they're still very excited about playing.

So after pushing the start date and the character sheet deadline back I've still got nothing from my players. I'm thinking I'm going to end up putting this game on hold because obviously no one involved has enough time to reply to an email, let alone fill in a character sheet or actually play the game.

ugh that sucks.

If you can play Sunday nights on Tabletop Simulator my group would love to have you. We usually start around 6pm Pacfic and we have a few campaigns open so we can decide what to play based on who is available. I believe next week (the 27th) my husband will be running Ravenloft. (This offer is good for all Buffistas).

Thanks for the offer. I'll think about it. I'm already playing in one game, this one was about scratching the DMing itch.

How well does Tabletop Simulator work for D&D? So far my online gaming has been through a dedicated RPG VTT like Roll20.

Well, two of my players finally contacted me and I was able to spend a couple hours helping them create their characters, so there's progress there, at least. But now it looks like I'm going to have to post-pone the game until after the holidays anyway. My "Hey, let me know ASAP if you're going to be ready to play next week" resulted in 3 responses of "Probably not." Oy.