I'm in

So I just sent my D&D group a "Now might be a good time to start thinking about backup characters" email. Their barbarian got bored while were planning how to assault a fortress full of ogres and decided to just run out and stir up the hornets' nest. They've managed to kill the first wave but have expended about half their resources doing so and there's still twice as many ogres left as they've killed, including the boss types and the spellcaster that's been directing them.

They decided to do this after several NPCs warned them a frontal assault was likely suicidal, so I'm not going to pull any punches.

D&D this weekend: I'm playing a wild mage, and I got to burn off a bunch of poisonous fungi with a fire bolt, which I did with great glee, then got to do it a few more times in other parts of the dungeon. After clearing a large cavern, the DM said, "OK, if the Destroyer of Worlds is done there . . ." That made me very happy.

Nice!

Well, they survived. Ended up being a three hour battle (I've only had one battle that long in 5th Ed before, that was the final fight of my previous campaign) to clear the courtyard (the enemy spellcaster made an appearance after the alarm was raised and made them really miserable. They were very unhappy when she teleported away before they could kill her.) Blocking off the main approach with a Spike Growth so the ogres were forced to either charge through and take a ton of damage or hang back and chuck javelins with disadvantage (because a 40' diameter puts anything on the other side at long range for a javelin) saved their butts.

They still have the keep itself to clear (though they took care of the first floor before we called it a night) and are pretty much running on fumes at this point, so it still could be bad.

I want to design a RPG. The only problem is that I have no time to do it.

My goals would be to get rid of hit points, eliminate any dice rolling for the GM, use a hero token system where you have a supply of tokens that you can expend to replace a bad roll or perform a feat (possible feats depend on abilities and skills). One way it would be possible to earn tokens would be making cool disadvantageous decisions that are in-character, likewise you could lose a token for going out-of-character to gain advantage (the idea is that being true to your ideals makes you more confident in your actions). A design for a loose, story-telling type game rather than a tactical one with a fair amount of judgement calls on the part of the GM.

How is it, in 30 years of sitting at the gaming table I've never shed a single tear (outside of the occasional "laughing so hard I'm crying" moment) but watching someone else's D&D game had me weeping? (I'm making my way through the final episodes of the Vox Machina campaign on Critical Role.)

I started listening to the Critical Role podcast. It makes me want to rewind all the way back to high school and redo all of my DM'ing.

I don't agree with everything Mercer does as DM (he often calls for die rolls for meaningless tasks and he has a tendency to tell the players what their characters are feeling) but the man is an absolutely incredible storyteller and creates countless vibrant, memorable NPCs.

I'd like to think watching Critical Role has had a positive impact on my own DMing. I use voices and description far more than I used to, even if I don't have anywhere his skill at it.

Gud, sounds a lot like the Fate system, or anyway like what you have in mind has a lot in common with it. It's an open rule system and a bunch of cool games have been spun off it; we spent about a year in Spirit of the Century, which is Fate system rules in an early 20th century pulp novel setting. Super fun. (Bonus: cool dice.)

All credit to WotC when putting together 5E for figuring out how to make just about every class fun and interesting. When an inexperienced player like Sam Riegel can throw together something as goofy as a gnome bard and constantly be able to contribute, if not save the day, you've built a pretty solid system.

Having played a bard in 5E (as well as played in or run games that involved one) I have to say 5E is probably my favorite iteration of the class. You always feel like you have something useful you can do.

It's not that you can't make bad characters or that you can't make poor choices, but it's pretty easy to make characters that are good at what they should be good at. (The ranger in the group I'm running occasionally decides they're going to heal someone instead of shooting their bow for stupid amounts of damage, then gets disappointed when they heal less with a 2nd or 3rd level Cure Wounds than the party's Life Cleric manages with a 1st level. The cleric player picked the healing-focused version of the healing class, he's going to naturally be better at it than you. If he's not, something has gone terribly wrong.)