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.)

I love the Donjon [link] random generators as they can be an enormous time-saver/"whoops, I need a [blank] right now" tool but sometimes they're just whacky.

Tonight I needed to come up with the contents of a magic shop real quick and it gave me weapon's shop with an inventory of 3 tridents of fish command and two magical blowguns (+1 and +2, respectively.) At least my players had a good laugh as the shopkeeper groused about no one wanting these stupid tridents and how she's never using this supplier again.

Hello gaming thread! Long-time lurker, second or third-time poster here.

Would anyone be interested in playing through Pandemic Legacy (Season 1 or 2) here on the board? Technically both are 4-player games but since they are cooperative I think we might manage shared ownership over individual roles.

I'd be willing to act as host, setting up the physical board in my home, dealing cards, moving pawns etc. At the start of each turn I will post the current status of all game variables, and turn it over to the group for 24 hours of discussion. I will also take and post a photo of the board before/after each turn so nobody has to keep the entire map in their head. At the end of each 24 hours, the owner of that role decides on their move and posts their decision. (Obviously if it's a role which involves moving other pawns, get permission first.)

Fair disclosure - I'd be up for playing Season 1 or Season 2, but I have already played once through Season 1 and am aware of the high-level plot twists. I can't say with any confidence that this knowledge would benefit the group on a replay because there are a LOT of variables.

Fair disclosure 2: This could take a REALLY long time. If people aren't up for committing to a Legacy game, standard Pandemic could also be very fun. My gaming partners moved to a different state over the summer, and the local Meetup group plays at inconvenient times...I need a fix!

I'd be up for Pandemic.

Yay Gud! Anyone else?

I've never played it, so I'd need all the low-level explanation, but I'm up for it!