It's fantastic that someone can make a career of that. I could never do it. I'm already self-conscious enough about not sucking when I'm running a game for my friends. Getting paid to run a game for strangers would be way too nerve-wracking.

Fun gaming anecdote. Our previous session the Warlock was using Spiderclimb to snipe monsters from the walls and ceilings without getting attacked in return. "This is the best! Why would I ever not use this?" Last session she was pulling the same trick from a 50' high ceiling, then gets blasted by a spell, fails her concentration check and falls, taking 20 something damage and landing prone next to a hungry ghoul. "Oh, that's why."

Buffistas will be happy to hear that Emmett has taken up D&D.

I felt compelled to ask him what his character is and he allowed as how they are running three campaigns in rotation.

So he's a...

Dwarf Barbarian (extra strong)
Half Elf Ranger (with some especially doofy norm name like...Josh)
Bard (named Poke Mudflap. I suggested that any bard with a name like that would sound like Tom Waits and he said he was going to start playing him like that.)

A Tom Waits-styled bard would be awesome, and just about the most perfect D&D expression of the Smay brand I can think of.

Back in 3rd Ed, an a setting called Kalamar (IIRC), my regular gaming group once decided to run a party entirely composed of wood elves. Wood elves were widely regarded as being the cheesiest subrace in the game (cheese becoming slang for overpowered stuff for some reason), because compared to regular elves they got a Strength bonus (really good for many classes) versus an Intelligence penalty (only really damaging to wizards and some rogues).

We decided to lean into that, declaring ourselves all to be of the Fiercecheese clan, with names like Gouda and Provolone. My character, a spectacularly stupid ranger, was named V. B. Fiercecheese. (V. B. stood for Venezuelan Beaver.)

We decided to lean into that, declaring ourselves all to be of the Fiercecheese clan, with names like Gouda and Provolone. My character, a spectacularly stupid ranger, was named V. B. Fiercecheese. (V. B. stood for Venezuelan Beaver.)

Fiercecheese! Good job running directly at the fromage.

Instead of a fireball did you cast a flaming wheel of cheese at your enemies? La fromage enflambe.

Saganaki. Some people live deliciously, others die deliciously.

Instead of a fireball did you cast a flaming wheel of cheese at your enemies? La fromage enflambe.

I was not a caster, but they should really have done that. (In proper cheesy fashion, I took feats allowing me to wield two bastard swords, one in each hand. I called them Magnificent and Sexy.)

I downloaded the demo for Solasta: Crown of the Magister from Steam. Turn-based RPG using the D&D 5E rules (via the OGL, rather than officially licensed, so they're doing their own subclasses and Backgrounds and no Feats since that stuff isn't in the SRD.)

Haven't got very far, but it looks like you get to choose which party member responds in conversations with NPCS (and it will show what relevant social skill, if any, they'll be using) and I'm going to be hard-pressed to not constantly choose the snarky Rogue.

ETA: Also, the environments look phenomenal on 5 year old gaming PC. I was shocked. Faces are a little wonky, but that might be a stylistic thing.

That sounds pretty cool. I'm really into turn-based games since I usually play while also doing other stuff.