Were you playing with Sam Riegel?

That man is blessed by Apollo

That's the best bard i ever heard off

Please say he played spongebob squarepants background music while you were traveling

So you just happened to play with an actual bard

THAT SOUNDS ABSOLUTELY FUCKING AWESOME

That's hilarious, definitely more interesting than "sleepwalking" (having a PC basically be an NPC and be absent from interactions), although sleepwalking is good if your game is high difficulty and you need a solid class mix.

To be honest, all our group has is a god hand that picks us up and puts us down into the world.

In my game one of my pcs is a necromancer and raised up an undead rhino, for the sole purpose to string up other pcs that couldn’t make the session.

I'd make it like Dark Souls and say they phased out of reality and would need to be summoned again when possible due to timeline complications.

(die spill out of bag) MY POINT STILL STANDS

I carry way too many dice with me to D&D sessions... About 50 of each... Even tough everyone I play with has their own case... But if someone forgets their dice, I have several sets to choose from!

I like collecting them!!! and in some of the collector's sets it came with exclusive ones... and those others were on clearance!!! and then I got some as gifts... and then my friend stopped playing and was going to throw his away and...It's not like I'm going to throw any away... oh... I see the problem I have now....

@@tthung8668 most comic book stores that also do tabletop gaming will have sets to sell. D20, D12, D10, D8, D6, D4, and a percentile. Read that as # of sides of a die. D4 = 4 sided die.

@@tthung8668 if you find a nice group, someone will have enough to outfit you for a session or two. If you want to get your own it really depends on which class you play (and the weapon you use) what exactly you need, but if you get a D4, D6, D8, D10, D12, D20 and a D100 your good to go. You sometimes need a bit of patience because you roll more then one of them, but if you have a pencil and notebook (or can keep numbers in your head) one of each is fine Only if you really got into D&D and still like it I recommend getting more to roll them together (eg rogue with a weapon that uses a D6 for damage plus sneak attack can add up to 20 dice fast on higher levels)

Yeah games like that are like mainlining essence of D&D. My friends and I have had a game of 5e going since we started highschool that is pretty similar to what you described, we're rules as written people, but we still run with lots of magic items, do some crazy multiverse spanning adventures, I'm talking regularly traveling between planes three to twelve times a session, all in a group that has fluctuated between 5 and 9 players through its lifetime and currently has been holding fast at 8. We would normally play 10 hour games on weekends and holidays all at someone's house, but I was sad figuring it was pretty much gonna end when we graduated. Here we are almost half way through college and we're still going, now online because of lock down, but still averaging 5 to 9 hours on weekends.

@@thothrax5621 that’s amazing! I started a campaign with my friends and I’m glad to hear that dnd can endure graduation and keep going.

I really want to use this now haha

I joined an under dark campaign where everything was underground so an earth quake happened and i fell upon the party from a whole that formed from above. i later learned that i had been falling for three days.

That's awesome. I just made the new girl a possessed boss fight and she beat the shit out of my guys so badly that the fight came down to if one failed their roll, it would be over.

Clever gm, clever.

I was running a game once and had to introduce a new character. I had him stuck in the pit trap around the corner from the group in the dungeon they were clearing. Easy peasy!

Most people would be sick by doing so. I mean, it must be really fun, but you might get tired of it if you do it *_straight_* for 3 days.

Well, we were young, had holidays and loved (still do) the game. But i know a group of people that are in their 30s who rent a big house in norway for two weeks each year. There they cook together, visit the country and play roleplay games every evening. Still sounds great.

Can’t say we did that long but me and my home group had a 13 hour session. One player left for work and came back and we were still playing. It stank something rank but it was a good time

We call that an "Analog Lan Party" lol

NN IV hookup.

Jonathan Rutley isn’t that just called writing a book?

But you don't have to argue about the rules or worry about players going off track! No worrying about people cheating, getting bored or just talking about things that aren't on-topic. It's brilliant for figuring out the game rules yourself and undertanding the difficulties of the players and the DM and understanding how they can try to reconcile some issues in odd circumstances.

I wish I had friends to play with.... I wish I had friends... 😶

@@DrkValCain cant help you with the friends part, but you can go on r/lfg if your looking for a RPG group

@@zhangbill1194 okay, so since I posted that I hadnt thought much of dnd (save for a few dingo doodles vides) and randomly today I got back into dnd again. Perfect timing is perfect.

Your fathr plays dnd? I'm jealous now

Did they just actually take a long rest?

I play 12 hour games once a week. It's heaven. My PCs wish i DMed more.

6 hours sounds like the perfect session length, I feel like after 6 hours, most campaigns would devolve into madness and murder hobos

...... I think 3 hours is pushing it... that said, last match I hosted, I thought it would last 2 hours, 3 hours latter, I decided to stop the match at the half way point and pick it up next week.

I wish unfortunately most people I play with don't have the stamina for more than 3 hours.

My party unfortunately likes to play 2 - 3 hour sessions. 16 hours is the dream? Talk about anything over 4.

That sounds awesome... Lol

That sounds way to close to a certain Twitch Stream i watch that colaborates with a lot of the main stream DnD groups on twitch who are also ambassadors of DnD..... Like exactly as the show ran an episode for a small segment. N i know you werent in the game cuz...yeah..... Really suspicious of this.

Haha, I actually play Dnd on twitch with a new group I'm with. We're really small though, so there's a low probability that you've seen it. The adventurer's league game was definitely not on twitch though, and was actually a couple years ago.

Petronio39 is it possible to get a link to your twitch ?

You didn't derail a campaign, your party invented one! I'm sure the GM doesn't mind playing along with shinnanigans as long as they are compelling, fun, and everyone involved is invested. The point of an RPG is to have fun, after all. It isn't necessisarily to travel a linear path through a series of scripted encounters. You can play videogames if you want that.

I feel every support player has at least three people they need to remind when they throw up bonuses.

Same with Bardic Inspiration!!

I currently have a cleric that I'm playing and sometimes I just won't bother casting the spell because I don't want to have to keep reminding people. The most effective means I've gotten is taking my own d4s and just putting them right next to the other players' d20s, in the hopes that they'll just happen to pick up both when they go to role. Works better than you'd think.

"Remember the bless" was a huge statement in my DnD games, because +1 is such a minor, almost useless bonus and it's so very easy to forget. Even to the point of the cleric who cast the spell forgetting it. Never had that problem when we swapped over to gurps, a +1 in that system is huge. And its very easy for the support to just put more points into their support abilities and grant everyone bigger bonuses.

"is such a mino, almost useless bonus" . In my D&D group (3.5 edition), blessing is considered one of the most OP level 1 spell there is. It saved the players' asses so many times and always had a huge impact on battles. But my guess is that we are playing at a different player level than you. My players usually are lvl 4-9 and are often fighting with a few generic NPC at their side (they are usually playing in cities, or helping an army during a war).

Same for our Pathfinder Lodge here in Asheville. I play with a lot of the same people at the FLGS (Friendly Local Gaming Store) that I play home games with, so it's a great way to meet folks for a future home game (we jokingly refer to organized play as a "gateway drug"). Last night, we had a big "Critmas" party, with some organized scenarios, as well as a home-brew custom game designed by two of our most experienced DMs. I know some people have had their bad experiences with organized play, but it's a been a blast for the last three years that I've been involved and we constantly get new folks swinging by to try it out, so we must be doing something right....

100% I joined my local AL about a year ago after a multi-year hiatus from D&D, and since then I have made a bunch of good friends who all like playing. From that I am now in 1 bimonthy campaign(STK), another bimonthy homebrew game (alternating with the former) composed of folks who didn't want to adhere to the AL PHB+1 rule (which is super annoying now that xanathars is out) and can easily jump into any number of tier 1-2 games being ran each week. Also, if you want a great loot, ahem, adventure. Ask your DM to run white plume mountain. It is super fun and puzzly, and has astounding amounts of loot. (or, if you are a DM, treat your players!)

You definitely start to connect with players whose play style u enjoy over sessions and then end up in games together more deliberately hahaha, esp online AL

It's not AL, but I found the same thing with a drop-in game run at a local game store. We were all strangers at first but quickly began to mesh well and entwine our backstories and eventually became good friends and started hanging out outside of the drop in D&D.

John Lance South Carolina ?

I am also very late, but thanks for the awesome tips. Those are great ideas.

Tf is fat camp? No offense or anything I've just heard of it

It's a more crude term for a summer camp for overweight kids to lose weight.

Oh

I do have those long sessions monthly. You feel like it isn't enough for certain games, and that it's too much for others.

Me and my group have a 8 hour game every 5 meetings for boss fights and huge plot developments and our normal playthroughs are around 3 to 4 hours and like every three months we play 12 to 16 hours just cause

Lol same, my group usually goes for 8hrs maybe longer if it's a bad place to stop.

ON 4TH EDITION

Yeah, our group only did 2 sessions of 4 hours so far, in 4 months or so? >.

My group changed from once a week too once every 2 months!!

@@moonlightriver1607 At this point I just feel like it is better to stop. Once a week is a minimum for me.

AFAIK AL is based around 4 hour sessions. So I'm not sure how your DM treats that. As a double session? If not then you are technically being cheated out of renown and downtime rewards, for example.

bradwolf07 I play in an Adventure League game. I really enjoy it. It's actually much easier as a DM. The main rule is if you want to do it, try it. May work, might not. That and no PvP. Cuts down on arguments. It's actually how I got my wife involved in D&D. And now she is a DM. She never played before AL. My only concern is with magic items. In earlier editions, you could make slight alterations to magic items. Case in point, I had a wand caster that turned a flying broom into a wand of fire bolt. I spent the required time and money to do it, all by the book. But in AL, I wanted to attach a hammer head to my immovable rod, and WoC Adventure League said no. So the DM doesn't have "complete" control. But we still have lots of fun. I recommend anyone watching this video to check it out. The WoC site has a list of all the AL games. Also you can try this app called Meetup. On Android and IOS. Or just go to meetup.com.

yeah mine does average of that once a week pretty good length i think and we get food but usually its something we can just eat while still playing like pizza.

Im kinda jelous

our group used meal breaks as short rests

from personal experience its not the greatest sure its fun but after the 7-8 hour mark everyone gets tired ppl tend to forget things more often and mess around alot more which leads to nothing constructive getting done altho that may be my group feel free to give it a try but dont get your expectations too high

IT'LL BE DUHBEST. SESSION. EVAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Everything neckro178 said is completely true, after the 8 hour mark our games usually devolved...like...a lot. :D Roleplaying was barely there and people are just too tired. It's not really worth it.

same here. the best we've ever got is 8 hours

LIGHTWEIGHTS!!!

Every -dog- dire wolf has its day.

The.. The Kobold bodies, all lying in pieces... THE HORROR.

*distant screams and sound of dice hitting a wooden table*

"It aint me!It aint me!"

At what point did the players start hallucinating vividly?

Bluecho4 it helps with the immersion

Praise the Beef pretty much what my group does

Mine are whenever we find time (typically no more often than once every two months) and last no longer than 4 hours. I honestly can't wait until college when I can find a new group that actually gives a fuck (and has enough people).

Join an adventure league dnd.wizards.com/playevents/organized-play

Stereotypical Nerd good luck with finding a better group for D&D

Yeah thanks, luckily I'm already aware of a regular group at the college I'm going to, so now it's just a matter of "does my schedule align with it?" Bear in mind I'm double-majoring (Math+Computer Science), so that's a pretty large concern for me.

Cody131Coops that is the reason i miss it lol you just never know whatll happen

My longer game sessions were in high school. There was a group of 7 of us. We would have a sleepover at someone's house every weekend and play. Usually we would start around 8 and go till 4-6 in the morning. Best thing about it is the part at 2 am where everyone is on sleep dep and everything gets hilarious. Things that happen in this window make for great inside jokes later.

Yup. That always happens in my campaigns, largely because it’s people who are new to the game and treat it like a video game, so they end up getting trampled by horses after deliberately spooking them to get a carriage going, and failing both the rolls to avoid getting knocked over, the rolls to avoid the horse’s hooves, and the roll to avoid the carriage wheels.

You are chained in a Bard's Sex Dungeon??? Oh the dream of owning one on my Half Orc Bard who sleeps his way through the adventure.

It's called mordenkainen's magnificent mansion or just magnificent mansion. It's a level 7 spell

Ya, same with my AL, lucky enough to get a really enthusiastic DM that cares about story and narrative. but since it is in a shop we rarely get to play for more then 3hrs, I think 3.5 is the longest we've gotten. I dream of 4 hour long sessions - but I don't want to play 8hr long homebrew games anymore

I play in an Adventure League game. I really enjoy it. It's actually much easier as a DM. The main rule is if you want to do it, try it. May work, might not. That and no PvP. Cuts down on arguments. It's actually how I got my wife involved in D&D. And now she is a DM. She never played before AL. My only concern is with magic items. In earlier editions, you could make slight alterations to magic items. Case in point, I had a wand caster that turned a flying broom into a wand of fire bolt. I spent the required time and money to do it, all by the book. But in AL, I wanted to attach a hammer head to my immovable rod, and WoC Adventure League said no. So the DM doesn't have "complete" control. But we still have lots of fun. I recommend anyone watching this video to check it out. The WoC site has a list of all the AL games. Also you can try this app called Meetup. On Android and IOS. Or just go to meetup.com.

I really want to get to a shop but they are all 2 far away lol

Fistminer bless your souls

I had one of those once... then we went home... and i was in the worst car accident ive ever... well come to think of it i guess by definition i didn't technically witness it. I had a concussion and have no memory of the crash or the walking to a strangers house for help at 5 am. My friend was on disability for 3 years. Game responsibly kids.

Had a 30 hour session over Christmas with cousins, stopping to sleep and with a few meal breaks in there. It was beautiful. I only do that kind of stuff like once a year these days, but it's a special moment.

Ant Bolinger What i do not like about AL is the forced built in battles to progress.

You must not have heard about Season 8! Lots of great rewards for all 3 "pillars of gameplay" (or w/e they're called): Combat, Exploration, and Social. There's almost always a non-combat solution to encounters, especially in new modules. I played the first 4 in sequence that take place in Waterdeep, good fun and progress ;)

I don't play favorites and don't let my players be chaotic stupid, which is exactly what this was. I would've allowed it if it were a reference to the "smallpox blankets" card in cards against humanity, and if the NPC was kind of a dick, but a regular and main NPC I would not let that shit fly.

But why prevent them from doing as they like? I mean, you can just read them a story if you want them to follow a story along a fixed path, isn't having your own choices influence the game one of the reasons why games like D&D are so popular?

@@rb4121 It depends from DM to DM. A lot of people frown upon taking away those freedoms, however not everyone can think on their feet fast enough to figure out a way around essentially castrating an essential part of the story in one fell swoop, even in a lazy manor, let alone in a way that seems natural for story progression. Honestly, I'm fine with limiting player actions that way for the sake of a story as long as they still have the ability to make certain actions that can completely change a story. It's not railroading them into a singular narrative, they still have choices, it's just keeping them in check, just like most rpg games. You can do what you want, just not anything and everything you want because "Players should have freedom of choice".

@Leisure Yes, but not very quickly for many people. They may practice it on their own time, but in the mean time somewhat limit actions. I really don't understand the EXTREME prejudice of limiting actions of players. People act as if you have just committed some atrocity against all mankind just for daring to suggest that you don't allow them to do something that not only goes against the story but the universe as well. Yeah, D&D is a game about choice, I get that. But it's as much the DM's game as it is the players'. The DM should have just as much right to say no as the players do to ask to do dumb things, whether story related or not, imo.

Crafting Menace The biggest weakness with AL is when you have totally random people play together. If you can get a fairly consistent group in the modules, it really makes it more fun. Our store has several hardcover games running at any given time, and those groups play for months at a time together, which makes it much easier to roleplay. The DMs for the hardcovers typically invite consistent players from the weekly modules, which ensures a core group every week, with 1-2 people varying based on schedules.

Hey there, I know I am 10 months late but I would like to be your friend if you are still looking for them.

Mood...

I'm 18 months late but it as long as you have a pulse you can still make friends

Yes please

Havoc too

It's a roleplaying game. Roleplaying is the objective! For me it really kills the fun if someone is too invested in the game as something to beat and master, instead of just playing a character.

3 minutes is kind of a long time to go on a diatribe about your backstory that no one else cares about to be fair

That sounds like my kind of group. Roleplaying makes up way to much of D&D for many players imo. I guess it's because of Critical Role.

@@DevinDTV But that's the thing. If you're playing with friends, then they probably do care, but if you're playing with strangers in the Adventurer's League, then probably won't.

@@poptartburrito3948 DnD has been way more about role play before critical role came out lol. It's I the name it's RPG

how’d it go?

How did it go?

Do you need to sign

communist dog you don’t, most of the time you can just show up

Killaim That sounds like a dream to me.

Damn, that’s awesome.

Random Rotors that makes more sense i mean 8 can understand a 16h game when its a bunch of friends getting together at a house with plans to do only this this weekend and then break for a month. Where as 3h games make sense when its at a set location on weekly basis. But still i dont think i could have the patience to do a 16h game in a weekend but a 16h story arc/campaign over 4-5 meetings in a month is much more manageable. I want to know who does a 2-5h battle and its not a boss battle do you have a bunch of people with combat disadvantage, brittle swords, and god armor who cant roll something above a 5 to save thier life.... or just a devil of a GM/DM?

4th edition combat is how

amanda cabrera well alcohol plays a big part with patience, makes everything go smoother. But i prefer the 16 hour slogs simply for the fact you can get more done. There is no catch up ,stop then start. People dont forget there plans halfway through the week and when they come back wonder what in the sweet jesus they were doing. And yeah 4th ed had horrible combat, i had one fight just a street level brawl last an hour and a half. Just between hp amount of damage you do how hard it was to hurt people and the whole magical items being damn necessary combat became such a slow boring drawn out thing.

4e isn't the real problem. It just depends on how focused the players are on the game, more than anything else. And to some extent, how high the character's level is (which allows more spells and powers to choose from), and how much role playing the players do. I've seen an entire 4e combat take less than one hour. That was a fairly simple encounter where the players were focused on the game and had low level characters. I've also seen 3e combat take over 8 hours. That was a combat where the players were often distracted and talking about other stuff, so I couldn't really tell you how much of that time was actually spent playing. I haven't played 5e, so I can't speak to personal experience with that.

Rod H 5th ed combat is a hell of alot more streamlined. my experience is with 4th and 5th edition. Normal 4th ed normally goes for about half an hour to an hour with good luck and half decent roles at levels 6 to 9. Where as 5th edition combat ive fought in normally goes for about 20 minutes thats a challenging fight as well at about 6 to 9 level. Rarely have i ever had a fight last more then an hour. I got nothing against 4th edition in fact its what got me into dnd but once i started playing 5th ed i realised drawn out the combat was.

For real

LOL. I'm imagining your group weekend-at-bernie's-ing it with AFK characters on the regular.

I play in an Adventure League game. I really enjoy it. It's actually much easier as a DM. The main rule is if you want to do it, try it. May work, might not. That and no PvP. Cuts down on arguments. It's actually how I got my wife involved in D&D. And now she is a DM. She never played before AL. My only concern is with magic items. In earlier editions, you could make slight alterations to magic items. Case in point, I had a wand caster that turned a flying broom into a wand of fire bolt. I spent the required time and money to do it, all by the book. But in AL, I wanted to attach a hammer head to my immovable rod, and WoC Adventure League said no. So the DM doesn't have "complete" control. But we still have lots of fun. I recommend anyone watching this video to check it out. The WoC site has a list of all the AL games. Also you can try this app called Meetup. On Android and IOS. Or just go to meetup.com.

Did you end finding a group?

@@SadGodKamina Yes

Wholesome story ends well

I have the same problem

I agree I need to find me a group as well.

lol why were you then?

20 minutes? That's 1-2 turns of combat, that makes no damn sense.

We've been getting constantly screwed over b/c we didn't go murderhobo. That person you let escape? He came back with 10 of his friends and ambushed you in your sleep. That wolf you let go out of that trap? It was a druid's animal companion who led an army of woodland creatures to slaughter you for tresspassing. That farmer you annoyed by asking for a discount? He's a level 20 retired adventurer who one shots your entire party. We Role Play constantly, which I thought was the most important part of the game aside from story. You don't roleplay, you don't get to play, I always thought. Not with ANY of my groups.

No metagaming

You need to PUNISH anyone who meta games!!! Severe, swift, brutal, unforgiving punishments for metagaming!

No, he can’t. They don’t know about his KZfaq yet... THEY MUST THINK HE IS A REALLY IMPORTANT BUSY PERSON.

Wil Garrett he could use the site roll20

As one of his pals who he plays with, we've tried through another buddy's stream channel and it doesn't really portray how we wanna share the story and several other problems like technical wise stuff like camera set up and audio, etc. but we all wanna get into streaming our dnd games at some point so possibly sometime in the future lol

That's understandable. I asked because I look back at Matthew Mercer and his group of voice actor friends from Geek and Sundry's Critical Role series and I loved it. I think Ben and the gang would be hilarious to watch.

Animaze115 I don't like roll 20 that much. Maybe I've never had a good experience to really like it

Quality over quantity.

amen to that

Well.. Unless it is all combat.. And when it drags on... You know it is all combat, all the time..

it's quite easy if you add something invaluable : breaks. Something like 15 to 30 minutes break every 2-4 hours allow you to do great game lenght far more easely.

It works if you do more role playing and "less" adventuring,

I’ve had a session like that myself before, it was fun, but after it I felt like I was gonna die. Never gonna do another one.

Longest session I've ever had was a 3 day marathon with breaks for vitals (Like food, drink, relievement, and sleep). We were trying to accomplish much in a relatively short time. At the time we were playing pathfinder and knocked out the entire Part 1 of a 6 part adventure during this time. Good times, good times...

John J It depends on the players alot. there are a lot of things you can do to speed up the game. Most of my players wait until its their turn and then start thinking about what they want to do....and then complain that battles take too long xD

I am a dm for my friends and we had so much fun we thought an hour passed, nope 8 hours passed and then we all get hit with exhaustion oncs we realized this, it is glorious (still happens sometimes even longer when it feels like only 20 min passed)

Sounds like a great idea to start with 3-4 hour ones, but once you play a few times you will probably see why 6 hours isn't really that long - it is inconvenient, though, if you have work, a lot of stuff to do after work, people with conflicting schedules and you have to find time to get them all together. The thing is, RPG sessions are pretty much stories being told between the players and the GM, and every story needs to have an ending. Think of an RPG campaign like you'd think of a TV series - sure, the season finale is at the end, but every episode has it's own arc and it's own ending. It doesn't just end in the middle of someone's dialogue - unless it's a really bad series. It's the same with a game session - if you want it to feel complete, you can't stop at any random moment just because your phone's alarm went off, and with players sometimes getting sidetracked (which is perfectly fine and what makes RPGs so great - the world is really open and you CAN go anywhere you want and there WILL be stuff there to do. The stuff to do might be "dying", though) 4 hours might simply not be enough to advance the plot as much as you want AND still give the players the freedom we all want them to have AND end the session at a moment that will feel like a good ending. Even Puffin pointed a few things out in the video - backstories are pretty much being ignored, people are focused on getting the job done etc. That way it's not surprising a session can be wrapped up in 3 hours, and it's great for people simply wanting to learn the rules, people who don't have too much free time and/or can't commit to playing every single week etc.but that's not the only way to play and with a great GM or even with a bunch of friends who really are fun an 6- or even 8-hour long session can feel too short.

Well, my first game were like session 3 or 4 hours (Not sure). When I started to play with my friend (The GM) and others guys (Friends of the GM that now have become my friend), our sessions was 24 hours. We weren't playing all the time (we took break to eat, sleep and play board games/video games). It was really fun to do and I will love to do it again, but my life is saying fuck you.

role-playing always takes a lot out of me pretty quick, so I can barely imagine going for six hours, let alone eleven.

My record is 20, AD&D 2ed, circa 1995. After which we left and went to a water park (and mostly slept). I'll add for flavor that a friend of ours got sunburn under the soles of his feet, and that was HILARIOUS

Your Dm is a damn saint. Shower them with gifts and never ever rules lawyer against them.

Those were the days!

*Your videos are the best*, you're = you are; and I believe he is a person, not a video.

I have played several bards and never had anyone actually use a bardic inspiration I pass to them.

Yes. I understand that. It also takes literally less than a minute to actually make it more than just another strategy game. Pass.

We had a dnd game in the College Lobby that operated on a Drop in drop out basis due to class and scheduling. The justification was we had a wagon train due to the amount of players (8 minimum, 12 I think was the largest amount.) and characters (Dm let people make 2 in order to fill some party rolls when people don't show up/ keep interest.)

Right. You had some justification for the characters being there an already knowing each other. Not just "You're walking through the forest and suddenly someone else is in the party." It makes sense for the story and sounds like it was a good idea. I ran a game that took place in a small town wherein everyone had lived their lives. That could have worked the same way.

Well in D&D adventurers League he didn't mention but they use the faction system basically it's more of your faction has sent you to do this this and this that's how people drop in and out it's basically your faction is like an adventurers Guild and they send whatever Ventures are available at the time

To be honest, fuck realism. DnD is about telling a story, and anyone that's ever written can tell you that everything exists for the convenience of the plot. Having long, drawn out sequence to introduce new characters is just way too disruptive and doesn't follow the conservaiton of detail at all. Why should we spend 3 hours on the excuse for why there's a new character when most of that time isn't even establishing them? You can put it on the player to come up with an excuse as to why they quickly joined up with the group in under 60 seconds OOC, but not everyone's that creative. It's OK to just handwave stuff, anything really, that's taking up time but not making the experience better. You can do that to combat itself too if you want. If the PC's aren't going to be realistically threatened by kobolds, unless you're certain the players want to have fun stomping something just handwave it away. Say they kicked their asses and move on. Combat in DnD/Pathfinder is often a slog, yeah, but since I play mostly on Roll20 I use their handy automation tools to both speed up the math behind everything and to cull the decision paralysis that often takes up the majority of combat. If you want to attack someone, you click the Attack button and pick your target, you either hit or you don't and then you deal damage and if you crit it'll calculate that too. Characters that have lots of options like casters can have a list of all their shit right in front of them, and when they click that button it posts exactly what it does while also rolling all the relevant dice and showing me what saves I need to be looking at. As a GM, all these tools are an absolute godsend as I don't need to know fucking jack shit about any of the monsters running about, I just make the dumb ones run up to the nearest person and bash them with sticks and have the smarter ones use their wizbang neato stuff without needing to remember EXACTLY what will happen.

The Amazing Mollusk What I heard was "I became a Litch."

Creepy undead skeletal wings.

I can't believe people still drink that caffeine filled can of piss.

Mr. Badguy yeah its pretty much two whole cups sugar poured into water

Uh. I know a Brian Campbell who runs our games. This is so wierd haha

fk sessions under 4hrs, I'd honestly leave the party as I would feel that the campaign is moving to slowly and is a waste of time.

That's cool, but I've been playing for years and past exp tells me to stay away from the shorter session groups. Normally if the session is that short, the DM or other's are half invested at best. You'll learn that most D&D players fall into a handful of specific types of players. At these shorter session groups, You'll find the players that only show up to play and you're just there to help them play the game or either the players that get bored and quit before ever completing a section. If your unlucky, you'll find the player that has zero control in his personal life so he escapes into D&D but can't stay out to late. Those players can actually be very cancerous to the group in many little ways. They poke 50 little holes in your group(ig or irl) before you realize the self destruction. You might think I'm talking out my ass but you'll notice the 'types' of players too if you play with enough people.

I agree, feels same for me as DM and Player

back in the day, when i played at game stores, i had many toons die because of some small mistake. it felt like the gm was only going to let their high lvl friends talk, and anyone else can just die. no one was going to help me, no one wanted to make the scene cooler, i just got killed. i stopped showing up.

Clerics get that buff as well. Just boosting your buddies to be even more efficient tanks like if your druid turned into a T rex against an Ancient Fire Dragon just watch the tanking.