I miss D&D
This is a long mind dump of my history with D&D, my love of it, etc.
tl;dr - I love D&D. I liked DMing briefly. My group broke apart. I miss D&D.
Around 6 or 7 years ago a friend invited me to play D&D for the first time. I met a bunch of new people through this group and while a lot of people came and went throughout our two campaigns, there was always a core group of 3 of us that were always present.
At first it was very nerve-wracking. Not only because I was still learning the mechanic, but also because there's a certain amount of performance and vulnerability in getting into your character. While at home I'm always dropping into silly voices to make my wife laugh and I've gotten pretty good at doing various accents, cartoony voices, etc., at the table I couldn't do any of it. I had stage fright in front of a group of very accepting and kind friends. And it took me a few sessions (and beers) to push through it and be my authentic, goofy self in-person like that. In a way, it helped me grow as a person.
Eventually our DM moved far away and a bunch of players were left without anyone to lead our games, so we just didn't play for about a year. During that year I began thinking about DMing. My grasp of D&D's mechanics have never been great, but in that year Baldur's Gate 3 came out. And I hear some of you groaning because I know it's not a 1:1 match with 5e's rules. But it helped fill my knowledge gaps enough that I felt sorta okay DMing. So I offered to DM.
My first session was a premade campaign from the Starter Kit. Almost immediately I wanted to tweak the story, insert old characters of mine, throw in a few references my friends might get, stuff like that. I think we made it like 2 sessions in before I announced I'd be making my own damn campaign (with the group's support, mind you). But again, between my friends support and pushing myself, I was able to tackle some of my social anxiety because the challenges of running the entire game are completely different from the challenges of being a player.
I dove head-first into this new campaign. I wanted to do this massive campaign as a love song to puppetry because I grew up around my parents running a puppet ministry at church. So between that and Sesame Street, The Muppets, Lambchop, etc. I have this deep love of puppetry as an art form. And somewhere along the way, someone suggested a pirate theme, so I combined them. Thus I began working on a Muppet Treasure Island inspired D&D campaign.
I don't think I realized my capacity for creativity until I began working on this campaign. I never thought of myself as someone who needed a creative outlet, but holy shit was creating the D&D campaign a wonderful outlet for my creativity. I spent hours during and after work just writing and making maps. It was so fulfilling, even though the story itself was, in retrospect, kind of all over the damn place. Yet again, D&D helped me grow a little bit as a person. It gave me a creative outlet. It gave me fulfillment that I was critically lacking at work.
And then we started running the campaign. Session 0 was via Zoom and we all got excited about it. Session 1 was a pretty standard "you wake up as felt creatures on a mysterious beach and are quickly taken prisoner by King Friday, but let loose by his royal advisor X The Owl to help him solve a global problem because reasons" plot. But it was fun and I felt so alive.
Then session 2 one of the players had to bail...and I was not going to let that prevent the session from happening, so we just worked around it. Then by the time I was scheduling session 3 that player bailed completely. Session 4 was a bit messy/rushed on my part...and then everything just started to fall apart. Weeks went by, then months, now it's been nearly 2 years I think? We never even got off the starting island...all the story I wrote...all the maps I'd created...just completely unused. And it was soul-crushing. I felt like I'd wasted my time. I felt stupid for having put so much effort into something that fell apart so quickly.
But that was a bad attitude on my part, in retrospect. It wasn't a waste. I enjoyed every second of it. It was fulfilling. It was fun. So I'm thinking about returning to it and just fleshing out the rest of the campaign a bit more. I'm hoping to watch a lot of Dimension 20 in the coming weeks to get me back in the mood and take what I learn from it and just get back into D&D. Honestly I don't know that I want to DM again because I think that core group is done for when it comes to D&D. And it's hard to imagine finding another group I feel that comfortable with, but maybe? I think it's okay to just worldbuild for worldbuilding's sake, ya know?
But I do miss playing. I miss being in-character. I miss coming up with silly backstories and goofy premises for a character. I miss talking in funny voices for other adults (my kids get the bulk of it, these days). I miss making people laugh and contributing to them having a good time. And D&D was a perfect outlet for all of that. One of these days I'm going to find the motivation and courage to just find a group of strangers to join and try to quiet the social anxiety enough to enjoy it.
So... I actually more or less feel the same way as you, although for different reasons. My last d&d group died years ago because the DM and one of the players broke up irl and I haven't played D&D since. But...
A couple of months ago, on the Tildes MC server, I actually did semi-jokingly suggest starting a casual, unofficial Tildes D&D campaign for anyone on, say, CET time, or a CET-adjacent timezone to join. I think I thought of it during a discussion with creesch and Nankeru.
With your post I'm taking the idea a little seriously again although it'd probably be a pain to host/organise... But just dropping it here in case it has merit.
One DM I knew ran a west marches style campaign, people were mercenaries and each session was more or less self-contained (some of them stretched over 2-3 sessions, but usually we were done in 1). There was an overarching story for people who paid attention or attended each week, and for people who didn't there was a fun dynamic of filling each other in with details from their notes. The group assembled would pick a job off the job board, and that was the session (usually a monster quest, confronting cultists, a dungeon delve/artifact retrieval, that kind of thing).
It took a lot of pressure off the DM, players could submit encounter ideas which could end up on the job board, and the DM still had his overarching story and could add in the creative details that were important to him. All in all, it was fun! He ran it out of Foundry, which I've gotten used to as a platform, I used it myself when I ran a couple of one-shots for my crew (which just folded! sad times.)
Anyways, just sharing ideas in case it gets someone's gears turning.
I think something like this is a wonderful and very fitting idea for Tildes:
Sounds fairly casual, welcoming, and flexible.
On an unrelated note, the only thing that sucks a little bit about the separate campaigns per timezone is that the NA groups would likely never be able to meet the EU groups and vice versa, although personally I'd like to seldom sacrifice some sleep and "drop in" in the NA campaign for a session - plenty of cool people seem to be interested in that one
With that kind of setup I think it would be possible to have a shared setting with multiple groups running across the world. You could have non-session interactions in the hub done asynchronously for everyone to socialize across time zones, e.g. in a regular post on Tildes. It would require some syncing between GMs to make sure they aren't clashing but with the right plot device available (maybe something akin to Stargate SG-1) it's relatively easy to have isolated expeditions that can get weird without conflicting with the rest of the world.
I love the idea too, I'd also forgo some sleep occasionally if I could easily drop in to groups in Asia or Europe.
Okay so there's also a lot of that bullshit in my story as well :D But long story short there was some amicable divorce, light table tension, boy/girl friends coming and going as players, and then two players started dating each other and broke up between sessions of my first campaign as DM. Love my friends, but holy shit.
Ooo I think that's a great idea :) Looks like I'm 6 hours behind CET so I doubt I'd be able to join, but maybe it'd inspire a North American group to start?
I've had something similar happen, it's kind of funny how often even aside from scheduling/moving there's relationship drama beyond the table that can cause groups to break up.
I'm in the same boat there, wouldn't even necessarily mind GMing a game but I'd have to figure out Foundry first.
If you decide to give Foundry a shot feel free to reach out. I have a list of the modules that are useful to look into and don't mind sharing info!
US Eastern Time? Maybe we oughta start one up then.
Yep /u/Durinthal seemed interested too! Maybe with our powers combined we can make it happen?
I made a post too, count me in from CDT
Posting here - EDT here, also interested.
Another interested in EDT here! This would be very cool to get going!
I'm six hours behind CET too (utc-5).
Don't have much experience (~5 sessions total as a player), but I'd love to join if y'all make a group and have room/the open times line up.
I'm in Brazil (utc-3), so I could try to join the NA group!
Don't have much experience but would love to at least try to participate :)
On a side note, I've being very interested in Daggerheart. Any interest in here?
honestly I think something like that could end up being really fun, albeit a bit hard to organize.
I'm also currently in an indie ttrpg "book club" discord server that I would be delighted to invite someone from Tildes to if they DM me and aren't opposed to trying out a bunch of non-D&D indie ttrpgs. I don't have any other ttrpg outlet atm in my life, and I've really had a great time participating in the games I've played in through this group so far. For those interested in D&D or other specific games, finding online communities can often be a good starting point to find people to play with.
I would be very interested to join as a player
Oh! likewise! Though the only thing I would bring to the table would be enthusiasm as a new player. If anyone would be open to any other games I would happily join. I actually grabbed a copy of Shadowdark so I can learn something a little rule-light so I can start playing solo and eventually find a group.
I have been wondering if slow dnd would work. It would be the dnd equivalent of players chess by post: where a player makes a move/statement written in text or a voice note, and then wait for the other players to play over hours to days. No need for all to attend at once, and just slowly advance the campaign, maybe with bursts of active play when everyone gets together.
Has anyone tried that? Would anyone be interest to try it on Tildes?
"Play-by-post" is the terminology in the ttrpg space for this, and it's definitely a thing (though I'm not familiar enough with that side of the space to know specific websites to recommend or anything).
Thanks, I knew the phrase but couldn’t think of it.
I've heard people talk about text-based play over discord (for the dice rolling bots) but never done it myself. It's an intriguing concept.
I'm interested. It would be nice to keep it on Tildes if possible so more people could join over time.
Dice rolls could be done by the players with scout's honor rules, made by the DM, or a specific "roll keeper" for a thread.
The DM could start a post and create top-level comment threads for points of interest that player characters "sign up" for that is then played out over the week.
Something like:
Session 5: 5/26/25 - 6/1/25
Thread #1 - Point of Interest
Thread #2 - Point of Interest
Thread #3 - Player Notes & Theories
Etc.
Over time, the players could build out maps based on what's been discovered so it's easier for other people to join in. As more people join, more DM's can join and manage various story threads.
I'd absolutely play or even run a D&D game for Tilders! I'm seven hours behind during Daylight Saving (CDT)
So if enough folks are interested in that time slot I'm happy to run a second group or play, etc.
I'm interested and I'm 8 hours behind CET (I'm US Mountain Time). Weekly would be tough, but I could usually commit biweekly. If it was a westmarch style thing I'd also be willing to assist with a DM rotation.
I think I may have been there during that discussion? Or maybe I had just talked to someone else about D&D while on the MC server. In either case, I'd be interested in playing if the time/day work out with my schedule. It seems Durinthal and I are both in the same timezone, about 6hrs behind.
I used to play every week for five years a couple years ago. A lot of people say "it's impossible to get a group of adults together every week consistently." It really isn't though. I played with a group of guys in their 30s with jobs, families, and responsibilities and we rarely missed games.
It's hard, but it's only impossible with people that don't really want to play.
It's very, very easy for most people to see d&d as the absolute lowest thing on your priority list, and just say "meh, I had a bad day at work, no need to play this silly game tonight."
The key is that you need to find people that realize that no, it's not just a silly game you're playing for your own enjoyment. It's something you committed to, and you're potentially ruining something that other people have looked forward to all week because you're feeling a little sleepy.
Basically, if you're playing with adults, choose people that you know are dependable, that are empathetic, and that have a strong sense of responsibility. Don't bother even trying to play with people that aren't like that. Play a board game, play video games, see a movie, or go to the beach with those people. Don't try to play a TTRPG campaign, it'll only end up frustrating you.
I miss playing d&d too, and I know people that want to play, but unfortunately I know they're not the type of people I can rely on showing up to play, so I've never offered to DM for them.
Yep. I've got one group that has been meeting weekly for more than five years. We miss occasionally for stuff like illnesses or vacations but it's been very consistent. Four hours every Wednesday night is game time. We meet, have dinner while we yap, then dive in. Quick break halfway in to smoke or piss or whatever helps keep the focus going.
I have another group that is... a lot less consistent. They're very good friends with much messier lives. We don't do epic quests or plan a year-long adventure, we meet when we can and slowly chew away at a story As long as you keep your expectations level with their capabilities it's totally fine.
Very, very relatable.
I played TTRPGs consistently in high school, with a group of 3 other friends. We rotated GMs and got together weekly for either board games or a TTRPG campaign. We played a couple different systems, but mainly Pathfinder (1e).
Then we all graduated high school and ended up in very different places (colleges across the country, a different country, and the military).
In college, I lucked into my roommates all being “nerds” and so we consistently played TTRPGs, at least twice a month, mostly D&D 5e. When we graduated, we played a couple sessions over Discord, but it’s so different than playing in person and almost harder to schedule, especially for a campaign (one shots are certainly easier, and in smaller/quicker OSR-style games). And now we’re in 3 different (USA) timezones which makes any weeknight games almost impossible.
So I haven’t really played any TTRPG in 3+ years or so. I keep talking with my old high school group and we all want to play again, but finding a good time is hard.
I was a better player than a GM, but I never minded GMing. I did back a couple kickstarters for OSR-inspired TTRPGs that might be easier to run off and on or as one-shots, so I’ll likely try to get a few sessions going once I get my hands on them.
Well, that's one of the two ways DnD groups die: poor attendance and DM burnout. Poor attendance is what it is. Sometimes people just stop having enough time. In my experience, it's best to find IRL players for that reason - it acts as somewhat of a barrier against random flaking if they need to look you in the eye next week. But it's as much just a general personality trait as anything else.
I do think one thing I've noticed people of the younger millenial/zoomer generations do is that they just hate pinging people. If you want the DnD campaign to progress, you have to be willing to confront people every week and ask: are you coming, or not? Straight answer, right now. It's fine.
Another piece of advice is to make it more frequent than you'd want. e.g if you want a a biweekly session, make it weekly. Because it's going to end up biweekly in practice. It's like telling your friends who are always late to be somewhere 30 minutes before the actual time.
Generally you shouldn't make content that specific. Anything you make, can be reused for another campaign with a coat of paint. That goes more into how to avoid DM burnout.
Honestly some of it is. In my rough outline of the campaign I introduced a lot of heavy fantasy elements that at the time felt a little out of place in a puppet-centric setting, but those are the pieces that would be easiest to port into another campaign. Other stuff might need a little more effort, like Shadowflik Island, which was an island of shadow puppets. Turn them into shadow creatures and that might work elsewhere. Then the more reference-heavy stuff like "Elmo's Fire" just being a volcano with a comical name just doesn't have enough meat on it to reuse.
I miss D&D. We do still have the odd TTRPG session, but in a different system that I like much less, usually online which is much worse than in-person, and very sporadically. Though this year that's largely on me for having a baby.
What I miss most is 7 or 8 years ago when we'd have games every friday night and every sunday afternoon. It was rare that anyone would miss a session, they were the priority. But then people started prioritising other hobbies, relationship statuses changed, it became much harder to get a group together. The pandemic moving us all online was pretty much the death knell.
Yeah at this point I think I'd take any fantasy-centric system to get back into TTRPGs. My only attachment to D&D specifically is that it's the only system I know. My group briefly discussed switching to Pathfinder, but we never got around to it.
Our usual GMs are much more fond of grim real-world-plus-magic-elements type systems, and heavily narrative-style rather than dice-rolling-number-crunch. Basically the opposite of what I enjoy most as a player, but I take what I can get.
I'm playing a Pathfinder game right now but I swear the DM is very by the book so if you suggest something and it's not one of the options on the campaign, it doesn't work.
(Also idk if we're doing it right but I dislike not being able to get off an action to start combat. )
Pathfinder does have a lot of rules and I can imagine someone going too strict. What I'd suggest (as someone else also quite new to it) is that when done well, the rules are there to give the GM guidance and tools to easily adjudicate things within the structure of what's already defined.
There's intentionally no surprise round in Pathfinder so for your latter point you might well be playing it correctly already. It can be a bit too strong an approach in many other systems.
If you were having a stand-off or a conversation and reach for a knife or incantation, it's down to whoever's reflexes are faster as determined by rolling initiative. One important consideration is that turns aren't really sequential, you're all moving and reacting in the same 6 second window.
What I'd say is there are still situations where you can get the drop on someone but it requires more than declaring that you attack. Maybe your party has successfully approached under stealth and are all undetected to the enemies, so even if they have turns before yours they're unaware of the danger and don't do much with those turns.
In a social situation turned combat I'd potentially allow similar if someone wanted to use Deception or Thievery to hide their intent until the last split second and the enemy wasn't already too wary. Or if that felt too strong then maybe I'd give a circumstance penalty to initiative rolls for the enemies, to represent them taking a second to react to you.
We're running a module/campaign and so that's where the by the book part is definitely coming from. I'm just used to, and run a more flexible style. Not "you can do literally anything" but I appreciate creativity and "selling" me on how a skill applies is part of the deal. I still say no when it's ridiculous but sometimes magic happens out of those creative moments.
We had set up a whole ambush and couldn't get off any sort of initial attack after they entered the courtyard and we were all hidden. Idk if they're being too strict or if I'm running into the same wall over and over but it's been one of the few super frustrating moments, esp combined with " nope that skill is not going to help at all" when it totally would!
ETA: it's also my first 2e game so it's also got that learning curve aspect to it
Ah yeah, I'm currently running a pre-built module as my first exposure to PF2e too. They do tend to lay out the specific skills which can be used for a challenge, but I agree it's on the GM to see that as starting suggestions and to be open to some level of lateral thinking from players.
Are they perhaps newish to GMing and feeling a bit nervous going off book and potentially losing control? I still find it pretty overwhelming sometimes.
Or maybe more of a case of them wanting to present the contents of the module impartially without putting too much of themselves into it?
Could be worth a conversation about GMing styles and player expectations while not in the middle of the session, if you haven't had one already and think they'd be open to chatting about it. While a bit uncomfortable in the moment I've ultimately appreciated it when players have told me about things I was doing that reduced their enjoyment.
It's Kingmaker in 2e, I don't know them well enough to know if the adherence to the book is experience or style, they're (currently I think) also running this for another group but have never mentioned running anything else. So I'm not sure.
I'm ultimately I fine with it, but may run a second game with an overlapping group, not in competition but just as an alternative. I've watched a lot of Brennan Lee Mulligan and Aabria Iyengar and my style is (no where near as good but) closer to theirs.
I used to have something like your prior situation running, and then our AlwaysDM™ and his wife had a baby, but we still managed to play a campaign and a half, only it had to be online instead of in person and some new folks were at the wheel DMing. Then my wife and I had a baby and I've barely been able to keep in touch with folks. Then the AlwaysDM™ and family moved away, and suddenly the glue that kept our group together was gone and we all kind of dissipated. Now I have a bunch of board games and shelves full of TTRPGs that I might never get to play again, and a desperate want to keep buying new and interesting ones. I just received the Daggerheart deluxe set the other day, and I probably won't actually get the chance to use it, which is a real bummer. It really sucks when these things fall apart.
Please allow me to offer an opportunity at the other end of the commitment spectrum:
I've mentioned it in the weekly creative thread before but now it's really happening. I'm starting to produce an actual-play podcast of weekly episodes (play 2x month, divide each session in half) and I need a couple more people. So if you're ready to turn this hobby into a production and you can perform new characters at the drop of a hat, LEASTWATCH might be for you.
Leastwatch follows the days of two guards at the Leastgate, a medieval city's sewer gate where only the most poor and wretched enter and exit. "Next!" is how every episode begins and ends, with each supplicant begging entry for one reason or another. No other officials are paying attention here. The guards can be as fair or tyrannical as they wish. The action of the game never leaves the gate. It is less a quest epic action adventure and more a sitcom with recurring characters and slowly-developing plots.
I've been told it's similar to the TTRPG "Papers, please!" except this one isn't about humorless East German guards investigating morality. This is more light and funny. My audition notice says: SEEKING DELIGHTFUL PEOPLE. Because I've learned in listening to actual play podcasts that the story and gameplay are certainly important, but less important than the charm of the people performing.
The guards are already cast, two old friends of mine who have never met but I'm sure will have a kind of Abbott & Costello byplay. What I still need is a couple "assistant game masters" who can help me play all the people in the queue. It would be great if both were female, although anyone who can play women convincingly is welcome. Also, a passing understanding of dice in RPGs is required, although this is a very simple homebrew system of my own that can be picked up in a single sitting.
It is a paid gig. $100 USD each to the players and assistant GMs. That will get us our first session, which I will then produce as a session zero and first day of gameplay and place as an episode on kickstarter for more funds. We will split proceeds going forward, with an emphasis on Patreon instead of in-game promotions. It is open-ended and I believe there is enough content here for three seasons or more of gameplay.
Let me know if you or anyone you know is interested. Auditions are ongoing.
Honestly this sounds really cool and I'd love to audition :) Though I am not female and my best female voice could best be described as an impression of Terry Jones' impression of an old woman in various Monty Python sketches.
Excellent! I'll let you know when auditions happen. Most likely next week!
I still have an orphaned character that I loved before session 1, but his world fell apart around him when our group disintegrated unexpectedly. And that was just one character: he hardly has a world, only one little family of stories, and one set of possible futures.
Another world I was part of, we couldn't get players to commit. They had so many maps and factions and fun ideas and beautiful characters..... I feel badly for these DMs every time.
I really feel this. It really sucks that every star needs to align for most people to have a consistent TTRPG experience. I wish there was easy steps for people to find and drop into tables but it's such a personal experience that can easily go wrong.
I was lucky to join a small club in high school and we kept it up in some form for years after. Played a ton of different systems and eventually we just stopped caring about rules and just enjoyed the storytelling together. Like some sessions we would harldly roll dice and in others, players would be asking to use rules from other systems and everyone would just roll with it. We had our long run campaign end on a massive battlefield resolving with Warhammer rules while PCs were fighting big bads in the regular Pathfinder rules right in the middle of it.
Last game we played was Feb 2020. Was a session 0 for a big new campaign and I had a table of 5 long time players. Then lockdown hit everyone pretty bad. Most people needed to move. My new job and then a kid left no time for literally anything else. And the situation hasn't exactly improved on that front since. My wife and I talk about setting up game nights again when things calm down. But things never calm down for long.
I've recently managed to carve out two hours a week for a local online writing club. It's nowhere near the type of experience we used to have but it does scratch that itch to create and share things. Trying to rework old NPCs I'd written into their own short narratives. All through it, I'm so tempted to call up some of my old players and ask them to throw insane curveballs into the story. But that's the type of narrative chaos that can only really work in a tabletop setting.
I also put in a ton of time prepping a homebrew pirate world where my players only made it about a third of the way through before falling apart. It sucks, but I made sure to keep everything I made so I can continue adding to it and hopefully try to run games for people in that world again. You just gotta find the right players as others have said.
That sounds fun! I have a dystopian Narnia that is setup to turn into a "someone external is changing the stories" meta-narrative.
We've never even revived Aslan.
Yeah, basically my players were hired to hunt the dragon balls from DragonBall Z so that their captain could make a wish and break a curse which prevents him from leaving his ship. They collected 3 of 7, but I was thinking that the twist would be to have the balls actually be a set of keys which when brought together unleash a powerful Marid.
I don't know a lot of DBZ but that sounds like a lot of fun. I had a bunch of ideas for the other fantasy worlds they'd go to that were "rewritten"
This is the song that doesn't eeeeend, yes it goes on and on, my frieeeeend!
That's going to be stuck in my head for the rest of the day, just thought you should know.
Well, if you need help with that, you, you, you oughta know, that I'm here, to remind you, of the mess you left when you went away...
Occasionally the universe really does act in unusual ways, someone linked this to me this morning. Isn't it ironic?
I have seen that and it is delightful. XD
When I first saw there was a link, I thought it would be involving characters like dQw4w9WgXcQ. lol
I’ve also been going through this. My group that ran from pre-Covid up until last July stopped when my campaign ended, and then my wife and I had a kid and moved an hour away.
I probably could’ve kept things going, but two of my players were married and kept having couple drama that they’d have seep into the game, so I decided I didn’t want to continue to tolerate that.
I’m running my first game of Shadowdark of hopefully a new campaign this Saturday with pieces from my last group, so fingers crossed!
I haven’t personally tried it, but I’ve heard good things about startplaying if you’re open to online sessions. People pay the DM (a small fee) so there’s an incentive to actually show up and participate. Obviously you then have to roll the dice (pun intended) with randos, but you never know! I met the founders of the company recently and they’re cool dudes.
I too miss D&D with friends. It was a great way to kill time during the pandemic.