The end of our first campaign
Ive been playing D&D for the last year with life and stuff happening it's taken us a full year to finish the campaign, something that should not have taken as long as it did but honestly it's been an absolute blast. I've met new friends, gotten to know a co-worker better and picked up a new hobby (mini painting) our DM has gone all out over the last few months, he started off by making 3D maps for us to play on he made tiny little styrofoam blocks and made house's, towers and all that fun stuff.
The biggest thing be did was have a map printed, he was going to draw it all out on a king single bed sheet, got five minutes into drawing it and his wife asked "can't you find someplace to have that printed?" and this is what he came up with when we got together again.
This thing is ridiculous in size. I've thrown in a few other photos from the night and have a small adult and cat for scale.
Congrats! In my experience it's rarer than you might think to actually finish out a campaign. I'm glad you made it to the end, and I'm glad you enjoyed playing the game. Was your DM running a published campaign or was it home-brewed?
Also, that map is epic, props to your DM for putting out that much time and money, that can't have been cheap to print.
I've never picked up miniatures paining, but I have developed an unfortunate love for buying and reading RPG pdfs that I'll never convince my friends to actually play with me, lol.
We were playing the lost mines of phandelver with a bit of his own flair added in, it started as just 4 of us then grew to the huge group you see in the photos. When we encountered Droop we adopted him for a bit, when our wizard joined (the dude laying on the map) we were two people down so rather than have them miss out on a huge part of the story our DM asked us to really expand our backstory, he then wrote a one shot for us all, it was the part where you encounter the nothic, rather than have us all press on deeper into the campaign we stopped in an empty room to rest for the night but as we all started to doze the nothic came and watched as we did.
Then each of us relived the worst day of our life as a nightmare, the only way out was to change something about it to make things 'right' once that happened that person would end up in the next dream where they would get the chance to help. Once we all had finished the final nightmare was of a wizard who was fighting a necromancer and was cursed to become the nothic once he defeated him.
He also added a haunted skull named Chuck who my PC adopted for a while, Chuck would often help me when I rolled a Nat 20 or then screw things up when I rolled a 1.
The cost of this thing was insane, we all put in for this. No way was be paying for that alone lol
I've never played/read Lost Mines (I try not to read an adventure path unless I am planning on running it), is it any good?
The dream sequence one-shot seems like a really cool way of doing some backstory sessions, I usually don't like the whole "play through an event in your backstory" thing, but a groundhog day nightmare scenario seems really fun.
I think it's the starter module? getting up to the big bad guy was amazing, the big bad at the end was a bit of a wet fart honestly. I'm not sure if that is because we are a bigger than normal group.
The one shot thing was great fun and difficult because if we screwed up in anyway that was our turn over and had to wait again before giving it a shot again and had to repeat what worked then puzzle out what stopped us the last time. Things got a bit easier each time someone from the party joined us so that added an extra bit to it all.
Oh yeah I've been playing with roughly the same group of people for 2-3 years now and we've yet to finish a campaign. The DM has this world she built that we do everything inside of, but the actual structured campaign has been broken up three times now due to people dropping out, new people joining, a desire for new characters, etc. Only one person has kept the same character the entire time, but in our defense we're all relatively new and our first characters were doomed from the start.
Yeah, I think I'm pretty fortunate in that I have DM'd two campaigns that made it to a point where it felt like it made sense to end them. I've been in a bunch of others that just petered out, though. Usually it's just scheduling stuff, or DM burnout, or stuff like that. It's just the nature of the beast, getting 4 or 5, or in the case of a few of my campaigns 6, grown adults together at the same time can be tough, even if it's on a virtual tabletop.
That map is amazing!
I've been in a game that's been going for well over a year, and I don't think we're super close to finishing. It's pretty awesome to find a great game to be a part of!
Are you guys going to continue? Any thoughts about stepping into the DM shoes?
Yep! already set the date for our new campaign, it's a series of one shots where each session is a level. So no more sharing a tiny bit of XP between all of us, just moving forward into a harder and harder session each time we meet.
I honestly don't have the creativity to DM I wish I did because it looks like a ton of fun. I know I would struggle with the on the fly changing the story.
Dang, that's above and beyond! I know we talked about this before, but it's cool to see the final product. It's even bigger that I imagined it too.
When I DM'd in person I only did rudimentary hand-drawn maps and used some Hero Quest stuff. :P
p.s. How did the Roll20 session go? Your alternate DM figure everything out okay? If they need any help, let me know. I have been using Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds for quite a long time now.
Cfabbro!! it was you I had in mind when I took these photos, our next DM has said he won't be doing this level of stuff lol
The roll20 game went really well, he plans on doing it again soon I think once life settles a bit. He is one of those people that runs for fun, he recently did a 20km run after work because "I didn't feel like stopping after doing 10" he also has been doing a few competitive ones so a bit of training has been going on.
I'll definitely let you know if he would like any help, I might try to get him on to ~
Oh... it's a good thing I decided to check back on this topic. You accidentally made a new top-level comment instead of replying to me, so I didn't see this til now! :P
Know that feeling all too well. DMing is a ton of work, which seems to scale up exponentially the more effort you put in. And it's often hard enough to get all the players schedules to work together, let alone do it when you have a busy life yourself.
O_o Oh, so he's a masochist then? Gotcha! ;) j/k I used to do a fair amount of similar stuff in my youth (though not nearly to that extreme) cross-country skiing, black diamond mogul skiing, judo, etc. But sadly I am far too old now and my knees way too destroyed for that kinda stuff anymore. :(
You know where to find me. :)
I honestly thought it was odd I didn't get a reply... I am a goose.
Our soon to be new DM sent a message to us all last night saying he has got the start of the campaign ready to go. I was working with him earlier in the day and he said he had a massive essay due in two weeks now he is back from placement, so it's good to see he is focused on the right things lol
Have you had a chance to start painting again?
Unfortunately not. :( The reaper minifigs and Vallejo paints I ordered arrived, and I dug my old paint supplies and desk magnifying glass/clamp out of storage... but between all my other commitments (including D&D), and with spring here (so I have a lot of landscaping work to do the next few weeks) I haven't managed to find the time yet. But I absolutely intend to when I finally get the chance. Knowing me, that might not be until Fall though. :P
Not to worry, once the time rolls around it will be worth the wait! I am planning on doing a few touch ups on my Dwarf since he is being used this week, I've also got a custom one made up on Heroforge that I need to get printed but work is being a bit poo at the moment and I'm getting next to no shifts.
Oh yeah for sure... I definitely don't want to rush it either, since I prefer to take my time when painting anyways.
If you touch up the dwarf I would love to see the results, and the heroforge one if/when you get it too. :)
p.s. Thanks for inspiring me to pick up the hobby again... even though it may have to wait on the back-burner for a bit. :P
Haha like I wouldn't share! It's mostly his horns that need some work, I've repainted him a bit lighter in the beard and gone with blue over his armour, also the shield I got a scalpel to a bit to give the beaten look and took a few cuts out of it.
The custom mini will definitely happen even if I don't get to use him in the game. My girls also made their own minis that I'll have to get printed, my eldest went all out and we have even started a backstory for her.
Most welcome 😀 it's such a fantastic hobby and really isn't that painful on the wallet compared to some things lol
Hah, that's awesome! Do they actually play D&D too or are they just having fun with the idea of making characters for themselves that you will paint for them?
Yeah, other than the initial costs for paintbrushes, paint and a handful of figs, it's really not too bad after that. And once you get a nice collection of figs, you don't really need to buy more if you're on a tight budget, since you can always just repaint some of your older ones instead.
I hope to get them both into playing at some point, they are 7 and 5 so might be a tiny bit young still. I'm still willing to try though! Miss 7 will paint hers once we have it in hand, I gave them both a mini each and they painted them all the colours. all of them. I absolutely love them, they are the most fantastic Rogues that have ever tried to hide in the shadow's.
Haha exactly! once the first lump is down it's not that bad really. One of our other players (also one of my oldest friends) is into endurance mountain biking / racing, he got so good a few years back he started to compete at his height he was spending 20k a year in flights, bikes and all the other stuff that came with it. so mini painting is definitely not that bad.
Awww, that's really cool you all have a hobby you share. My mom used to do craft with me when I was young too, which is most likely where I got my love of art from as well.
p.s. One of my best friends is a downhill racer, and his mountain bike is close to $8k. My brother in law is a Late Model stock car racer and his car was about $50k, plus he spends about $50-100k per year on everything else required for racing... so I know what you mean; All things considered, minifig painting is insanely cheap as a hobby. :P
It was such a wonderful thing to watch them paint the minis, miss 7 says "Dad. I need purple. you don't have purple" so I mixed it up for her only for the smallest part on the mini to be painted purple lol Miss 5 came in after and used the whole damn thing on hers so at least it didn't go all to waste.
50k??? for a model? good lord that is crazy I'd be paranoid I would crash the thing, I'll tell my wife my hobbies could be all the more costly lol
LOL, yeah it's a ridiculously expensive hobby and sponsorships/prizes at the amateur level he competes in do not even remotely come close to covering costs. He crashes two or three times a year on average, I would guess, costing anywhere from $5k-15k to repair each time, depending on how severe the damage is. A few years ago he even totaled the car and it was a write-off, requiring a complete rebuild. Heck, even his racing slicks (tires) cost him about $1000 a race. It's crazy IMO, but both him and my sister, as well as his parents, love the sport... so I don't see him stopping anytime soon.
Geez. well if they are happy doing it then why not I guess, I admit I can see the appeal just personally couldn't justify the cost.
I've looked into a RC that I can just have beat about the place but the ones in Kmart and the other chain stores are not worth the money or stress since they break with a stiff wind