Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=1855https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6270Dungeons and Dragons, 5th Edition: Jan 20th(Game One) and Jan 21st(Game Two) Dungeons and Dragons is a tabletop, role-playing game which involves any number of players participating in a campaign ran by the designated Dungeon Master. The players interact with the world that the Dungeon Master has prepared for them, which can either be a pre-made campaign or a campaign that the Dungeon Master has created. Due to the free roam nature of Dungeons and Dragons campaigns, there is often no set goal or objective for the players aside from whatever forced situations the Dungeon Master causes. Players: In Dungeons and Dragons, the players either develop their own characters or use pre-made characters. These characters have a variety of attributes: Ability Scores, Saving Throws, Skills, Armor Class, Inspiration, Proficiency Bonus, Languages, Equipment, Features, Hit Points, Initiative, Speed, Character Name, Class, Level, Race, Alignment, Background, and Experience Points. Apart from general dialogue, most of the players' interactions with the campaign will be affected by these attributes. Each of these attributes are determined before the game begins, although apart from Race, Background, and Character Name all of these attributes may be updated throughout the game. There are 6 Ability Scores: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. These scores can be decided any way the Dungeon Master deems appropriate, but the general method is to have each player roll 4d6 six times and remove the lowest roll each time. Then, the players assign the resulting values to whichever Ability Score they wish. Depending on the Ability Scores, bonuses may be provided to attack rolls, Skill rolls, Saving Throws, Hit Points, and Armor Class. An Ability Score of 10 provides a +0 bonus, and with each increment of 2 the bonus increases by 1 and with each deduction of 2 the bonus decreases by 1. The previously mentioned attributes are also affected by another bonus, the Proficiency Bonus. This bonus starts at +2 and increases depending on what level the character is. The Proficiency Bonus is applied to whatever that the character is proficient in which is determined by the character's Class, Background, Race, and Feats. Throughout the game, the Dungeon Master will direct the players on what sort of rolls they need to make given the particular situations, and then the players will apply the correct bonus to the rolls. There are also attributes which are more concerned about the "flavor" aspects of the game rather than the mechanical aspects. The players may also choose to create backstories for their characters, and they may also choose Personality Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws for their characters. Aside from determining how the characters behave, these attributes may or may not affect the gameplay depending on what the Dungeon Master decides to do with them. Board: The board for a standard Dungeons and Dragons game consists of a grid sheet with any variety of miniatures placed upon it. The grid is ideal for Dungeons and Dragons because each character has a Speed attribute which determines how many spaces the character can move. Generally, each square represents a single 25 ft-squared area. Depending on size, characters or other creatures will occupy different sizes of spaces. If the Dungeon Master has a Dungeon Master's screen, it will usually be placed directly in front of the Dungeon Master in order to prevent other players from seeing what the Dungeon Master is doing while also providing the Dungeon Master quick access to useful information. Also, depending on resources available, the Dungeon Master may have miniatures for everything necessary, or miniatures may not be used at all. Ultimately, the board will constantly be updated as the game progresses, so there is no definitive version of a Dungeons and Dragons board. Campaign: The campaign is the story which the game revolves around. Throughout the campaign, the players will interact with the Dungeon Master in a variety of interactions. Gameplay: Session 1: This was actually my first time playing Dungeons and Dragons. I had watched people play it for a long time and had always wanted to play, but I never had the opportunity until January 20th. There were nine people the first session, one Dungeon Master and eight players. Of the eight players, only one of us had played before. Everyone had to put the finishing touches on their characters before we began, but once that was finished we went right into the game. The game started with all of our characters being pulled into some extra-planar dimension where there was some bright light talking to us. It asked us to come towards it. Ultimately, I and three others did not go towards the light while the other four decided to walk towards it. Afterwards, we were all teleported to a location in the world of Ezrea, the world that the Dungeon Master has created. We all had a map of Ezrea implanted in our thoughts, and we were all sent to the same location in the woods. We started off by introducing ourselves and briefly discussing our backgrounds. Soon after, a female pixie flew by and ran into a nearby tree. The pixie was somewhat aloof in nature. Shortly after we met the pixie, a man came and explained to us that she was on the run from a tribe of Orcs that harvested and sold the wings of pixies. Thus started our first quest. We were assigned the task of acquiring the materials needed for a solution which would incapacitate the Orcish war-camp. None of us were experienced players, so we did everything very linear. We captured the badger, caught the fish, obtained the crystal, and purchased the potion. Throughout this, I attempted to do some flavorful things such as barter for lower prices or obtain information from people, but the Dungeon Master would never allow me to roll in order to do what I wanted, which resulted in play that was not as exciting as I had imagined it. It was not boring, but it was not the glorious experience I imagined it to be. Before we managed to assemble the solution, two of our players decided their characters would get drunk at the local tavern. This resulted in them obtaining knowledge that there was a local mine which had been invaded by basilisks. In return for obtaining basilisk eggs, the owner of the mine would pay us 1000 gold for each. That seemed like an amazing payment for such a task, so we all went to the mine to obtain the eggs. We killed numerous basilisks, freed some barricaded Dwarves, and killed the Basilisk king. Most of us rolled incredibly well during most fights, so it was not very difficult at all. There was one situation that upset me initially. One of our players' characters managed to become unconscious during the fight, and suddenly, the character one of the other players, the Dungeon Master's girlfriend, started to glow and went unconscious. During this time, she revived the other character and took control of his actions. I assumed this was player favoritism, but apparently all of our characters ended up having special abilities. For the four of us that did not walk toward the light at the beginning, we got to choose the ability we obtained from a deity. The other four had certain abilities assigned to them. Anyhow, as we were gathering the basilisk eggs, our rogue was taking more than his fair share. Even though we were within 10 feet of him, our Dungeon Master would not let us roll to spot him doing this, which annoyed me because it seemed like the exact thing that should have happened. After we finished receiving our payment for the eggs, we went on to continue with the quest to incapacitate the Orcs. The Orcish war-camp decided to attack the town we were at before we had a chance to get the jump on them. The pixie was still working on the solution, so we had to meet the Orcs at the gate. We were split off into units. The paladin, fighter, monk, and barbarian stood on the front-line. The rogue traveled to a flanking position. The druid, bard, and I, the warlock, stood upon the ramparts and fired upon the Orcs from above. I had not read much about my class before playing, so I was astounded by how much of my actions were spent repeatedly casting "Eldritch Blast". At one point I attempted to leap off the ramparts onto the ground in order to pursue the Orc Chieftain. My goal was to get within range so I could cast "Hold Person" on it which would ultimately win us the battle. Unfortunately, I rolled poorly on the Acrobatics check to leap off the ramparts and land on the ground, so I ended up becoming paralyzed for the rest of the fight. Eventually, the pixie came and threw the solution to our Dragonborn Paladin who proceeded to toss it at the Orcs which caused them all to become incapacitated. I had a problem with this because somehow the minuscule pixie could throw a solution a far distance, but my nimble Half-Elf managed to get paralyzed from jumping off of a rampart. After the battle, the Paladin healed me, and we took a long rest. Session 2: We met up again the next day and continued where we had left off. We ended up meeting a person that we ran into near the beginning of the game. He tells us that there are assassins set out to assassinate members of this certain order or guardians. We ask where these guardians are so that we may attempt to protect them, and then we are teleported to one of the locations by the person we ran into. This location happened to be a university, and our rogue attempted to pickpocket every single student. This college was less guarded than I believe it should have been, because he was able to successfully pickpocket from so many people without any repercussions. He even managed to steal something from the university President's beard. I found a lot of this humorous, but at the same time the lack of consequences seemed as if either not a lot of thought was put in the story or he was trying to force us to stick to a certain path. We managed to ascertain the location of one of the guardians from the university President. At this point, due to my experience in role-playing, I was leading the dialogue of the party members and sort of suggesting what all of the party members should do. It was fun to role-play, but I would have preferred if the other players would have done so as well. We go talk to the professor and he tells us to go convince his brother to help us. We travel to the location of his brother and arrive at an old, decrepit castle. We had the opportunity to accept a side-quest to kill these spider-like creatures, but we decided that it was not worth it and decided to just travel back to the college. Once we arrived, we ran into this woman, and our bard attempted to flirt with her, to no avail. We asked her questions about herself, and learned that she was a high-level cleric looking for her father. Since she is a cleric, I assumed she had connections with deities so I asked her about that. As expected, she did and if we could gain her favor we would also gain the favor of the gods. We learned that the town which we defended from Orcs had been marauded by something, so we were determined to get back there to figure out what happened. At this point, we decided that we would hold a concert on the university campus and title it with the cleric's father's name and her name. He did not show up, but our bard decided to bed four college ladies. He had to roll 3 times, all for performance. He rolled a natural 20 for the first two, but he rolled a 4 for the last one. Words of his "conquest" spread throughout the university, but he ended up with a child as a result of it. We ended up acquiring the blessing of the cleric nonetheless, so we used the powers of the god of space and time to travel to the town. We saw that everything had been turned to stone including the insides of buildings. There was no signs of physical harm to the insides of the buildings either, so we deducted that it could not have been just a basilisk. Our druid attains the location of the perpetrators by investigating the nearby animals and whatnot. We go to the location and are confronted with vampires which leads to a difficult battle, but we come out on top. After the battle, we had to end our session. Final Thoughts: Dungeons and Dragons, in theory, is a lengthy game with limitless options. Most of the game-play depends on the players, but the Dungeon Master is who truly shapes the interactions. If it seems like you are being railroaded towards a certain outcome, it might be more fun to do something completely random, such as host a concert. Role-playing is what really sells this game. Without it, it is just dice simulator, but with it, it is one of the most enjoyable experiences a player could obtain from a tabletop game. (This entry has been edited2 times. It was last edited on Wed, 01 Feb 2017 20:18:18.)Sun, 29 Jan 2017 22:33:49 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6270&iddiary=10932