TOPIC: Online games

Fantastic Adventures #1; 21/05/2020.

Today was the first session of our online D&D(5th) game! I've never been too comfortable with Roll20, so we're just using Discord for everything - and honestly, it went pretty well. There are bots (Rhythm & Groove) to add background music to a Discord channel (although you can't control the master volume without becoming a donor, individual players have to adjust the volume separately) and you can share images by dragging the file into the chat window. Toward the end of the session, we found out the channel host can share his screen, which could be useful for tactical combat, although I am leaning toward theatre of the mind for the sake of speed & simplicity.

I decided to run 'Night Blades' from 'Sly Flourish's Fantastic Adventures' and had three players join me;

????Adam, playing Anton Greyson, human rogue,
????Ian, playing Connor Darkmane, human fighter,
????Andy, playing Isten Ishilmae, wood elf cleric of the moon.

We had a two hour window to play with, so we dived right in. This was a bit jarring, as the characters didn't have any reason to be travelling together or heading toward the village of Whitesparrow. I figure I'll build on that in or between future sessions.

However, it did mean that we could start on an action beat, as the party are ambushed by a group of bandits calling themselves the Night Blades! Anton tried to talk his way out of a confrontation, but these desperate brigands were in no mood to conversate. The party took a few hits, but defeated the gang, leaving one man alive to interrogate.

The first combat took about 40 minutes to beat six Bandits and we were about halfway through our playtime, so we took a 5 min comfort break (plus, Adam wanted to clap for the NHS at 20:00).
When we returned, the heroes spent a good twenty/thirty minutes debating whether or not to heal the one surviving bandit, whom Connor had shot in the eye with an arrow and teetered on the brink of death. Eventually, they decided to save him and Isten cast Cure Wounds. The intimidated bandit revealed that the Night Blades gather beneath an abandoned watch tower called the Lonely Torch, and the area surrounding the tower is thick with a poisonous, thorny weed. The bandit claims that urinating on your own boots will ensure save passage through the weeds. The players think he is pulling their leg, but he seems sincere. After encouraging the one-eyed man to consider his life choices and turn over a new leaf, the heroes let him go.

The party continue on and reach the town of Whitesparrow, a small town that lies in the shadow of huge stone hand rising from the ground. The party secure lodgings at the Summerspring Inn, getting a very good rate because the idiot GM did not know the correct conversion rate from silver to gold. The heroes then visit the Evershady Tavern to gather rumours. They learn that Ralahaz, the former leader of the Night Blades, recently got out of prison and was seen near the Lonely Torch.
The heroes approach Sheriff Ruth Willowmane, who has a personal grudge to settle with Ralahaz. Unfortunately, Ralahaz has served his time and she can't go after him herself - so she hires the party to do it instead.

In the last few minutes of the session, the heroes visit the trading post and Anton persuades the dwarven merchant to exchange two healing potions for an IOU, after persuading him that Sheriff Willowmane is acting as their guarantor.

And there we ended it.

Playing via Discord only was a breeze and I had fun running the session. Those two hours flew by and I could have played for longer, but we didn't want to overdo it.
We are planning to play again next Thursday and Andy is talking about maybe running a Pathfinder game on a different night of the week.

Lessons from Session #1;

????When you buy a headset, make sure it will connect to your laptop!

The real sucky thing I've realised is that playing online is so easy that I could have started doing this in March when the club first closed.

Just needed to get over that initial hurdle of switching to a virtual tabletop.

> ????When you buy a headset, make sure it will connect to your laptop!

...and as i learned this week. if using a bluetooth one, remember to mute it when you go to the toilet!

Edit

mikeawmids wrote:
well that said something different on my email was just about to say I might be able to depends on time. Be interesting to see how discord works.