Our BEST Session Ever!!! (Dragonbane - session 1 ✨ and 🧞‍♂️ )

[@adam_orkcol]

Your friends Star was YOU enjoying yourself, and his wish was YOU Keep enjoying it. That is special.

[@FamilyTableTop]

I thought that was really cool too.

[@MichaelJHinds]

…on a Skype call! That friendship runs deep.

[@BLynn]

Yaaaay!!!

[@rodneywk1]

Very cool! So glad you and your group got a good session in. I think this type of feedback is fantastic and admire your drive to make it good for everyone. Love to see how things are progressing. Thank you for sharing!!

[@Glazius7]

Well hey, I'm glad to see it all working out for you. Good job!

[@n4tune8]

The Dragonbane Box set is really the best RPG box set I have ever seen (maybe the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is a contender). Good job! I hope the rest of the campaign goes as well as this session.

[@OkayestGM]

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!

[@TheK5K]

Fantastic to hear everyone had a good time, that's the aim of the game! Rules don't have to be 100%, 'story' doesn't have to be epic, but if everyone can hang out and enjoy a session of a few hours and have at least one thing where they go, "Yeah - that was cool," you'll all be back next time for more fun!

[@swordsnstones]

very cool

[@NemoOhd20]

If they are having fun then you are doing it right.

[@Bondanalloy]

heck yeah been waiting for this one great stuff man

[@cremsonnicholls9298]

This was awesome to hear. Real moral boost for today! Here's hoping for another good session next Saturday!

[@Squirrel-Hermit]

Huzzah!!!

[@VicSicily]

Glad to hear it man

[@nicklikethesoup]

I’m really glad everyone showed appreciation and bought in on some of the relaxing from everyone all around. While joining ranks on why they were doing what they did. It sounds like you’re finally tearing down some of the obstacles that were troubling you.

[@FamilyTableTop]

Indeed. Thank you for your help. I appreciate you.

[@scottgozdzialski6478]

Awesome job. Having fun and hanging out is the most important parts. The first star can be added to Shadowdark. I reroll initiative every encounter in Shadowdark and don't follow initiative order out of combat, but I reduce the torch timer to 30 minutes to account for the faster pace. I am glad you had fun in Dragonbane. This is why I always start with a pre-written adventure and add to the world.

[@FamilyTableTop]

That’s a really good idea- I will definitely add to this world.

[@wickedly1]

Congrats man! It's always great to hear that you ran a great session. My DM back in 2012/13 gave me that compliment when I first started running some homebrew adventures when I was starting. Huge confidence boost.

[@danrimo826]

Nice one! One of my biggest journey's as a DM was to learn that it was important that I enjoy myself too. To this day, the most important question I ask myself before I start planning the next game is "what am I excited about for the next session?"

[@FamilyTableTop]

Oooh! Good question! Thank you for sharing, that is very helpful.

[@RIVERSRPGChannel]

That’s cool I’m going to try that game at a convention in a couple of weeks

[@FamilyTableTop]

Let me know how it goes. What convention are you going to?

[@RIVERSRPGChannel]

@@FamilyTableTopUCon in Michigan 14-17

[@satori2890]

You and you to Son's reactions the rest game showed how much you both had. That is the point, and the rest of your group used SD to learn how to play.

[@ElwoodShort]

Keeping a game going forever….well, you want a big setting with lots of possibilities. The Misty vale itself, might only have so much scope…however, I believe that it is only supposed to be a part of the Dragonbane world [there is certainly more material pending]. I’m actually using the ruleset to run a game in the world of Harn, which of course is a hugely well developed ‘rules agnostic’ setting, and Dragonbane fits it really well [well, I am utilising some additional community content for more magic disciplines, mostly for npc’s] and I don’t have ducks [only because they aren’t a thing in Harn, but you could add them, I mean I use them in Runequest games. My point being, with a setting like Harn, you could run the game for years and years. I love the Dragonbane system, I’m new to it, but it is really well designed. Every monster fight is scary, in fact most fights seem like they could go either way at any moment. Thrilling. ❤

[@FamilyTableTop]

Could you tell me a little bit about Harn? What is it and why would you choose the setting?

[@ElwoodShort]

@ ok, you can find more info from Columbia games, it’s not the cheapest option [though if you subscribe you can purchase all the PDF’s half price]. Its strength is in the detail. Early medieval setting, sort of like 12th century England, but with fantasy elements. It feels historical, but has mythology and monsters. I had been running it with EZD6, as I wanted a simple system that allowed us to focus more on roleplaying and story and less on dice and long winded combat. Though EZD6 worked well for a few months, we felt it ultimately had limitations. Dragonbane is a much better fit. So really I was looking for a system to fit Harn more than the other way round. There is a Harnmaster system, but it’s too crunchy for my tastes, and most of the setting material can be used with any system. Other great fantasy settings I would recommend- Glorantha [Runequest], Warhammer Fantasy, Dolmenwood [OLD school essentials, but I’m sure it would work fine with Dragonbane, I certainly want to try that one.] . If you want a great space-sci-fi game, honestly, Traveller [mongoose] is hard to beat and the game lore is as deep as you want. Traveller has aged very well [much better than dnd imho].

[@MichaelJHinds]

On Boons and banes, what if everyone keeps track of theirs, but then the whole group applies the max number? Like if everyone gets one or two, but Bishop has four, then everyone gets four. (Do they apply at the end of the session or immediately?) It would keep it even and higher than an individual’s average but slow down character progression. Now that you are starting a new campaign, would you be willing to make a video playlist of session recaps, telling the story of what the players did and how the campaign story developed?

[@FamilyTableTop]

@@MichaelJHinds a recap playlist is a great idea, thank you. Could you explain a little more what you mean about the boons and banes?

[@MichaelJHinds]

Sure. Now I’m not too familiar with the level up system, but it seems like every time you get a crit success you get a point for ability advancement and a crit fail gives you a flaw, or something like that, right? But y’all tried out the variant rule where if one person gets a crit, everybody gets a point. Does advancement happen immediately or At the end of the session? One of your players (Bishop’s friend) said advancement was too fast EVERY time someone got a crit, but the camera shy player kinda liked everyone keeping pace. So if the goal is to slow down advancement but still keep everyone earning points evenly, would it make sense for everyone to keep track of their advancement points that they’ve accumulated and then at the end of the session raise everyone’s advancement points up to match the player with the most? Concrete example: let’s suppose you’ve got 5 players and in a session each players’ rolls give them 2 advancement points plus or minus 1. Original rules: players would have 1 or 2 or 3 points for advancement from their character. Variant rules: players have 10 points for advancement from the party. My idea: all players get 3 points for advancement from the maximum. Granted my experience with Dragon bane is limited to introductory KZbin vids from folks like Professor Dungeon Master or maybe Ben Milton (Channels: Dungeon Craft and Questing Beast respectively, though I don’t remember exactly).

[@Drudenfusz]

Personally I award XP based on how long the campaign is supposed to be, thus the shorter the characters are going to be played the more XP I give so that the players can get to see a rather maximised character at the end of the campaign. Regarding Alycia's disappointment of having an arc for her character, that is indeed something that often will not work out with more traditional TTRPGs like Dragonbane is. Since I am exactly the same way, and got so often frustrated myself, this is why I love the systems that are generally called story games, and design my own system in that vein.