I tried out playing in D&D Adventurers League for the first time

I tried playing in D&D's Adventurers League. It was a lot of fun and I would definitely recommend it.
Music Credits:
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[@layeredchip3220]

Two things. A dimension rift for characters coming in and out sounds fantastic compared to what my little groups have always done. Instant lama transformation. The group is always with at least one or two lamas because if you don’t make it to a session, your character becomes a lama. Straight up.

[@YodasMessenger]

THAT SOUNDS ABSOLUTELY FUCKING AWESOME

[@JustinTK416]

That's hilarious, definitely more interesting than "sleepwalking" (having a PC basically be an NPC and be absent from interactions), although sleepwalking is good if your game is high difficulty and you need a solid class mix.

[@buffytheclown6540]

To be honest, all our group has is a god hand that picks us up and puts us down into the world.

[@Snowy0Death]

In my game one of my pcs is a necromancer and raised up an undead rhino, for the sole purpose to string up other pcs that couldn’t make the session.

[@atticusleeds3957]

I'd make it like Dark Souls and say they phased out of reality and would need to be summoned again when possible due to timeline complications.

[@kylianos3907]

I played in a public session once (it was hosted in a small gamestore) and our bard brought his own ukelele to play on. So every time he cast a spell, he'd play on it and sing something related. He literally came up with entire songs about our characters, who he'd never even seen before, ON THE SPOT. That guy was amazing.

[@SubscribingMilotic]

Were you playing with Sam Riegel?

[@cybersearcher1041]

That man is blessed by Apollo

[@prodigiousthetarnished198]

That's the best bard i ever heard off

[@kobalt-red5895]

Please say he played spongebob squarepants background music while you were traveling

[@fangsabre]

So you just happened to play with an actual bard

[@bigmeek4705]

The best way me and another guy where introduced mid game was "You hear a voice falling from the sky". He literally dropped us into the game!

[@omniverseagent3741]

I really want to use this now haha

[@cjiw2044]

I joined an under dark campaign where everything was underground so an earth quake happened and i fell upon the party from a whole that formed from above. i later learned that i had been falling for three days.

[@duncanhaluta1710]

That's awesome. I just made the new girl a possessed boss fight and she beat the shit out of my guys so badly that the fight came down to if one failed their roll, it would be over.

[@WordsWithHats]

Clever gm, clever.

[@kylania]

I was running a game once and had to introduce a new character. I had him stuck in the pit trap around the corner from the group in the dungeon they were clearing. Easy peasy!

[@amateurprogrammer25]

"How does my player get into the game?" "You know how when you're playing MarioKart and you fall off the track, this little turtle guy on a cloud (his name is Lakitu) picks you up with a fishing pole and sets you down on the track?" "Yeah?" "Well it's like that, only instead of a go kart, it's your character, and instead of Lakitu, it's Ben on his DM cloud"

[@Biggggg5]

God a 16 hour session is the dream.

[@jasonh8592]

I play 12 hour games once a week. It's heaven. My PCs wish i DMed more.

[@jaredsmith1998]

6 hours sounds like the perfect session length, I feel like after 6 hours, most campaigns would devolve into madness and murder hobos

[@nerdherd1819]

...... I think 3 hours is pushing it... that said, last match I hosted, I thought it would last 2 hours, 3 hours latter, I decided to stop the match at the half way point and pick it up next week.

[@jgroth3906]

I wish unfortunately most people I play with don't have the stamina for more than 3 hours.

[@maisiedawg]

My party unfortunately likes to play 2 - 3 hour sessions. 16 hours is the dream? Talk about anything over 4.

[@ladydragon767]

Oh my gosh, I died laughing at the bless bonus part of this video because it's so true.

[@Team_Orchid]

I feel every support player has at least three people they need to remind when they throw up bonuses.

[@BennieDraws]

Same with Bardic Inspiration!!

[@android19willpwn]

I currently have a cleric that I'm playing and sometimes I just won't bother casting the spell because I don't want to have to keep reminding people. The most effective means I've gotten is taking my own d4s and just putting them right next to the other players' d20s, in the hopes that they'll just happen to pick up both when they go to role. Works better than you'd think.

[@animorph17]

"Remember the bless" was a huge statement in my DnD games, because +1 is such a minor, almost useless bonus and it's so very easy to forget. Even to the point of the cleric who cast the spell forgetting it. Never had that problem when we swapped over to gurps, a +1 in that system is huge. And its very easy for the support to just put more points into their support abilities and grant everyone bigger bonuses.

[@ChibiNyan]

"is such a mino, almost useless bonus" . In my D&D group (3.5 edition), blessing is considered one of the most OP level 1 spell there is. It saved the players' asses so many times and always had a huge impact on battles. But my guess is that we are playing at a different player level than you. My players usually are lvl 4-9 and are often fighting with a few generic NPC at their side (they are usually playing in cities, or helping an army during a war).

[@matthewdossantos1414]

3:26 I know I am very late, but what my group does is stack a d4 on top of the d20, so when we reach for a d20 to roll, we see the d4 and remember. Also if you have minute long spells (like bless I think) you can use a d10 and place next to the spell on your character sheet to remember how many rounds are left!

[@dull.4320]

I am also very late, but thanks for the awesome tips. Those are great ideas.

[@erttheking]

"Most players are running around with enough dice to outfit a small army." Well, I've officially been called out.

[@MoguAlly4]

I use a giant Eagle to introduce new players into the party at one point we had a person who was invited to the session and made their character a king(it was apparently a character they use in other games) and I was like Humongous Eagle rips off the castle roof picks you up flys of to a different continent and throws you at the ground then flys off

[@FireRevanShadow]

I'm a new league player, the DM worked my character into the story. I was chained up in the dungeon. My group goes for 4 to 6 hours in the league. A lot of leagues are in a shop, so there are limits usually.

[@Goldenbelmont]

You are chained in a Bard's Sex Dungeon??? Oh the dream of owning one on my Half Orc Bard who sleeps his way through the adventure.

[@FireRevanShadow]

It's called mordenkainen's magnificent mansion or just magnificent mansion. It's a level 7 spell

[@Kizer5Red]

Ya, same with my AL, lucky enough to get a really enthusiastic DM that cares about story and narrative. but since it is in a shop we rarely get to play for more then 3hrs, I think 3.5 is the longest we've gotten. I dream of 4 hour long sessions - but I don't want to play 8hr long homebrew games anymore

[@thwolff1819]

I play in an Adventure League game. I really enjoy it. It's actually much easier as a DM. The main rule is if you want to do it, try it. May work, might not. That and no PvP. Cuts down on arguments. It's actually how I got my wife involved in D&D. And now she is a DM. She never played before AL. My only concern is with magic items. In earlier editions, you could make slight alterations to magic items. Case in point, I had a wand caster that turned a flying broom into a wand of fire bolt. I spent the required time and money to do it, all by the book. But in AL, I wanted to attach a hammer head to my immovable rod, and WoC Adventure League said no. So the DM doesn't have "complete" control. But we still have lots of fun. I recommend anyone watching this video to check it out. The WoC site has a list of all the AL games. Also you can try this app called Meetup. On Android and IOS. Or just go to meetup.com.

[@willyboy5665]

I really want to get to a shop but they are all 2 far away lol

[@gamithemighty5932]

I've only been playing d&d for a short while with my friends, and i can say this about it safely a good d&d session is like a really good book, once you start its hard to put it down...

[@bradwolf07]

My group does 8 hour sessions. We have a break in the middle somewhere to make some food, but for the most part it is all session.

[@4saken404]

AFAIK AL is based around 4 hour sessions. So I'm not sure how your DM treats that. As a double session? If not then you are technically being cheated out of renown and downtime rewards, for example.

[@thwolff1819]

bradwolf07 I play in an Adventure League game. I really enjoy it. It's actually much easier as a DM. The main rule is if you want to do it, try it. May work, might not. That and no PvP. Cuts down on arguments. It's actually how I got my wife involved in D&D. And now she is a DM. She never played before AL. My only concern is with magic items. In earlier editions, you could make slight alterations to magic items. Case in point, I had a wand caster that turned a flying broom into a wand of fire bolt. I spent the required time and money to do it, all by the book. But in AL, I wanted to attach a hammer head to my immovable rod, and WoC Adventure League said no. So the DM doesn't have "complete" control. But we still have lots of fun. I recommend anyone watching this video to check it out. The WoC site has a list of all the AL games. Also you can try this app called Meetup. On Android and IOS. Or just go to meetup.com.

[@chaos4000]

yeah mine does average of that once a week pretty good length i think and we get food but usually its something we can just eat while still playing like pizza.

[@raptorjesues1445]

Im kinda jelous

[@aaronjjacques]

our group used meal breaks as short rests

[@flintyaura2686]

pfft only 16 hours, try 50 hours... *cue D&D Vietnam flashbacks*

[@dylanperkins7939]

The.. The Kobold bodies, all lying in pieces... THE HORROR.

[@Lordredratson]

*distant screams and sound of dice hitting a wooden table*

[@hellhammerCCCP]

"It aint me!It aint me!"

[@Bluecho4]

At what point did the players start hallucinating vividly?

[@humblebumble8192]

Bluecho4 it helps with the immersion

[@archonerikr]

I got started in AL once my friend's homebrew I was playing in ended..... abruptly, shall we say. I was looking for a D&D group, because I was having a lot of fun, and just so happened to notice that the comics/games store that I played 40K at had D&D on Saturday evenings. So one night, I stayed later, and asked to join in. They were super welcoming, and helped me roll up a character, and got me right in. I've been going (at least) weekly ever since, at one point going every night but Monday and Tuesday. I've had quite a lot of fun, and the nature of the modules provides clean break points for each session (we usually have ~6 hours to run a 4 hour module, which helps a LOT with the roleplaying - DM's usually only cut people off if they have a Shakespearean speech for every attack roll). I also got my start DMing with at the store. The modules are easy enough to find (and buy) online, and so by reading them ahead of time, I was able to prepare to run a game. Of course, I actually started running games with a module that I had played before after the DM we had ran a 2-hour module and had to leave for personal reasons. People were considering leaving, but I stepped up and said, "F**k it, I'll run something. Always been meaning to learn." and ran the module. I've been running and playing games ever since, even getting into some hardcovers (mostly TYP). It's all AL, so I just introduce and dismiss characters as needed, usually contriving reasons for them.

[@huntervalleroy4529]

I've gone 36 hours playing D&D 3.5 that was one of the best session I've ever been to

[@Cobra100]

I remember the first time I ended up in a 12 hour game. Before that point most of my experience was with 2 hour sessions back in high school between when class got out and peoples parents got off work to pick them up. Long games are messy, but they can have more funny stuff in them. One time someone had to roll 3 new characters because it was our first session and they managed to die twice. It was funny because both times were from drowning and once was in a sewer.

[@tacotortillatejano]

Cody131Coops that is the reason i miss it lol you just never know whatll happen

[@joeleek9976]

My longer game sessions were in high school. There was a group of 7 of us. We would have a sleepover at someone's house every weekend and play. Usually we would start around 8 and go till 4-6 in the morning. Best thing about it is the part at 2 am where everyone is on sleep dep and everything gets hilarious. Things that happen in this window make for great inside jokes later.

[@justseffstuff3308]

Yup. That always happens in my campaigns, largely because it’s people who are new to the game and treat it like a video game, so they end up getting trampled by horses after deliberately spooking them to get a carriage going, and failing both the rolls to avoid getting knocked over, the rolls to avoid the horse’s hooves, and the roll to avoid the carriage wheels.

[@slackingminotaur8950]

Oh my god recently I had been playing a campaign in the shadowfell with a group of people. An elf assassin in my group desided to pour a deadly poison on a blanket and hand it to this shop keeper. So I had her roll she rolled a FREAKING 20. Long story short I had to change things since she killed a main npc. Now I interrupt them when they do stuff like this. Just wanted to share. I was dm and the elf was my wife.

[@5oundOfVictory]

I don't play favorites and don't let my players be chaotic stupid, which is exactly what this was. I would've allowed it if it were a reference to the "smallpox blankets" card in cards against humanity, and if the NPC was kind of a dick, but a regular and main NPC I would not let that shit fly.

[@rb4121]

But why prevent them from doing as they like? I mean, you can just read them a story if you want them to follow a story along a fixed path, isn't having your own choices influence the game one of the reasons why games like D&D are so popular?

[@Jason_Altea]

@@rb4121 It depends from DM to DM. A lot of people frown upon taking away those freedoms, however not everyone can think on their feet fast enough to figure out a way around essentially castrating an essential part of the story in one fell swoop, even in a lazy manor, let alone in a way that seems natural for story progression. Honestly, I'm fine with limiting player actions that way for the sake of a story as long as they still have the ability to make certain actions that can completely change a story. It's not railroading them into a singular narrative, they still have choices, it's just keeping them in check, just like most rpg games. You can do what you want, just not anything and everything you want because "Players should have freedom of choice".

[@Jason_Altea]

@Leisure Yes, but not very quickly for many people. They may practice it on their own time, but in the mean time somewhat limit actions. I really don't understand the EXTREME prejudice of limiting actions of players. People act as if you have just committed some atrocity against all mankind just for daring to suggest that you don't allow them to do something that not only goes against the story but the universe as well. Yeah, D&D is a game about choice, I get that. But it's as much the DM's game as it is the players'. The DM should have just as much right to say no as the players do to ask to do dumb things, whether story related or not, imo.

[@RPGzus]

i need to try that 12-12 thing

[@neckro178]

from personal experience its not the greatest sure its fun but after the 7-8 hour mark everyone gets tired ppl tend to forget things more often and mess around alot more which leads to nothing constructive getting done altho that may be my group feel free to give it a try but dont get your expectations too high

[@RPGzus]

IT'LL BE DUHBEST. SESSION. EVAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@Butmunch666]

Everything neckro178 said is completely true, after the 8 hour mark our games usually devolved...like...a lot. :D Roleplaying was barely there and people are just too tired. It's not really worth it.

[@shiphappens8491]

same here. the best we've ever got is 8 hours

[@RPGzus]

LIGHTWEIGHTS!!!

[@Mephiidross]

Disclaimer: I played AL online on Roll20 after joining one of the few AL discords around, so ymmv in game store games. Personally, I quite enjoyed AL. It's an easy and simple way to get into a game when you don't have a group, and even if you do have a group it's nice to try out a new character concept you've got in the downtime between group sessions; or just to hit that DnD itch. Downloaded the AL Player Guide, made a character, found a GM who was running a beginner game in a couple hours and just jumped in. It's true that the adventures are quite a bit more railroady and combat heavy, but there were still a lot of chances for RP. Funnily enough, after playing through some of the adventures I thought "Hey, this doesn't seem that complicated, why don't I try DMing it?" and so I ended up DMing it for a few people from my group who were interested. And indeed, they were fairly simple to run and it served as a great introduction to DMing! In addition, I actually do like the reward system of AL and how you can spend Downtime/Treasure Points to get things done in-between sessions, without much of a fuss. Sure, it involves a bit of hand-waving when it comes to things like "Wait, you made an entirely new coat while we walked from A to B?", but it's no big deal imo. I will be moving towards doing a bit of homebrew for the group after they finish the trilogy adventure I started with (for those who want to know, it's DDAL08-01 to -03), so we'll see how things go from there. I do think I'll try and make the homebrewed stuff similar to the module-style, 'coz I do enjoy the idea of having some minor plothooks/adventures to have the players choose from, but we'll see. Either way, TL;DR: Go and try it out, either online or at your local store if you can! It might be different, but it's not bad!

[@-Big_Big]

let me tell you young whippersnapper. back when we played 2nd edition we would sit for a week in one session (with sleep and eating then right back to it) in one campaign (ofc it was a vacation week) and we continued that story for multiple apon multiple sessions afterwards. till they all died saving the world (despite being evil)

[@Birbucifer]

Killaim That sounds like a dream to me.

[@justseffstuff3308]

Damn, that’s awesome.

[@xiriusthesoulwatcher3955]

Can we switch places? You appear to be oversessioning, while I'm struggling to even find a group that will agree to a simple two-hour session.....

[@SadGodKamina]

Did you end finding a group?

[@xiriusthesoulwatcher3955]

@@SadGodKamina Yes

[@giuseppecappuccio3940]

Wholesome story ends well

[@noobattempts]

I have the same problem

[@mattdet7075]

I agree I need to find me a group as well.

[@acidhydra101]

0:06 As an Eric who wants to host DnD games, I immediately said "Hello!" back here.

[@ladyj.9350]

16 hours is crazy. My group's sessions range from 3-6 hours, max 8 but we play weekly (sometimes twice a week) so we still progress faster than a monthly group. We play on roll20 which automatically rolls attack dice and damage dice together and we use a magical thing called plot smoke most of the time to explain player absence.

[@thwolff1819]

I play in an Adventure League game. I really enjoy it. It's actually much easier as a DM. The main rule is if you want to do it, try it. May work, might not. That and no PvP. Cuts down on arguments. It's actually how I got my wife involved in D&D. And now she is a DM. She never played before AL. My only concern is with magic items. In earlier editions, you could make slight alterations to magic items. Case in point, I had a wand caster that turned a flying broom into a wand of fire bolt. I spent the required time and money to do it, all by the book. But in AL, I wanted to attach a hammer head to my immovable rod, and WoC Adventure League said no. So the DM doesn't have "complete" control. But we still have lots of fun. I recommend anyone watching this video to check it out. The WoC site has a list of all the AL games. Also you can try this app called Meetup. On Android and IOS. Or just go to meetup.com.

[@wilgarrett322]

Ben, would you ever consider doing a live D&D KZbin stream with you and your pals? Don't know if this has been asked before.

[@Mal_Havok]

No, he can’t. They don’t know about his KZbin yet... THEY MUST THINK HE IS A REALLY IMPORTANT BUSY PERSON.

[@Gnomiumm]

Wil Garrett he could use the site roll20

[@alliedeutschmann1276]

As one of his pals who he plays with, we've tried through another buddy's stream channel and it doesn't really portray how we wanna share the story and several other problems like technical wise stuff like camera set up and audio, etc. but we all wanna get into streaming our dnd games at some point so possibly sometime in the future lol

[@wilgarrett322]

That's understandable. I asked because I look back at Matthew Mercer and his group of voice actor friends from Geek and Sundry's Critical Role series and I loved it. I think Ben and the gang would be hilarious to watch.

[@cameronwofford8709]

Animaze115 I don't like roll 20 that much. Maybe I've never had a good experience to really like it

[@ALegitimateYoutuber]

Hearing a DnD round last a bit over a 3 hours, i'm like ok. because i started to be a bit interested in DnD through The Unexpectables stream, which is like 3-4. So hearing 6 hour rounds, I can see but think those are a bit long. Then you mention 12 fucking hour rounds and then a crazy 16 hour one. That's insane, not unbelievable. But none the less crazy.

[@john-michaelcollier4409]

I’ve had a session like that myself before, it was fun, but after it I felt like I was gonna die. Never gonna do another one.

[@AllenfrostTTV]

Longest session I've ever had was a 3 day marathon with breaks for vitals (Like food, drink, relievement, and sleep). We were trying to accomplish much in a relatively short time. At the time we were playing pathfinder and knocked out the entire Part 1 of a 6 part adventure during this time. Good times, good times...

[@Fulgrim_The_Phoenician]

John J It depends on the players alot. there are a lot of things you can do to speed up the game. Most of my players wait until its their turn and then start thinking about what they want to do....and then complain that battles take too long xD

[@alexanderowens7265]

I am a dm for my friends and we had so much fun we thought an hour passed, nope 8 hours passed and then we all get hit with exhaustion oncs we realized this, it is glorious (still happens sometimes even longer when it feels like only 20 min passed)

[@Kxevineth]

Sounds like a great idea to start with 3-4 hour ones, but once you play a few times you will probably see why 6 hours isn't really that long - it is inconvenient, though, if you have work, a lot of stuff to do after work, people with conflicting schedules and you have to find time to get them all together. The thing is, RPG sessions are pretty much stories being told between the players and the GM, and every story needs to have an ending. Think of an RPG campaign like you'd think of a TV series - sure, the season finale is at the end, but every episode has it's own arc and it's own ending. It doesn't just end in the middle of someone's dialogue - unless it's a really bad series. It's the same with a game session - if you want it to feel complete, you can't stop at any random moment just because your phone's alarm went off, and with players sometimes getting sidetracked (which is perfectly fine and what makes RPGs so great - the world is really open and you CAN go anywhere you want and there WILL be stuff there to do. The stuff to do might be "dying", though) 4 hours might simply not be enough to advance the plot as much as you want AND still give the players the freedom we all want them to have AND end the session at a moment that will feel like a good ending. Even Puffin pointed a few things out in the video - backstories are pretty much being ignored, people are focused on getting the job done etc. That way it's not surprising a session can be wrapped up in 3 hours, and it's great for people simply wanting to learn the rules, people who don't have too much free time and/or can't commit to playing every single week etc.but that's not the only way to play and with a great GM or even with a bunch of friends who really are fun an 6- or even 8-hour long session can feel too short.

[@MaxWriter]

Interesting, but the thing that I like most about rpgs is the story and, in the case of games I run, the realism. "You're suddenly with the group" strikes me as a bit much. At least a description of meeting the new character and asking them to join seems in order. I do like the fact that the players are there to play the game rather than just goof off (which my players constantly do). The longest session I was ever in (and I think I ran it, but can't remember) was 12 hours and that was a rarity for my old AD&D group. Combat didn't take quite as long for us back in the day as everyone knew what they were doing as well, and paid attention. I just finished up a Pathfinder campaign and combat was agonizingly slow.

[@MaxWriter]

Yes. I understand that. It also takes literally less than a minute to actually make it more than just another strategy game. Pass.

[@tanith117]

We had a dnd game in the College Lobby that operated on a Drop in drop out basis due to class and scheduling. The justification was we had a wagon train due to the amount of players (8 minimum, 12 I think was the largest amount.) and characters (Dm let people make 2 in order to fill some party rolls when people don't show up/ keep interest.)

[@MaxWriter]

Right. You had some justification for the characters being there an already knowing each other. Not just "You're walking through the forest and suddenly someone else is in the party." It makes sense for the story and sounds like it was a good idea. I ran a game that took place in a small town wherein everyone had lived their lives. That could have worked the same way.

[@RookRune]

Well in D&D adventurers League he didn't mention but they use the faction system basically it's more of your faction has sent you to do this this and this that's how people drop in and out it's basically your faction is like an adventurers Guild and they send whatever Ventures are available at the time

[@Helmic]

To be honest, fuck realism. DnD is about telling a story, and anyone that's ever written can tell you that everything exists for the convenience of the plot. Having long, drawn out sequence to introduce new characters is just way too disruptive and doesn't follow the conservaiton of detail at all. Why should we spend 3 hours on the excuse for why there's a new character when most of that time isn't even establishing them? You can put it on the player to come up with an excuse as to why they quickly joined up with the group in under 60 seconds OOC, but not everyone's that creative. It's OK to just handwave stuff, anything really, that's taking up time but not making the experience better. You can do that to combat itself too if you want. If the PC's aren't going to be realistically threatened by kobolds, unless you're certain the players want to have fun stomping something just handwave it away. Say they kicked their asses and move on. Combat in DnD/Pathfinder is often a slog, yeah, but since I play mostly on Roll20 I use their handy automation tools to both speed up the math behind everything and to cull the decision paralysis that often takes up the majority of combat. If you want to attack someone, you click the Attack button and pick your target, you either hit or you don't and then you deal damage and if you crit it'll calculate that too. Characters that have lots of options like casters can have a list of all their shit right in front of them, and when they click that button it posts exactly what it does while also rolling all the relevant dice and showing me what saves I need to be looking at. As a GM, all these tools are an absolute godsend as I don't need to know fucking jack shit about any of the monsters running about, I just make the dumb ones run up to the nearest person and bash them with sticks and have the smarter ones use their wizbang neato stuff without needing to remember EXACTLY what will happen.

[@savnana3605]

We just gave characters that dropped in and out frequently severe narcolepsy.

[@PoochieCollins]

LOL. I'm imagining your group weekend-at-bernie's-ing it with AFK characters on the regular.

[@joshuasanchez8333]

if you play a 16 hour session, that's a great session!!!

[@MediHusky]

Quality over quantity.

[@6282makepeace]

amen to that

[@Carewolf]

Well.. Unless it is all combat.. And when it drags on... You know it is all combat, all the time..

[@VelkanKiador]

One thing my DM did well was incorporate things that worked from adventure league into our games. Like just dropping in party members without a proper introduction.

[@Phoenix2215]

I love long sessions. We get a ton of food and drinks and play until people drop. Just 2 weeks ago, we played for 11 hours.

[@somik-i3x]

Well, my first game were like session 3 or 4 hours (Not sure). When I started to play with my friend (The GM) and others guys (Friends of the GM that now have become my friend), our sessions was 24 hours. We weren't playing all the time (we took break to eat, sleep and play board games/video games). It was really fun to do and I will love to do it again, but my life is saying fuck you.

[@android19willpwn]

role-playing always takes a lot out of me pretty quick, so I can barely imagine going for six hours, let alone eleven.

[@XthegreatwhyX]

My record is 20, AD&D 2ed, circa 1995. After which we left and went to a water park (and mostly slept). I'll add for flavor that a friend of ours got sunburn under the soles of his feet, and that was HILARIOUS

[@thoughtsofadame1952]

Your Dm is a damn saint. Shower them with gifts and never ever rules lawyer against them.

[@NoActuallyGo-KCUF-Yourself]

Those were the days!

[@Dakuu75]

I like the stories that give a sort of "behind the curtain" look at the rules and actual physical "what to do, what's being done" aspect of D&D since I never played but, always wanted to. and now i'm 30... yay.

[@JAGraptor]

3:15 Make sure you read what the darkness spell really does before you cast it.

[@daedricderp754]

I've run a 12 hour session and it was honest hell all of us were tired, my Homebrew sessions are around 8 hours or until we are tired

[@robbiehussey4723]

I started D&D through Adventurers League. But as time went on and my group got more comfortable with each other we began to drift from it. We still play the same amount of hours and meet up on the same days as if we were playing AL. Except we have no restrictions and other stuff.

[@captainkiwi77]

My homebrew group plays for 5-8 hours. And we typically remember our bonuses and such, and we roll the damage and to hit dice at the same time, and only one person has ever been to adventures league, it’s wild! And also makes me so happy

[@campbria4225]

About to work on some GM prep and then I get a notification for this. It is fate.

[@lukefrederiks5906]

Uh. I know a Brian Campbell who runs our games. This is so wierd haha

[@Beefieeee]

fk sessions under 4hrs, I'd honestly leave the party as I would feel that the campaign is moving to slowly and is a waste of time.

[@Beefieeee]

That's cool, but I've been playing for years and past exp tells me to stay away from the shorter session groups. Normally if the session is that short, the DM or other's are half invested at best. You'll learn that most D&D players fall into a handful of specific types of players. At these shorter session groups, You'll find the players that only show up to play and you're just there to help them play the game or either the players that get bored and quit before ever completing a section. If your unlucky, you'll find the player that has zero control in his personal life so he escapes into D&D but can't stay out to late. Those players can actually be very cancerous to the group in many little ways. They poke 50 little holes in your group(ig or irl) before you realize the self destruction. You might think I'm talking out my ass but you'll notice the 'types' of players too if you play with enough people.

[@bigbaddawg101]

I haven't really done anything fun outside of D&D since my friend started his campaign. Apparently, this is my life now.

[@crowsbridge]

I only got to play D&D one time when I was a teenager. It sounds like a lot of fun, I wish I had friends that were into it.

[@dull.4320]

Check out roll20.net. You can find groups on there and play online through the website. I've been playing for a few months now with a group I found. You can find free groups, or you can look for groups that have a monthly fee to the DM. I picked a monthly fee group because they're not as flooded with applications, the people are probably more committed to showing up to play, and you can assume that the DM probably has a good idea of what they're doing if they're charging money. It's been great so far though, highly recommend it if you're looking to get into it.

[@vladislavdolgushin3798]

i do like the idea of adventure's league, but for me, im one of those players who likes to manipulate the enemy instead of just using brute force all the time, find better ways around certain situations, try out new things that have less practicality than what most people would generally do. Adventure league doesnt really offer those chances for me to use my creativity like that, its quite rail-roaded and everything seems to be very mechanical and unnatural, it doesnt have that natural feeling like casual games do.

[@InuyashaHanyu]

I agree, feels same for me as DM and Player

[@daveshif2514]

back in the day, when i played at game stores, i had many toons die because of some small mistake. it felt like the gm was only going to let their high lvl friends talk, and anyone else can just die. no one was going to help me, no one wanted to make the scene cooler, i just got killed. i stopped showing up.

[@quaironnailo]

D&D 5 is really fun, but the rules for organized play in D&D AL could use a lot of improvement. I like the rules of the Pathfinder Society way more. They are not perfect, but at least there is no fighting over magic items, and the GMs get a propper reward for their time, among many things. You should try it some time.

[@comic2050]

Quairon Nailo I agree, wizard of the coast have to put more afford into AL. The whole PFS system is a labor of love, you can feel it.

[@unnuskarim1530]

I started playing dnd a few years ago but couldn't find a group so I ended up playing online. and the whole group was spread across the world so we would start at 5am on saturday (for me) and play until one of us had to leave so the games ended up being about 4-6 hours but one day during the summer we ended up playing for almost 2 days straight only stopping when one of the guys disconnected (due to a power outage as we later found out) breaking the flow and we all realized that we had spent the whole weekend ignoring the rest of the world. The most surprising part about the whole thing was that the GM never ran out of material apparently he had been cutting a lot of lore and side quests from the campaign as he wanted the story keep progressing so we didn't get bored. Probably the best way i have spent the weekend ever even if I ended up submitting a couple assignments late

[@andrewjones2247]

I remember once back in high school we pulled a weekend long session. Started Friday night, didn't end till Sunday afternoon, with like 6 hour breaks for sleep each night. It was awesome...and I'll NEVER do it again lol.

[@LimitedSpectrum]

Ahhhahaha! I'm a "no

[@hephaestus9901]

That was just the problem with your game store

[@seag7432]

Wow that sounds miserable. I uavnt gosne to my local place for al yet but I have been around a few times they did it. They had probably 4 or 5 tables, no one was being overly rowdy and there were dividers to separate games. Looked pretty chill

[@Vodwuar]

for some of us we don't have friend who play. I'm kind of stuck with Mondays being my ONLY day outside of work and parenting where I can get away to play and its either AL or a game store homebrew and they both have problems. it would be my dream to find a group of committed friends who want to play and just have fun. not go to a game store and listen to the magic tournament using the other 20 tables and having to attempt to strain and hear the dm explaining something. I just want friends to go and have a beer and play dnd. but I cant find anything

[@fizzledimglow3523]

Adventurers' League has the best strength in its accessibility. You can jump in and jump out and meet new people! It's a great way to meet new people who are into the hobby because it creates a casual atmosphere where you can meet up with complete strangers more or less and figure them out. I've met great people through AL.

[@deathsminion998]

My favorite way to have characters enter or leave the campaign, maybe have them sleeping at the inn, or they headed home to care for their family, (if they are close enough), I had someone show up mid way to a boss fight when we thought they weren't going to be there, luckily for me it was within a city that was on fire, so I just said his character was helping people within the city escape to safety, and came when shit got real for the boss fight, real fun

[@Jo-Heike]

The solution to your bless+d4 damage die problem is simple, use diffrent colored dice...

[@daveshif2514]

and write down the color code so no one can annoy you about cheating. i use this method when i have many attacks in a round, i use 1 color d20 and dmg dice for the first attack, another color d20 and dmg dice for the next, etc, have what the colors mean and i write down the results when it isnt my turn, and i usually have a whole page written down. i just agree not to fudge later and always use them in the order they were rolled. but that is when every pc has 7 or more attacks every round plus 20 attacks of oppertunity, etc. i also tell the players what the enemy ac is so that they can just tell me how much damage theyre doing and over how many hits. then we get to rp out what each hit or miss looks like.

[@mr.breadobamagames5221]

got to love when you're friends come over for d&d and make you have a 13 hour session on Saturday and a 10 hour session on sunday

[@MonkeyJedi99]

Our Rolemaster group(s) have weekend sessions on one or both weekend days that are slotted for 9 hours, in which we get about 5-7.5 hours of actual play after catching up and breaking for dinner. It helps to have older players with a mature mindset, playing in self-built campaigns that are very flexible. If I ran from modules, I think a 5 to 6 hour session would be about right for the way D&D paces.

[@lilyannetherose]

"Free" I don't know what game stores you go to where Adventurer's League is free. Everywhere I go/went to, they charged to do AL.

[@gamergirl209]

Adventure league is what got me into DND. I was always curious but had no one to play with. My luck was when I jumped into a new game group, I just happened to have ended my previous game, and my formal introduction to adventurers league, in the same place they had been. Took about ten minutes to get my character to them and less than a minute to describe my character

[@isugoakai3260]

Love it when you are introduced in a cool cryptic way making the party think your some hella bad ass character but then when you take over your a derp.

[@thewanderer5506]

Alo Puffin, how are you on this fantastic day or night? This is a tad early, but i hope you have a great Christmas, if you celebrate it

[@vladmordekeiser1054]

Is that the usual experience when playing on those groups? If it is I will try it...

[@NathanSmithRenown0]

Re: Dropping a character into the game. You could learn from that. Sometimes as a GM you need to allow things to happen regardless of whether or not it fits perfectly into your story. For example, if your players don't follow your preset path and somehow end up on the moon. Maybe for the sake of not derailing your own game you should just present them with a simple, improvised solution for getting off the moon. Seeing as you control all aspects of physics and literally everything else as the GM. (On that note, I actually like your videos. I'm just salty.)

[@ninjamaster9094]

Or you could have shoehorned in a way that makes it physically impossible to open the portal until you say some specific words or get a specific object, like a moon shaped amulet around a villain’s neck in a later adventure.

[@charmaps5]

nah, i recommend the way off the moon, they would have kept searching till they found something aka a 5 hour session of searching the mist tower.

[@ninjamaster9094]

Maplanic Then maybe you could put in some magic item as a reward for finding the tower. That way, the players feel like they’re rewarded for finding the tower and will leave mostly satisfied

[@zoulsgaming9455]

I am new to DND and i would say what you mentioned as the positives i saw as negatives, im playing with a really cool DM that has been dm'ing for years and then 2 other new guys and have been having a blast there, because everybody get time to do stuff, everybody can try stuff and he will allow us to do anything as long as it makes for a great story, i just finished my first AL module and it was literally pure mechanics, Awesome set up with a DINOSAUR RACE TRACK?!!, Literally just "roll these checks, oh yeah you got to next phase, oh you ran, oh there are two other faceless groups trying to win too as a timer" and then a combat after that was "yeah mhmm mhmm just roll". It felt insanely dull to me after i have experienced the freedom of a good DM and like playing a videogame to speedrun it the first time you play it so you dont even get to enjoy what you are doing, im glad you enjoyed it though, but while it can be a good place to learn as a new player i really cant say i enjoyed it with the bare minimum of knowledge i had.

[@notaspy345]

In college a group of us played 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. once or twice a week at a 24/7 coffee/donut shop. There would be in character fights over who would get the free stale donuts that they threw out before putting the fresh batch in for the morning. Good times.

[@chumprock]

Wayyyyy back when, we'd go camp out in the woods for whole weekends with just our 1st ed. books (ok, and a lot soda and hot dogs)

[@outrageousbloxian2017]

I recently started going to an adventures league and it’s really fun actually!

[@imaloony8]

When I was in High School, we'd typically do marathon D&D a couple times a year. These session would last two to three days, typically over a weekend or during a holiday. Obviously we wouldn't go for 48-72 hours straight; we'd allocate time for sleeping, eating, and even playing other games like MTG, but we were primarily there to play D&D (Specifically we played AD&D. No, I'm not super old; when we were doing this, 4E was out. Our DM was a DnD veteran though much older than the rest of the group, and it was his edition of choice). Some pretty incredible adventures happened at that time. Unfortunately, due to work this isn't too much of an option anymore. Occasionally we can rally some people to take a day or two off work and make it happen, but whereas it was a couple times per year before, now it's once every three or four years. Instead, we do the normal weekly session now, and it works pretty well. There was some burnout happen, so I suggest that once per month we switch gears and have a different gaming night. Board games, video games, or even just sit around and watch movies and shoot the shit. So far, its been going really well; really helped with the DnD Fatigue that was setting on us.

[@wagesofsinn3881]

I played one session of a pathfinder league. I started out as a first level because themstherules, and everyone else was level 4 I think. There was no roleplaying at all, everyone was very militaristic about it, and when I inevitably dropped because of falling into a pit filled with swarm spiders nobody came to help me. They waited until the encounter was over and then helped me out.

[@lanyerd1]

I started playing 2nd edition when I was like 9 and we would have 12 to 20hrs sessions, one character for almost 5 years and it was great

[@Ruehl21J]

Five 5-7 hour sessions into my brother's 5E campaign and we're still level two (some are halfway through level two, two of us are barely level two). The thought of a game being done in a day is incredible, I didn't realize D&D could be so varied time-wise.

[@drifteralgier6165]

Met some guys at college who got me into Pathfinder. Started with a basic quest line to learn the mechanics, then moved on to a homebrew GM has been designing for 6 YEARS. It was a sci-fi universe, similar to the show Firefly. Of course, we chose to be smugglers. It's been months since our last session. Each video makes me miss our shenanigans more. Everyone's too busy for now though.

[@natemitch7941]

Idk man I gotta say I meet with two diff groups of friends, one weekly, and one every two weeks. Usually the biweekly group will be 1pm to 6-8 pm, and the weekly group will meet after that til abt 12-1 am. And on weeks that we only have the weekly group it can go from 3pm to 12. But I love it. I love building my schedule around taking a whole day to dedicate just to spending time with friends and family and playing some D&D. And the two sessions are both very long campaigns as well, the weekly group has been running this campaign for over a year now. Probably around 50-60 sessions so far and maybe half way into it. And getting burn out isnt really an issue with 2 different groups to mix things up, and the biweekly group is also a 3.5 campaign instead of 5e so that also helps.

[@TheRockinDonkey]

16 hour gaming sessions. I remember those. When my friends would grab the tome of magic to look up what the spell they want to use does, because they couldn't bother to know what their spells do ahead of time. Instead they wasted everyone's time by looking them up during the encounter. That's why I quit playing

[@deamon6681]

I recently met a guy who told me about his d&d weekends. Not every week, but they meet up with 8 people and play from friday night until sunday afternoon, with 8 hours of sleep somewhere inbetween.

[@axelnicolaiwilson2636]

I enjoy introducing characters. Once the little brother of two of my players was going to join and they were all level 5, so I thought I'd give him a cool entry. I hadn't read up on the niggurath much, other than it being an insanely big worm. I though the new character could just be spat out on the road by this big thing and gambled on him just shaking his fist at it as it burrowed away annoyed by the disgusting and ill antipaladin it had just gobbled on. Instead of shaking his fist, he decided that the best course of action against an adversary twice the size of Wall Street was to insult it in every language he knew (which were suprisingly many) and make an effort to show the monster that he wanted to continue fighting. The already established party saw this from a safe distance and the niggurath spewed a 60ft radius cloud of acid centered on the antipaladin. He took something like 15d6 acid damage every round for 8 rounds. When that was done and the acid cloud was gone, the others came to see what was left. They saw pieces of his armor and gathered what goo they assumed was his remains and then they used a wand they had found earlier to resurrect him, spending 1 of the 2 uses they had left. I think it's because of items like that that my players never learn not to pick a fight with everything.

[@dmc8706]

Protip for your protip... Use dice of different colors for damage and bonuses. Your red D20 and D4 can be the attack and damage dice and a blue D4 can be the bonus from bless. Bonus: When doing multiple attacks in a round you can color code the attacks in the same way. Red first attack and damage, orange for the 2nd and green for the 3rd for example. Just roll all the dice at once

[@wibbywoo6176]

The longest game I've ever had lasted from a Friday afternoon to a Monday afternoon. We played someone's homebrew, they had only just started and most of it was improv, they were still probably the best DM I've ever had.

[@matthewcertain1749]

The group i used to be in played on friday nights after school. We started at 5pm and ended at 11am. We did that every, single, time.

[@melissaquinn1463]

I enjoyed playing AL last summer. I was trying to get my kid away from the tv and interacting with humans. I got out of D&D somewhere around 3rd Ed. It just got too complicated and I wasn’t interested in sinking the time and emotional/intellectual labor into it. Anyway, my cousin suggested I track down AL and she was right. Once I hooked up with a table of players who were cognizant of the younger players (cut the swearing and sexual innuendos, guys!), it was a lot of fun meeting up with them each week. I was really sorry when school started and we had to stop.

[@Cathowl]

3-6 hours is probably my comfort range, I'd say. I couldn't take 12-16 hours of socializing, let alone having to also keep track of a character and story while doing so. That's just... exhausting. That kind of thing would have to be like, a once a year special event for me to be able to do it at all.

[@tammarah6354]

I'm going to my first session tomorrow night and I'm so excited, I've been looking for people to play for months and everyone I know who plays is in a campaign where they don't want to add a character/teach me how to play!

[@MesserXxomby]

My group usually has 4-7 hour sessions weekly. But, we have that time set aside to hang out, and we're cool to end sessions early if too many people need to be up early for work/school the next day. Also, I almost always roll damage dice with my d20--it certainly does save time when you're rolling 4-8 dice per attack. On bonuses, most of the games I run are online, so it might be a good idea to make "bonus cards" to give out so people can't forget that they have one...

[@philreddiii2048]

Honestly, to run anything to 8 hours and beyond, you need breaks. It keeps people engaged when they have a moment to chill out. As DM and the session organizer, I made sure there was a 10 minute break every hour or so and an hour break about halfway through. It helps a lot and keeps the game from dissolving.

[@GreasyOaf]

4:42 That noise describes many emotions of anxiety and awkwardness

[@blktom]

I played Adventure League online with some folks, and I was a regular player for the stint of times we played. Personally, I /HATED/ the concept of dealing with guys just popping in and out in the game, because it is insane from a character's perspective. You have no attachments to these other people and you form no bond between the characters. It is literally like every war movie you see where the new recruit joins the band of grizzled vets and they just tell him to not even tell them his name because he will die right away anyway. In the few 'role playing' situations where your characters were in social situations, I found it hard to... help them or do them any favors. They were strangers to me and my character. And when you are in the middle of a jungle and just have a guy appear, make at least a modicum of effort to explain why they are there... it is just lazy GMing. It takes you out of the game and makes you wonder why your even doing it. So yeah... Adventure League, if all you want to do is kill stuff and you want zero interaction with real people... go play Skyrim. You will have more fun.

[@a.dennis4835]

To be fair, the characters are supposed to be travelling adventurers. So, it is likely they would encounter and join up with other adventurers.

[@muttamerican4863]

Its funny my company checks a Wizards of the Coast building whenever an alarm goes off in the Seattle WA area and we'd always wonder what the heck it was lol.

[@nyotamwuaji6484]

Puffin: I have things to do! Group: what things, you don't do things

[@cairne3696]

We once played RPG in Vampire, deal with that session is that DM Banned all phones etc, we were all in basement with some food, light, rpg stuff but thats it. Since we were in there noone had any way of checking time. We were supposed to play a long session of about 8 hours, we thought we played a Little longer but we couldnt be sure. Once we finished everyone was exhausted... We didnt notice that game took us 31 hours...

[@witchBoi_Connor]

My Adventurers League usually are 4-6 hour long one-offs, and we have to pay the shop owners 2 dollars. DMs pick random adventures from previous seasons, and there’s basically no continuity or story for anyone to go off of. You play a game, unlock the ability to get a magic item at the end of every night, and get a sum of meta currency that lets you actually earn that item. Basically everything else in this video was accurate to how AL feels, though I can’t speak for his home games feel because I don’t have friends to play a proper recurring game with. I don’t really have the option to play anything besides AL.

[@weirdbutweirder351]

Am I the only one who’s never played D&D but binge watches these videos?

[@Daves-not-here]

My typical Wednesday session that I’ve been playing in/ running for well over three years now has us start around noon-1 and we stay until about 10:30. We play at the local college and the campus closes at 11 so we have a hard limit but if there wasn’t a hard limit you could get we’d be there until midnight or latter.

[@svvansong]

My group consistently runs 8-12 hour sessions. We get distracted by out of game chatter and food a lot of the time so as the always DM it doesn't get too exhausting. The real difficulty is in finding a day when we're all free.

[@theadhdgamer7590]

I like running those kind of games. You know 16 hours😁 ive been a DM for a while now and i love it when i come across a crew that wants to play late in to the night 😁

[@nyotamwuaji6484]

Ben: i have things to do! The group: what "things"? You dont do things

[@PebkioNomare]

Okay, so, some things about AL left out of the video: You can only draw character options from the PHB and one other book. So if you wanted to be a Tabaxi Gloomstalker, then you can eat a big ol' nothingburger. You also have to create the character at level 1. So if you only have one character in tier 2 and it dies (and you don't have the money for Resurrection), then it's back to tier 1 with you. You can't make up your own stories. Pre-written modules only. Or hardcover adventures if you're looking to play a long-running campaign. What Puffin was talking about was the module play which is designed for 2-4 hours game sessions. The hardcover campaigns take months anyway, so you can session as long as you want. The first campaign written that'll actually get you to level 20 is coming out soon(tm). The biggest draw of AL is the ability to take a character from one 2-4 hour module to another. If you live in a big enough town, then you are only likely to play with 2-3 of the same people each time. That means you can play as you like and level as you like. You can also take your characters to special epics at specific conventions where the average outcome of everyone playing those epics is added to D&D canon lore. ...the docks of Mulmaster were completely destroyed because too many people messed that up... A magic Item is dolled out regularly at the end of modules. Usually the 4-hour modules. A magic item. For one person at the table and the table can have up to seven people playing. Which is endless fun. To add fuel to this fire, you can only run the specific module once with each character and items are fairly unique to each module. So if you wanted your sorcerer to have a robe of eyes, but it was sniped by someone with less magic items than you, then you can *NEVER* earn it for that character again. You can't gift anything to anyone. You can try and trade for it... cough...

[@CianGreyL]

I love your videos, they help keep me from having sleep paralysis

[@Bgrant001]

My friends and I have been playing a homebrew campaign for the last 3-4 years playing every Sunday as long as more than half the players show up. We started at level 1 and now we're levels 10-12.

[@lockwoan01]

Can't say I've played in an Adventure League game (not sure what kind of game the group I play with is anyways), but if you have all the player-related books, and have crazy ideas, like a minotaur artificer, then a strict AL group with PHB+1 might not be for you.

[@KewlImp]

When I used to play at a FLGS, We would show up at 10 am and leave at 11 when they closed. Playing on Roll20 is the first time I've a part of games that don't last around 6 hours.

[@gelbadayah.sneach579]

I played in one of these once and loved how stream-lined it was. I have a large pool of friends and I'm one of the only people who runs games. Between the demand for many, frequent, 6-hour sessions and the strange popularity of characters who hate working with others I've developed a parched thirst for focused, easy-going players in a game that stays on the rails. The current game I'm running has a drop-in/drop-out system similar to Adventurer's League, but one of the 2 players who makes every game runs a character who is aggressively antagonistic towards new characters... and she always plays drunk... IRL. Every session has had a new one-shot player and every session has a point where her character is yelling "WHO THE F*#! ARE YOU‽" at another character and sometimes drawing her swords. I seriously thought a fistfight was going to break out during my last game; I'm not talking about an in-game one, either! Everyone did say they had a good time, but it kinda' stressed me out. A party of strangers who defaults to groundless and arbitrary cooperation looks better and better every day.

[@lucklessdragon3560]

with the group i play with we don't really have a set start time but midnight is almost always the end time only time we go longer is in specials that we have not finish yet or we had a late start, everyone is having fun, and don't have anything to do the next day so i might suggest to have a set end time with some wiggle room for special occasions.

[@Megalulbuckets]

Shorter sessions leaves the players wanting more and prevents burnout

[@Vorusen]

Quick sessions more focused on the combat with a side of rp sounds perfect for me honestly. More table top boardgame vs table top rpg.

[@FellowSunBro]

Oh my God lol I know that feel. Our home brew sessions would go from 6 PM to 6 AM the next morning. Long ass combat encounters, party splitting, side quests. Whelp, at least we had weed, alcohol, and food to put a king to shame xD

[@bertrambolsingbruel3829]

Honestly, 12-12 is the standard for my group. The thing about people not being attentive is not so much a thing about time as it is about the people; the people we have that are less attentive are such from start to finish. I think it's just more about being physical I guess. We rarely sit around a table, and even when we do, we always make sure there's space for people to act out their characters, I assume that's what keeps us fresh or something, idk.

[@sadnessinside123]

Great vid. New to D and D, league play is right up my alley. Thanks

[@theodorepollock1273]

Back during 3.5, my group would do entire weekends. It fucking sucked as the GM and preparing for those marathons, but still loved it.

[@castorfolium8058]

This made me consider trying adventurer's league, as I don't know anyone who plays, but have been interested in the game for a while now... Sadly the closest location that does it is nearly 40 miles away.