I've been running games since 2008. I ran a botched game of GURPS first for the two guys: I didn't stat the beastmen right so when they threw their daggers to open combat they missed horribly and when they fought they were pathetic. One of the guys maxed out his dexterity and slaughtered them - we managed to figure out skills correctly and how the main stats affected them anyway.
It was a disaster but it was kind of funny. Also, I ran GURPS with only a limited experience playing DND with my brother running it and only a copy of GURPS Lite to my name. After all that, I bought the three core books for DND 3.5 off the internet for a surprisingly reasonable price I believe for the time and ran that instead.
That next campaign would last about 2 years and end with them at around level 14-16. It's funny the GURPS experiment meant I never ran on that continent since in my gameworld but I DID run GURPS again after playing it a bit and getting the hang of it. I always liked the combat rules in it and hope to run a game of it again one day, possibly with the Roll20 hex combat system and the various interfaces that are there for GURPS.
Anyway, I got sick of running DND 3.5 and feeling like everything was just a big pile of HP so stopped running games in 2016, I was part time since like 2011 anyway. Gone were the days of 2010-2011 when I ran or played in games like 4-5 nights a week tops. I played the occasional con game and gradually played two of my brothers campaigns around 2017-2018ish until he moved. I played in a lovely WFRP-turned 5th ed campaign in the pub on Mondays for a few months in late 2018 into 2019 and then a crappier 5th ed one in early 2019 before defecting out of that and joining a new friend of mine's game of 5th edition. It was great fun and just like old times. That stopped and started for a while and the bug bit me again, gotta just run it myself.
I would sporadically write up GURPS or DND or Call of Cthulhu scenarios over the years and never ran anything. I always wanted to run in one particular region of my gameworld which was so central to everything yet so under-detailed, the literal cradle of mankind. I also always wanted to run the Doomstones campaign from Warhammer Fantasy 1st edition: my brother ran it for me and two other guys and I really liked it. It wasn't the best written thing in the world but being crummy WFRP people turned heroes who acquire chaotic super weapons? Gold. I also got to acquire the actual Crystal of Earth, my fave element and had a surprisingly useful ability - no fall damage. My brother actually assembled the crystals from card so they were super cool props and I still have the CoE on my shelf over my head right now.
ANYWAY here's to Roll20 and my current campaign, about 7-8 sessions deep, the two characters are already level 4, using experience points like the good old days instead of milestones. I will write here about some of my escapades so far:
My first map I made was terrible. I was trying to throw together an inn for a standard first session gag but I just wasn't ahppy with it. It still survives in the archives as the High Peaks Inn, which I think is in the WFRP book but I had to create a set, or so I thought. I don't mind doing theatre of the mind generally but with Roll20 it's so handy to have a visual.
I just wasn't happy with creating maps from scratch. Maybe with time and experience I can have a better run at it. I LOVED the process though and had a great laugh trying to figure out decent tokens to use in the occasionally very random free ones.
My first town I created, Allakrost, which I believe is a tribute to the indie game I robbed the art off of. I basically used the snip tool on windows and MS paint and created a load of my own 'tokens' such as the houses on their own, the castle and bits of the castle, plain desert, the little farms... I really enjoyed throwing this together over a few hours. I also returned to what has been successful in the past, desert environments and cold opens. We just started into it, no fanfare no background nothing. I don't think I gave the players any meta whatsoever.
I liked doing inset things like this; an Inn from a different creator I found in the free tokens which I set into the corner. As they were staying in the Inn anyway, it made sense. It made a lot more sense than moving to a completley different page/map every time they were there.
First encounter/battle. A simple go find son who took off with his friend and their girls with father's trade cart turned massacre. I found a trove of really attractive 'battle mats' which I could then adapt for my own use.
I love the GM layer as I can write little notes to remind myself. Prep one day, play another. I can also hide the traps so I do an initiative system when they are exploring where they move up to 6 spaces/30ft a turn or whatever their movement speed is and possibly land on bear traps as above by the fire.
Victory. They took the bodies home on the trade cart along with the two living horses and their own.
More notes to myself. I don't think I used any of this, classic GM.
The first dungeon. It was this that really cemented Roll20 as a viable option for my group; one player is in Dublin and the other is on the other side of Galway City and it's Lockdown, baby.
The Arena. I made this way too hard on myself, but the players had fun, I think. A battle royale to determine seeding in the subsequent duels. I introduced a halfling who suggested rigging the bets and they ran with it completely, earning a very pretty penny. Yet another instance of prepping a load and only using half but I'm fine with that like every time.
I was so disappointed I botched this. The phase spider they were going to fight in the third category, groups, was introduced murdering another adventuring party. This build would lead to the spider being unleashed again later but instead falling out of its cage, dead. I accidentally revealed the bloody spider in the middle of the duels or something and thus had to drop that as an angle. The weretiger leader woudl appear, battered and bloodied but ready to attack from behind, having killed the spider it would attack the party.
I dragged all the NPCs over here later. The rowdy, drunken Elves are on the left, group winners in their home country. Crucified slaves/prisoners in the botom left. Guards in the bottom right. The governor, the prison warden and the guard captain on the right. Future important NPCs in the top right, plus Polly Jolly, a jester who used the Deck of Many Things to attack in the battle royale. The giant Loxodon who took the bets and his Warforged Mech bodyguard in the top left with Tammy, the Halfling who sold cakes and beer and helped them rig bets.
Developing new techniques.
Again, lotta love for the various layers.
The party for the most part. Ari, the half-elf fighter, pretender to the now-defunct Elven throne. Elsin, the GMPC Elven Ranger, alcoholic, paramour to the pretender. Ephrim the Bold, Goliath barbarian and loyal ally of the Queen. KERS, another GMPC who is a monster they recruited from the Arena but sparingly used; Imir the Vampire Witch Hunter up top who gave them his house and a stupid amount of silver pieces for resolving the weretiger problem here.
Side by sides. They started on the left, then went up and emerged at the weretiger HQ on the right. They rescued Imir who was being dipped in holy energy. Damn lycanthropes. I'm too much of a 'nice' GM so I usually pull punches, fudge rolls and all manner of stuff so they haven't had that much of a challenge so far. They are also very strong and have two good npc allies.
All the archived maps.
I do like roll20 a lot.
The 'world map' I am trialling. The party is the yellow orb. There was loads of fog of war they have cleared in the meantime. They started in the top left, then when they entered the green box around the waterfall complex we did that. That took about a session and a bit and then they advanced to the lone tower before ending in the minotaur caves. The next session was quick but cleared the caves and ended in the Watchers on the Hill, the final dungeon of this first part.
Yet another dungeon. I felt notorious in my own mind: I think I've had maybe one or two instances of using dragons in my 12 year career and not all that many dungeons either. I like a punchy mini dungeon. Some day I must run a humongous Diablo style dungeon. The Waterfall Complex is... fine but my gods was it hard to translate exactly what rooms enter and exit where sometimes. Rooms 2-3 and that whole underwater river for example. The way they resolved this dungeon was very satisfying, they took one of the beastmen leaders hostage, Celes, but he died shortly after. I draw a strong line between NPC allies and NPC monsters, once a monster always a monster - no death rolls, just death.
The Lone Tower. They breezed through this in about a session; again I didn't make the birds nearly enough of a nuisance. But it was adding up. Also there is a world of difference between WFRP characters and DND 5th edition characters. A simple trap in WFRP could be a deadly, fate point deducting matter. Also, sanity. I'm getting better at applying conditions in 5th edition though.
The Minotaur Caves. I trialled this combat by myself as it seemed to rank as 'Deadly' and while the NPC ranger was downed and Ari almost ran out of HP too, they won in the simulation. They won even more comfortably in real life subsequently. The Minotaurs didn't get to do their gores and were locked in versus the 4 of them; the ranger was still downed but they won comfortably.
They now move onto the final dungeon of the first book and face their greatest threat yet (?)
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So yeah Roll20 as a GM has been fun. I could see how useful it was as a player in the two games I played recently with friends but it took lockdown and the relative quiet of April-May-June for me to sit down and put the work in. I like running a game that is one part my own meta plot, one part the players' shenanigans and one part Doomstones campaign railroad. The biggest hit of all of it is Roll20, which has facilitated a lot of this; I use DND Beyond for the character sheets but Roll 20 and the Beyond 20 app for Chrome are the real MVPs.
I'll do another one of these a few months down the road and update on the campaign and my GM return. This was less exciting than I thought it would be to write up but useful nonetheless.
