Yep... Still have nothing to play.

[CthulhuHalo]

Well, I've posted here some time ago, ended up finding a few really good games, being the Heroes Path games on Tuesdays, and the 0 Charisma Gaming Group on Sundays, along with a campaign a friend is hosting in a few years, but with the 0 Charisma group being down until Ferrin gets his new computer, I'm at a loss for things to do. So, I can play between noon and 5 PM on Sundays in US Eastern time/GMT -5 (keeping Ferrin's timeslot taken cause he'll be set up soon), any time on Mondays, and noon to 4:30 on Tuesdays. I have some experience with 3.5E and Pathfinder, but am open to trying 5E or anything from WoD. I prefer original stories, nothing preset like Mines of Fudgeface or whatever that has like over nine thousand games going on. I like things that are original, things I haven't seen. I'd prefer not to join anything that has been going for very long, and I prefer text over voice. And if any of you are running anything from Iron Kingdoms, or at least with the Gunmage class, I will join your game, I don't care about the rest. I just LOVE the Gunmage.

Well, thanks, all. I'll be checking the forums, so dont say "Go look at the forums." And to those of you who told me before to try the convention, that didn't go very well. At all. There was like one game I wanted to join, and I missed it because of timezone issues with the website and partially my own stupidity.

Anyway, yeah, thanks. Hope to join your games if I find them interesting!

(P.S. I will not GM, I can't. I have no GM ability, and I only have the normal license [not the free one]. If I could, I'd be running a VTR [Vampire: The Requiem, New World of Darkness] game right now, or an Iron Kingdoms game. Besides, I prefer to play rather than control, I may be a writer, but I need time to think up my stories, I can't do anything on-the-spot unless I'm in character.)

EDIT: Another thing, forgot to mention this, I really like steampunk. Not like, steampunk in the sense that there's all this technology and it just makes magic like, "Nope, no magic here." More like Iron Kingdoms, where there's still magic, but there's also steampunk and clockwork and all that cool stuff, to use their own phrase, "Fullmetal Fantasy." So, yeah.

[JeffKnight]

Now that we have official 5e modules there will be more games springing up. I am hoping to turn some of the players in my game sessions into DMs, but it takes time. For many of us, we're all very new to FG.

[CthulhuHalo]

Now that we have official 5e modules there will be more games springing up. I am hoping to turn some of the players in my game sessions into DMs, but it takes time. For many of us, we're all very new to FG.

It's the official modules that I'm saying I dislike. -=SNIP because I don't want people to think I was being offensive=-

Also, to all you others out there, I'm not kidding, I need stuff to do. I'm running out of ideas for what to do in my free time on the days stated above.

[Trenloe]

It's the official modules that I'm saying I dislike. They seem to be the lazy and cheap way of GMing. If someone wants to GM, they should be willing to all but create their own world and storyline.
Some of us don't have the time to create our own worlds and storyline. If it wasn't for official modules you'd see a lot less people GMing. Don't knock people who use commercial/official modules - they can still be awesome GMs (and most are) - they either don't have the time to create their own worlds, or want to try lots of different games, or want to concentrate on actually playing the games rather than designing them. And, let's face it, there are some pretty awesome commercial/official modules out there - if you're not familiar with some of the original classics that have shaped our hobby, ask some old-timers about Tomb of Horrors, White Plume Mountain, Against the Giants, The Village of Hommlet and the Temple of Elemental Evil, Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, Scourge of the Slavelords (A1-4), The Keep on the Borderlands, The Desert of Desolation series, Ravenloft (I6), etc., etc., etc..

Please don't be calling us GMs who use official modules lazy or cheap - we're not in the slightest, we just know where our priorities lie: playing the game! :)

[Mask_of_winter]

Wow Cthulhuhalo... You'll have GMs lining up to invite you to their game with a nice ad like this one!

[ianmward]

I echo all of this 100%...


Some of us don't have the time to create our own worlds and storyline. If it wasn't for official modules you'd see a lot less people GMing. Don't knock people who use commercial/official modules - they can still be awesome GMs (and most are) - they either don't have the time to create their own worlds, or want to try lots of different games, or want to concentrate on actually playing the games rather than designing them. And, let's face it, there are some pretty awesome commercial/official modules out there - if you're not familiar with some of the original classics that have shaped our hobby, ask some old-timers about Tomb of Horrors, White Plume Mountain, Against the Giants, The Village of Hommlet and the Temple of Elemental Evil, Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, Scourge of the Slavelords (A1-4), The Keep on the Borderlands, The Desert of Desolation series, Ravenloft (I6), etc., etc., etc..

Please don't be calling us GMs who use official modules lazy of cheap - we're not in the slightest, we just know where our priorities lie: playing the game! :)

[keeperofsouls]

I don't know about other GMs but official modules are what I use to see what type of players I have.

[jshauber]

It's the official modules that I'm saying I dislike. They seem to be the lazy and cheap way of GMing. If someone wants to GM, they should be willing to all but create their own world and storyline.

Also, to all you others out there, I'm not kidding, I need stuff to do. I'm running out of ideas for what to do in my free time on the days stated above.

Do you have any idea how much time it takes to put together a custom adventure let alone design an entire world?!!?

I have been working on a custom world for 5e for about a year. I have a large chunk complete and at some point my group will make new characters and start playing there so that they can help shape the story of the world. BUT you have to have a TON of stuff ready to go unless you are going to railroad your characters into what you have created already, which can get boring for both GM and party. Even with all the work I have put in, I make extensive use of 3rd party material to be able to throw fun things at the group. I pick up stuff from DriveThruRPG to convert into FG modules so that I have quick one-off or interesting quick interludes ready for an unexpected turn or to throw out to give the party some choice in what they would like to do. From that I can make more new content to keep the story moving forward.

If you say you don't GM, how can you knock those of us that do? Without us you wouldn't be playing either....

[Mask_of_winter]

I don't know about other GMs but official modules are what I use to see what type of players I have.

I use one-shots to find and assemble the players I want when I need to form a new group before committing to a campaign with strangers.

As for pre-made modules, I never run them as is. I mine them for props, locations, npcs and ideas.

I prefer to run my own material but as Trenloe pointed out, not everybody has the time to invest in prepping and designing a campaign.

[JohnD]

Someone rolled a 1.

[Andrepartthree]

I've actually been e-mailing CthulhuHalo back and forth over the past couple of weeks - in his defense I've actually found him to be a pretty nice guy in his e-mails to me ;) ...

CthulhuHalo, you're new to FG so you wouldn't have had any idea what kind of reaction you would have received when you said " It's the official modules that I'm saying I dislike. They seem to be the lazy and cheap way of GMing. If someone wants to GM, they should be willing to all but create their own world and storyline" .... I'd mentioned this to you before but it probably got lost in the walls of text I keep drowning you with (and you have to give CthulhuHalo props , I have been DROWNING this poor guy in the walls of text I am infamous for and he not only reads them he responds - worthy of a medal there in and by itself :P ) ... there's a lot of GM's on here who use the pre-published modules because, as I'm sure CthulhuHalo gathered from the comments on here, writing up your own modules is a TON of work :P ...

I agree that "home-brewed" campaigns tend to be freaking awesome, my buddy ran me through two such campaigns in "real life tabletop" gaming that absolutely rocked, and I thoroughly enjoyed the Nameless Bard's home-brewed FG campaign before that petered out (raises a glass in salute to the Bard)... but, at the risk of assuming things ( you know, assuming makes an "a** out of you and me " :P ) , I think cranking out that awesome original content caught up with him to the point where the poor guy couldn't do it anymore... not that I hold that against him by any means! I'm very grateful to him for running an awesome campaign I still have fond memories of to this day :) .... if I ever met him in person and he didn't think I was stalking him or anything :P I'd totally take him out to dinner by way of saying thank you :) .. but anyways..

Having said that... I also ran the Dragonlance D&D 3.5 modules on FG for a while which, quite frankly, turned out to be a disaster towards the end due to some extremely poor GM'ing choices and a lack of patience and maturity on my part.. I'd like to think (hope) I've learned how to be a better person and a better GM since then but.... my main reason for running pre-published stuff was I just didn't have the time to write it all from scratch... I DO remember two players becoming increasingly annoyed over the amount of railroading (pressure on PC's to follow the "one path to victory" that tends to result when you run a pre-published module)...but here's my thought on the pre-published modules as a player... if you have a good group of players who all want the same thing from the game and who work HARD to make the game fun for everyone and a GM who does the same, the pre-published module does it's job... it brings people together to enjoy RPG'ing which is what I think we're all here for :) ... if you warn the players in advance " Hey , pre-published module, railroading is a definite possibility" and they sign off on being cool with it no problem ;) ...

Quite honestly in my Iron Kingdoms campaign I'll be flat out warning the players before they even start " Look, the campaign revolves around the kingdom of Cygnar sending you out to rescue innocents from the bad guys as a walking publicity exercise for the government - if the PC's lose interest in doing that we don't have a campaign!" .. which I guess is still railroading :P but .... hard to detail an entire world in so much loving detail the players can go anywhere and do anything much as one might love that sort of freedom for the players.. it's a wonderful ideal to aspire to but hard as heck for GM's to pull off in real life :( ... (though I should point out there are GM's and players out there who WILL insist on this sort of no-restrictions-open-world-sandbox sort of thing and if they can pull it off I give them a huge bow of respect for their efforts.. but for a lot of GM's real life , work, kids, and so forth simply makes such a heroic effort flat out impossible much as we'd all love to aspire to it :( ) ...

The Iron Kingdoms campaign setting made me fall in love with it so much I'm now hard at work slowly putting together my own original modules/campaign/adventures but it's going to take me literally 4 to 5 years (I'm guessing) for me to have it up and running with my two munchkins keeping me busy :P ... guys, the reason CthulhuHalo made that comment is he is a writer.. literally, that's one of the things he does he's written like 5 books :P ... and he was so eager for my campaign to get off the ground that he generously offered to help me get it up and going by writing it up for me :) .. which wouldn't have worked only because - well , shared world anthologies like Wild Cards (great series if you haven't read it go out and buy it right now!) aside, having two writers each going in their own direction albeit unintentionally can create some issues in a campaign :P ... from what he's told me he can crank out original content pretty quickly so this is probably a case of him assuming everyone else can do the same thing too .. I'd chalk his comment up more as a simple misunderstanding than a ringing indictment of GM's running pre-published stuff ;) ...

From my conversations with him from what it's worth.. this one snafu aside as far as the comments on pre-published module stuff, if you're running a campaign where the focus is on text over voice (that's my preference personally but I can understand why players who love voice would find text too slow or restricting) , and you're lucky enough to have a group of players that are looking for something more than hack and slash and take the time to write up a backstory/personality for their character and then act it out (and who take things like say for example the death of a fellow PC or even NPC adventuring with you seriously ... you take the time to stop and comfort a PC who's freaking out about said death instead of hollering " SHADDUP and deal with it so we can get back to killing stuff! Now help me loot our dead friend's body!" :P ) ... I would argue CthulhuHalo would actually make a strong addition to the group as a player.

( Note that this is not meant as an "attack" on any indignant hack and slash players reading this, hey if your GM and you as a group of players like that sort of thing then go for it long as you're having fun :P ... )

Other thing I should point out too... in an e-mail to him I mentioned I think he'd be great at GM'ing despite his reservations about it - again the guy's a writer ! :) - and I mentioned the possibility of running the Witchfire series of pre-published modules for Iron Kingdoms in that it would make it a lot easier for someone looking to GM as opposed to having to write it all from scratch , so he might have been responding to just that too ... his own personal preference if he was to GM rather than a general commentary on the GM's here on FG ;) ..

[CthulhuHalo]

Yeah, as Andre stated, this was clearly a misunderstanding. I didn't think I'd get this kind of reaction at all, I thought there'd be people here who maybe already had a campaign up and running, and were willing to invite a new player. I was clearly mistaken. I never said the GMs were cheap or lazy either, they're probably all great GMs, but I've had horrid experiences with pre-published modules or stories. Granted, it was more of a problem with the lack of Roleplaying, or even the railroading sometimes, and it wasn't technically in anything like D&D or anything that's here on FG, but I think everyone can understand where I'm coming from at least.

"...you take the time to stop and comfort a PC who's freaking out about said death instead of hollering " SHADDUP and deal with it so we can get back to killing stuff! Now help me loot our dead friend's body!" :P )" This was him referencing one of my 'less than ideal' moments, where my character's 'best friend', an NPC cleric named Leah, was killed by a minotaur, and while my character was distracted by taking out her anger at the minotaur on its corpse, the druid of the party came up and looted Leah. When my character found out about this, she refused to fight with the party anymore, and for some reason, the GM took that as me dropping out (I can understand where he got that from, but as Andre said, assuming, it's not the brightest thing to do in most situations).

But that's a little offtopic here, sorry about that. Another thing, I didn't intend to come off as insulting or anything, and I certainly didn't mean to have any form of negative/depressing tone, that must just be how the text ended up looking, it's not the best medium for conveying emotion unless you word everything extremely precisely. I'll need to work on my wording outside of my books and games. I admit, though, that I was a little sad, with one of the two groups I was in having been put on hiatus when I was writing that. I'll also admit that I was a little nervous that no-one would be willing to invite me to their games for whatever reason, and that may be part of why it ended up seeming the way it did. At least one person, however, saw the meaning of my post and invited me to a game in about a month's time, so I'm extremely grateful for that! It fits perfectly in my availability as for what time I can play, and is exactly the kind of game that I would like, so I happily accepted the offer! ^_^


Do you have any idea how much time it takes to put together a custom adventure let alone design an entire world?!!?

I have been working on a custom world for 5e for about a year. I have a large chunk complete and at some point my group will make new characters and start playing there so that they can help shape the story of the world. BUT you have to have a TON of stuff ready to go unless you are going to railroad your characters into what you have created already, which can get boring for both GM and party. Even with all the work I have put in, I make extensive use of 3rd party material to be able to throw fun things at the group. I pick up stuff from DriveThruRPG to convert into FG modules so that I have quick one-off or interesting quick interludes ready for an unexpected turn or to throw out to give the party some choice in what they would like to do. From that I can make more new content to keep the story moving forward.

If you say you don't GM, how can you knock those of us that do? Without us you wouldn't be playing either....

I had assumed it wouldn't take much time, as I personally could write up a basic story and world in the span of a few days, and flesh it out over a month or two, but I guess that's the writer side of me, making assumptions (bad halo, bad!) and causing misunderstandings. I apologize, I did not know that it took that much time. In fact, when Andre first said that it would take four years for his campaign to be ready, I immediately thought "Huh, that has to be an exaggeration, I could probably write up everything that still needs to be done in a few months, maybe a year at most." Which it turns out was incorrect. And it's not that I don't GM, I have GM'd in the past using other systems, but every time, I've gotten people responding to my GMing with hostility, so I thought I was just not GM material.


I use one-shots to find and assemble the players I want when I need to form a new group before committing to a campaign with strangers.

As for pre-made modules, I never run them as is. I mine them for props, locations, npcs and ideas.

I prefer to run my own material but as Trenloe pointed out, not everybody has the time to invest in prepping and designing a campaign.

This guy here, I like his way of utilizing the premade modules. Taking some bits from them and using them in his way.

And to the rest of you, you have my apologies if any of you were offended or insulted by what I said, that was not how I intended to seem.

[Andrepartthree]

And it's not that I don't GM, I have GM'd in the past using other systems, but every time, I've gotten people responding to my GMing with hostility, so I thought I was just not GM material.

Damn dude I'm sorry to hear that! You'd figure if someone steps up to the plate and GM's players would be at least a little bit grateful as opposed to being hostile :P .. but then again ... oh man there are some stories I can tell you all :P ...

RPG's, it's the strangest thing... you attract so MANY different kinds of players... I've met absolutely wonderful people whom I'm sure I'd get along with famously in real life too if I were to ever meet them "there" , super mature, easily able to see things from other people's point of view and modify their behavior accordingly (they don't tick everyone else off basically ;) ) , they seem to have an instinctive understanding that if they do X it could upset a person in Z way .. so they just don't do it ! They don't rules lawyer to the point where FG game sessions are dragged to a halt every single time while the player endlessly argues rule X with the GM , they don't get into whose reproductive organ is the biggest contests with other players :P or otherwise run their character in such an antagonistic fashion that they end up trashing the entire campaign because other players PC's just can't get along with them, they don't react with a " Well I'm bored so I'm going to go into grand-theft-auto-the-video-game-mode and start randomly attacking everyone around me just for the heck of it " ... absolute worst case scenario after a few game sessions the player bows out with an apology to the GM and simply states, without any fuss or drama, that the campaign just isn't what s/he is looking for....

And then there are the OTHER players ..those who have GM'ed before probably know who I'm talking about (unless you've been super lucky :P .. or if you have friends in real life or friends you've made over the 'net , if only 'cause friends are less likely to treat each other badly ;) ) .. players who insist " Well it's what my character would do so I'm gonna' do it and if you don't like it too bad ! " ... or players who can't seem to separate fantasy from real life .. I had one who threw a fit in real life because her character got apologized to by another character who licked her face trying to pretend they were all bad guys and she was their captured slave once the bad guys had been fooled and left (I know I know, not exactly the smoothest move in the case of the player doing the licking - he definitely should have stopped to think about how the other player would react to that in real life ) - but the apology happened when the female PC being apologized to magically melded into the ground beneath them to go cry ... basically the player whose character was apologized to was ticked that her character was not apologized to a second time when her character was above ground and could hear it... on the one hand I could see her point, on the other hand when I expressed concern about the real life grudge she was holding and her response was " I put just as much work into my character as you do into your entire campaign... when my character cries I cry in real life too sorry if that's too weird for you"... I should have been more firm after that instead of letting things drag out as long as I did ....

....then there was the player (same guy who did the offensive licking) who was so fond of the "whose reproductive organ is biggest contest" that he would do this whole passive-aggressive " this other character sucks because of what he did to my character" thing on the forums when he was on the losing end of the "whose reproductive organ is biggest" contests and managed to alienate half of the gaming group within a month (if that) of joining said group... I am ashamed to say that I LOST it on the forums and chewed the two of them out like you wouldn't believe ... which in hindsight was definitely not the way I should have handled things as a GM, you need to be much calmer than that and I like to think (hope!) that I've learned from my mistakes all those years ago.

What I'm trying to say is sure, there can be situations where your GM'ing style might need a little work ...newbie GM's are prone to inadvertent rail-roading for example in that they pick out the "one" path the PC's can take through the module the GM has written up rather than trying to anticipate three or four different ways the PC's could react and planning accordingly.. PC's ignored that important clue? Make sure you have two or three more lying around at different points in the game to help figure out that important plotline you're hoping they'll notice , stuff like that ;) .. a GM who starts panicking in this situation may end up getting heavy handed in trying to get the PC's " back on track", the players pick up on this and start getting annoyed , enter vicious cycle here ...

Also, it helps if the GM works heavily with the players during character creation to make sure the PC's motivations "match" the campaign the GM has set up .. it's also a good weeding out process to figure out what players wouldn't be interested in your campaign - if a player doesn't want to be a PC with a heart of gold who saves helpless citizens with no thought of reward they're not going to do well in the I.K. campaign I'm writing up for example :P ... and there's no shame in that either , sometimes the player and the GM have something in mind that's just so incredibly different a successful "match" simply isn't in the cards ... people forget that RPG's take place entirely IN OUR HEADS, your mental image of what's going on could be totally different from someone else's own ... quite frankly it's a miracle we can get ANY successful RPG groups off the ground and running to begin with when you think about it :P ..

So I wouldn't be too sure that you're "not GM material" ;) ... it could be an unfortunate case of player-GM mismatch (for example the players want a hack and slash game where they live out all their violent fantasies and couldn't care less about an extensive character background write up :P .. I've seen that sort of game take place before, definitely not going to work for a GM like yourself , or myself that matter, that heavily favors the role playing side of thing ;) ) .... or, quite honestly, as a GM you might have never stood a chance with one or two particular players who - I hate to say it but I think it's true - just plain " don't play well with others", period. Unless you can find replacements right away, even when players like that who do more harm than good leave it can cause the campaign to fall apart too.

I stand by what I told you a while back - I firmly believe you'd be a good GM , it's just a matter of finding the right group of players who match your GM'ing style and vision for the campaign - and you match their own... it pretty much falls into the try, try and try again category but I can tell you from personal experience when you do find the right group and that "match" it's a ton of fun for both players and the GM ;) ...

[jshauber]

CthulhuHalo, you mention being a writer and being able to write up a story in a couple months. Is that being a full time writer working on the story?

I had the basics of the world and a map done in a few days, but fleshing things out and creating enough content to at least allow a new group to start and have viable options takes time, and since I am not a writer and spend an hour here or there in between real life activities it is taking longer than I had hoped to get it up and running.

[CthulhuHalo]

CthulhuHalo, you mention being a writer and being able to write up a story in a couple months. Is that being a full time writer working on the story?

I had the basics of the world and a map done in a few days, but fleshing things out and creating enough content to at least allow a new group to start and have viable options takes time, and since I am not a writer and spend an hour here or there in between real life activities it is taking longer than I had hoped to get it up and running.

No, I'm not a full-time writer, it's more of a hobby for me. I see what you mean though, even for me that's what takes the longest. Though, I have a little more time to spend on it, and whenever I go into 'Writing Mode' (basically just me getting really focused on writing), I can pretty much type it all up super fast... Though, now I know that not everyone can do that.

Though, I personally think it's less about me being a writer, and more that when you completely focus on something, you can get a ton done in even an hour. Though, I'm not sure if everyone works that way when they focus completely on one thing... I didn't always write things up quickly either, I had to work on focusing, and then I had to work on writing things up faster while focused. But even just being able to focus entirely on one thing, that helps a lot by eliminating distractions, which lets you work more in less time.

But yeah, fleshing out the story and creating content, it can take a lot of time.

[Morgentaler]

Well CthulhuHalo I caved and went to the hobby shop and picked up the 5th ed source material..since as much as it was refreshing to go from 3.5 to 4E seems 5th combines both of them..long story short will be starting up soon enough in you're time zone. You're welcome to join. Yes I will use pre made modules for the first few sessions. So everyone gets accustomed to the rules settings etc..and I can flesh the players out and see what you're goals and aspirations are. Sure it may be a pre made universe but I do make it my own. Toril is vast continent with many things to see and explore.

[Vgamer]

To the OP, published modules are just as good than modules created by players. The problem is with your DM or gaming group that turned you off. Now, I'm not saying you have an Int score with -3 mod, but you should not expect anything less than the reaction you got. You kinda come off as a picky, problem player, looking for the D&D holy grail imo, just be happy if you find a group at all, as you can see they are not dropping from the sky, actually it's kinda hard to get in a group, and you didn't help your cause at all...I found a great HOTDQ game and love it. Try different groups, DMs, etc, don't blame it on the content...

[jshauber]

No, I'm not a full-time writer, it's more of a hobby for me. I see what you mean though, even for me that's what takes the longest. Though, I have a little more time to spend on it, and whenever I go into 'Writing Mode' (basically just me getting really focused on writing), I can pretty much type it all up super fast... Though, now I know that not everyone can do that.

Though, I personally think it's less about me being a writer, and more that when you completely focus on something, you can get a ton done in even an hour. Though, I'm not sure if everyone works that way when they focus completely on one thing... I didn't always write things up quickly either, I had to work on focusing, and then I had to work on writing things up faster while focused. But even just being able to focus entirely on one thing, that helps a lot by eliminating distractions, which lets you work more in less time.

But yeah, fleshing out the story and creating content, it can take a lot of time.

Just doing the writing isn't bad, plus a lot of stuff I store upstairs and recall as needed on the fly if necessary. It is creating/finding maps that suit the encounters, NPC creation/background/motivation, creating the encounters, etc. that seems to take the most time.

The good thing is that once the work is done I can always use it again for another group and the content will grow as the party/parties play and help expand the world and write the stories.

[Andrepartthree]

To the OP, published modules are just as good than modules created by players. The problem is with your DM or gaming group that turned you off. Now, I'm not saying you have an Int score with -3 mod, but you should not expect anything less than the reaction you got. You kinda come off as a picky, problem player, looking for the D&D holy grail imo, just be happy if you find a group at all, as you can see they are not dropping from the sky, actually it's kinda hard to get in a group, and you didn't help your cause at all...I found a great HOTDQ game and love it. Try different groups, DMs, etc, don't blame it on the content...

Well as far as the pre-published modules being "just as good" there are people who would disagree with you there ;) ... I personally used to run pre-published modules "only" as a GM , I shuddered in horror at the thought of writing up all my own stuff from scratch :P ... now this was in "real life tabletop gaming" not FG but.... at it's essence sort of the same thing (or I'd argue that to be the point anyways :P ) far as "live" vs FG it's still RPG'ing ;) ... and I found my players would good natured-ly put up with the modules I ran... occasionally one player would get a confused look on his face when I inevitably tried to herd the PC's in the direction the module wanted them to go in, another player who had read the modules and was familiar with them would say " plot device " and the confused player would chuckle and say " Oh I see the plot's thicker over there - okay let's go that way " :P .. they meant it in good fun of course and I still consider them very good friends to this day :) ... but , when one of the players was able to finish writing up together his own home-brewed D&D 3.5 campaign (by which I mean came up with his own modules/adventures of his own design) they jumped ship from my pre-published modules to his stuff in a heartbeat and I didn't blame them in the slightest... heck as a player I enjoyed that player's home brewed stuff a ton more than the pre-published stuff I was running :P ... basically my pre-written modules were a "stopgap" of sorts until someone had the time to write up their own campaign from scratch ;) ...

That poor guy though.. I distinctly remember him saying that no one was interested in the original direction he wanted to take the campaign in so he had to accommodate the new direction it went in - he wasn't upset about it or anything but I'm sure he was like " Whoops, need to write up brand new stuff since they aren't interested in this other stuff" and I'm sure THAT took a lot of time too... he also mentioned (privately, to me) that he was putting a LOT of work into the campaign and he ended it (with a lot of "awww's" from the players myself included) after about a year because he said, quite frankly, he was exhausted and needed the rest :P ... this guy was married but no kids (makes a HUGE difference as any parent can tell you myself included ;) )...

It all depends on the players you have... one of my players in the FG Dragonlance D&D campaign I was running became absolutely infuriated with the amount of railroading in the campaign (it didn't help that I got upset with him for being infuriated with me ... again that was back in my less-mature-GM days , I'm not proud of my behavior at all back then and I'd like to hope/think I'm better than that now) and a second player wasn't too happy about it at all either...other players however simply shrugged their shoulders and said " eh, we knew what we were getting into". If a GM is willing to GM in any way, shape or form, whether pre-published stuff or not, far as I'm concerned kudo's to the GM just for being willing to step up to the plate and make the whole gaming experience possible for players who are too busy to, or have no interest in, GM'ing ;) ... and quite honestly if you don't mind railroading (I don't personally ) and you have the right GM and right group of players you can still have a lot of fun :) .. but the "original" stuff GM's have run for me in the past...my buddy in real life and the Nameless Bard's campaign.. loved it, I have to admit those were my favorite campaigns of all as a player :) ..

And jshauber you totally hit the nail on the head, that's what's taking me so long too with my campaign ! :P ... cripes just writing up the stats for the NPC's (whether they be persons friendly or hostile to the PC's) alone takes forever! :P (my campaign has a certain number of "beasties" with the pre-generated stats that come with the campaign setting but a lot of times the opposition are NPC humans, elves, dwarves, et cetera) ... given how role-play-heavy my campaign is I'm also trying to give the more important NPC's a complete backstory which takes a lot of time too.... Given that I strongly prefer text-only games (feel it creates a more immersive atmosphere that way) I'm trying to come with as much "canned" pre-written text as possible I can just copy and paste into FG based on my guesses as to how the players react (yes I know players will always surprise you and there will be numerous times when I'll have to ad-lib and write stuff right there on the spot :P .. having said that I found if you have text ready to go instead of having the players wait while you type it all up it can speed up the game (which is the drawback of text-only it can get slow as molasses if you're not careful! So I'm trying to do as much "prep work" as I possibly can before launching the campaign)... and it can definitely take a certain amount of time to find maps though I find on the plus side when you're writing your own stuff it's easier to just find a map and say " Yep, I can use that" and that becomes the combat map for that encounter :) ...

One website I've found to be SUPER helpful is the Dunjinni forums, all sorts of map-makers who throw together stuff free-to-use that they offer up to fellow RPG'ers, I love these guys :)

https://www.dundjinni.com/forums/search_form.asp?FID=0

type in what you're looking for ( I find generic terms like "boat", "water", "spaceship" et cetera work best) and select "maps" under the search forum field .. I've found a bunch of great maps just from that website alone :)

Also

https://rpgmapshare.com/index.php?q=gallery&g2_itemId=35399

I'll admit some of the maps are kind of "meh" (much as I hate to criticize other people's maps not saying I could do any better :P ) but some of the other maps there are just spectacular or at least in my opinion.. though given there's hundreds of maps there might take some time to look through them all :P ... took me many days to look through the 100's or so of maps I did at the time but came away with some really neat ones :) ..

As a PS.. and maybe this just says I'm ignorant about RPG's in general nowadays :P .. I wasn't sure what HOTDQ meant and had to google it :P .. apparently it's this if I'm not mistaken ;)

https://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/p/hoard-of-dragon-queen-index.html

[Vgamer]

No offence Andre, but I took one look at that long post and didn't read it, way to long for me for something that is completely just an opinion on my part.

[Andrepartthree]

Well CthulhuHalo I caved and went to the hobby shop and picked up the 5th ed source material..since as much as it was refreshing to go from 3.5 to 4E seems 5th combines both of them..long story short will be starting up soon enough in you're time zone. You're welcome to join. Yes I will use pre made modules for the first few sessions. So everyone gets accustomed to the rules settings etc..and I can flesh the players out and see what you're goals and aspirations are. Sure it may be a pre made universe but I do make it my own. Toril is vast continent with many things to see and explore.

I think as long as the players actually take the time to role play out their characters and don't treat it like grand theft auto the video game CthulhuHalo will be happy :P ... I have to be honest, the situation he described... his PC getting upset over her (the PC's) best friend dying, actually taking the time to role play that out in terms of going nuts on the offending minotaur's body and hacking the heck out of it.. then having a fellow PC go " eh, dead body now oh well " and just going through the deceased person's pockets without a word of comfort to the distraught/going nuts PC :P ... okay look I know I'm going to make myself sound like a total role playing snob :P and some players just like the whole strategy-oriented "let's kill the monsters and get the loot!" aspect of the game and that's all they want, forget deep meaningful soap opera dialogue, and that's fine if that's what the GM and players are looking for ....

But I have to admit, me personally as a player, I would have left the campaign if all the gaming sessions were like that afterwards. I'm sorry but if someone dies right in front of you that you were fighting side by side with just a moment ago - if that happened in real life that's a BIG DEAL as far as I'm concerned and people would react accordingly! It's not too much of a stretch of the imagination to role-play out a similar reaction during an RPG too .. even if the lizard-shaman dude looting the dead body was some sort of "cold unfeeling warrior" type maybe he could have squeezed halo's PC's shoulder in sympathy and hissed " I wassssss that way too when my friendsssss firssssst sssstarted getting killed... I got over it you will too. Your friend would want you to take revenge on the leadersssss of his killersssss, it issss the honorable thing to do... now, let ussss gather up hissss belongingssss and put them to good usssssse! We ssssshall find the man resssspnossssible for all thisss - and when I kill him, asssss a ssssspecial favor I will sssave hisssss heart jusssst for you! You can eat it raw ssstanding in triumph over hissss dead body! Let ussss go! Now!" .... I'm not sure I would have had my PC stop taking action at all for the entire FG game session and not help (though Cthuluhalo did point out he realizes in retrospect it probably wasn't the best move on his part as a player).. but I think what happened here is a mismatch, a player who really wanted to explore the role playing side of things ... and the rest of the players who were just like " eh, let's go kill things" and a GM who wants to run that kind of campaign. The GM probably realized there was a mis-match in this case which led to him asking CthuluHalo to leave.

So Morgentaler, for what my humble opinion and unasked-for-advice is worth :P , that might be something to keep in mind if you are the GM that CthulhuHalo said was inviting him to a campaign in CthulhuHalo's earlier post... perhaps a frank discussion with the players on the forum (whether here on FG or perhaps a forum of your own? I found www.epicwords.com to be pretty fun for this sort of thing :) ) describing Halo's experience and asking the players what they think of it? It might help as far as figuring out if you want players who want to focus on the RP side of it or players who just want to focus on the strategy side and kill stuff :P...

EDIT AND UPDATE.. it occurs to me after reading the above that I am going to come across as an arrogant, pretentious, role-playing snob who looks down upon people who don't focus on the RP side of things as much as I do so apologies for anyone offended reading this ... I freely acknowledge that there is no "wrong" way to play RPG's as well and if people are more in love with the "let's figure out the best strategy to kill monsters and take their loot who cares about role playing ?!?" that is a PERFECTLY valid way of RPG'ing and I shouldn't be such a donkey's rear end about it :P ... I'm just saying that is so NOT the game C-Halo is looking for either ! :P

[Nylanfs]

No offence Andre, but I took one look at that long post and didn't read it, way to long for me for something that is completely just an opinion on my part.

Don't worry Andre, we still love you "Wall-O-Text" (TM) and all.

[Morgentaler]

So Morgentaler that might be something to keep in mind if you are the GM that CthulhuHalo said was inviting him to a campaign in CthulhuHalo's earlier post... perhaps a frank discussion with the players on the forum (whether here on FG or perhaps a forum of your own? I found www.epicwords.com to be pretty fun for this sort of thing :) ) describing Halo's experience and asking the players what they think of it? It might help as far as figuring out if you want players who want to focus on the RP side of it or players who just want to focus on the strategy side and kill stuff :P ...

Nah wasn't me I'm simply offering my services to Halo as I mix given "on rails" scenario for 1 getting to know the players in vs all the fluff one can come up with on paper. And then going wherever the players so wish..always be ready for a fork in the road..followed by another and so on. Roleplaying is organic but sometimes you got to stick to the road every now and then to get somewhere.

And one thing to not forget in all of this is DM's are players as well. They just happen to play multiple roles and aren't just there to paint a picture and mix the right ****tail of encounters at will either.

Else i think we would be discussing video games rather than Pen and Paper or Fantasy grounds or whatever

[Andrepartthree]

Don't worry Andre, we still love you "Wall-O-Text" (TM) and all.

Awww... thanks man very kind of you :) ... it's true it's true, even players who liked me as an FG gamesmaster (and fellow FG player too back in the day) would joke about my ability to cast the "wall of text spell at will " :P (think it was blahness98 who coined the phrase? Can't remember it was a while ago :P ) ... apologies for being so verbose once I get started I have a hard time shutting up :P ...

[Andrepartthree]

Nah wasn't me I'm simply offering my services to Halo as I mix given "on rails" scenario for 1 getting to know the players in vs all the fluff one can come up with on paper. And then going wherever the players so wish..always be ready for a fork in the road..followed by another and so on. Roleplaying is organic but sometimes you got to stick to the road every now and then to get somewhere.

And one thing to not forget in all of this is DM's are players as well. They just happen to play multiple roles and aren't just there to paint a picture and mix the right ****tail of encounters at will either.

Else i think we would be discussing video games rather than Pen and Paper or Fantasy grounds or whatever

Very good point one I freely acknowledge... the GM has to have fun too ! I'm just saying for GM's in general it might be helpful to find out in advance what the players enjoy most in a game , maybe start a forum discussion about it , " Do you enjoy the thought of writing up a character background and personality? Or do you feel that's too much work? Do you enjoy the strategy-oriented "kill the monsters as effectively as possible get the treasure" side of things.... or are you more into the soap opera having meaningful dialogue PC to PC or PC to NPC? Or a combination of both? "

I'm thinking it can be helpful in terms of the GM getting a better handle on what the players want - and for that matter what the GM enjoys too in the game! Also if every single player is like " Nope, no character background write-up or soap opera dialogue for me" except for the one odd man out who wants that... it might be apparent even before the campaign starts based on the forum responses that getting-into-character-guy might realize this isn't the game for him and try his luck elsewhere. Sounds weird I know but I think it can help weed out a lot of headaches - kind of sucks when a GM tries to run a campaign and it falls apart 'cause different people want different things :P ....I've seen it happen before on FG (that is I've seen it happen to GM's in FG campaigns I was a player in) and as much as it sucks for the players who wanted the campaign to keep going I'm sure it sucks even worse for the GM :( .... you put all this time as a GM into launching the campaign and players just.. bail on you without a word :( ...

But yes, absolutely, the GM is human too and and has his or her limits in terms of trying to come up with something fun for everyone...