dmkevin
April 2nd, 2016, 11:15
I had some IT issues in seeking to first run as DM which Doug Davison was really helpful with and finally got everything to work with FG.
So even thought I own all the 5.0 FG material I decided to run LMOP and not run anything too big yet. Anyway, I ran a first 2 1/2 hour FG non-game session this Wednesday for the players as none had yet played FG, so I could run through how FG works, help them create their characters (they didn't want to run pre-gens), and finally run a sample brief combat with a masked map once all basic FG buttons, etc., had been covered.
While we covered almost everything on Wednesday, I had not expected how difficult it would be to keep their attention for the first 1/2 hour or more when they were having far too much fun experimenting in all the various ways to roll the dice.
For Thursday, being the actual session, I had before the session:
(1), created on the notes in FG character backgrounds for the new characters after reading loads of great articles as to how to better connect the players to both LMOP and to Hoard of the Dragon Queen, etc. (I intended to open the pc's character sheets and paste the backgrounds in),
(2), created a few replacement maps using autodesk pro and dropped these into the campaign's images folder (as two of the players had started the session in a live game but not gotten very far),
(3), bought a program (MorphVox Pro) to have the option to change my voice when speaking as a monster or npc (which I tested before the session with another pc connected to teamspeak and the sound was clear).
(4) made change to Teamspeak to fix it. I had always had trouble before with Teamspeak as with either one of my two headsets the microphone would always stop working every 5 minutes or so. I believed that this was finally resolved when earlier this week I successfully tested teamspeak for over 25 minutes straight, etc. with no problems .
In the Thursday session of course,
(1), I could not figure out how to copy the backgrounds from the notes to the pc sheets,
(2),my maps failed to appear in the folder I had placed them,
(3) Morphvox worked over Teamspeak but the sound was apparently not the same quality of sound as what my daughter heard on another computer logged into teamspeak. I had to stop running it.
(4), after about 10 minutes or so, Teamspeak failed me again and I had to keep going through the set up on Teamspeak to get it run for just another few minutes before it would without any warning again leave me speaking but not being heard.
Despite the above, all somehow went well as the players enjoyed themselves and we will be playing again next week. We were on Thursday able to play on without the backgrounds, I quickly decided to carry on with the included maps, we turned off Morphvox (which I had high hopes for), and we decided to play over Skype which worked perfectly.
So, what did I learn? I should not make it so complicated for my first time as dm on FG. Keep it simple starting out. Use the purchased modules with it's maps and character backgrounds. Don't use a voice changing program or any such extra's until you have had a few successful normal sessions work well. If you cannot use Teamspeak successfully you should simply go ahead and use something that reliably works for everyone and not keep trying and inflicting this on others.
Two weeks ago I decided I had to leave a really enjoyable FG campaign I was in as a player because I was disrupting the game by having to constantly re-login to Teamspeak and them wondering was I there or not.
The only dissappointing thing is I would really have liked to be able to use teamspeak properly so I could perhaps eventually be a gm for one of the FG Con events. I notice when looking to be a gm at these, that you are informed you must use Teamspeak. As it stands, I understand why for new player's ease of joining events it makes sense not to have multiple programs being used. However, surely there would be other FG users who are having actual insurmountable issues with Teamspeak and simply cannot use it but would like to gm at one of the FG Con events.
Sorry for the rant,
dmkevin
So even thought I own all the 5.0 FG material I decided to run LMOP and not run anything too big yet. Anyway, I ran a first 2 1/2 hour FG non-game session this Wednesday for the players as none had yet played FG, so I could run through how FG works, help them create their characters (they didn't want to run pre-gens), and finally run a sample brief combat with a masked map once all basic FG buttons, etc., had been covered.
While we covered almost everything on Wednesday, I had not expected how difficult it would be to keep their attention for the first 1/2 hour or more when they were having far too much fun experimenting in all the various ways to roll the dice.
For Thursday, being the actual session, I had before the session:
(1), created on the notes in FG character backgrounds for the new characters after reading loads of great articles as to how to better connect the players to both LMOP and to Hoard of the Dragon Queen, etc. (I intended to open the pc's character sheets and paste the backgrounds in),
(2), created a few replacement maps using autodesk pro and dropped these into the campaign's images folder (as two of the players had started the session in a live game but not gotten very far),
(3), bought a program (MorphVox Pro) to have the option to change my voice when speaking as a monster or npc (which I tested before the session with another pc connected to teamspeak and the sound was clear).
(4) made change to Teamspeak to fix it. I had always had trouble before with Teamspeak as with either one of my two headsets the microphone would always stop working every 5 minutes or so. I believed that this was finally resolved when earlier this week I successfully tested teamspeak for over 25 minutes straight, etc. with no problems .
In the Thursday session of course,
(1), I could not figure out how to copy the backgrounds from the notes to the pc sheets,
(2),my maps failed to appear in the folder I had placed them,
(3) Morphvox worked over Teamspeak but the sound was apparently not the same quality of sound as what my daughter heard on another computer logged into teamspeak. I had to stop running it.
(4), after about 10 minutes or so, Teamspeak failed me again and I had to keep going through the set up on Teamspeak to get it run for just another few minutes before it would without any warning again leave me speaking but not being heard.
Despite the above, all somehow went well as the players enjoyed themselves and we will be playing again next week. We were on Thursday able to play on without the backgrounds, I quickly decided to carry on with the included maps, we turned off Morphvox (which I had high hopes for), and we decided to play over Skype which worked perfectly.
So, what did I learn? I should not make it so complicated for my first time as dm on FG. Keep it simple starting out. Use the purchased modules with it's maps and character backgrounds. Don't use a voice changing program or any such extra's until you have had a few successful normal sessions work well. If you cannot use Teamspeak successfully you should simply go ahead and use something that reliably works for everyone and not keep trying and inflicting this on others.
Two weeks ago I decided I had to leave a really enjoyable FG campaign I was in as a player because I was disrupting the game by having to constantly re-login to Teamspeak and them wondering was I there or not.
The only dissappointing thing is I would really have liked to be able to use teamspeak properly so I could perhaps eventually be a gm for one of the FG Con events. I notice when looking to be a gm at these, that you are informed you must use Teamspeak. As it stands, I understand why for new player's ease of joining events it makes sense not to have multiple programs being used. However, surely there would be other FG users who are having actual insurmountable issues with Teamspeak and simply cannot use it but would like to gm at one of the FG Con events.
Sorry for the rant,
dmkevin