Recent content by GrimCo

I played on weekdays. Timing was always problem. While DM worked from home, rest of us were mostly working from office, some till 16, some till 17, sometimes someone had to work overtime, traffic in the city, finding parking spot, all that led to session starting at 18:30-40 at best most of the...

Oh, i have pretty good idea why Friday is off. Younger and single people skipped Friday and Saturday cause that's when they go out. On the other hand, us older, married and with kids, we opted for Saturday and/or Sunday, while also skipping weekdays.

Friend of mine is planing to start new game after year of hiatus. So, in our discord group, with 10 people in it, he asked 3 questions- how often can you play, what day of the week (with caveat that weekday games start at 18h and weekend ones at 17h), and when can you start. Poll results are...

In game like VtM, whole point is that you are fighting for control. Mechanics represent the Beast. And sometimes Beast wins. Player controls human part. Mechanics control Beast part. Game like that is not everyone's cup of tea, and it's ok. People who don't like games like that, don't play them...

I would argue that sports club is more like a setting, but individual seasons with that seasons roster are campaigns. Never watched baseball. But in football analogy, AC Milan is setting. The Invicibles (91-96 under Capello) was campaign, with legendary defensive party of Maldini, Baresi...

We ditched xp in d&d more than decade ago in favor of milestone leveling. How fast or slow PCs level, depends entirely on the vibes of campaign. In one recent campaign, we went from lv 2 to lv 5 in about 20 sessions or almost full year of playing. It was always intended as low level campaign...

And since this is ttrpg general, not d&d, some games don't have levels. I ran WoD game for 1.5 year. It was inspired by Supernatural early seasons "monster of the week" format and Dresden Files books. It was 6 players + ST (me) group. They started as normal humans that slowly dipped more and...

@payn Personally, i'm more for miniseries (2-6 ep/sessions) or limited run series approach (8-12 ep/sessions). Clear begging, middle, end, single "quest" with definite ending, succeed or fail, story ends. I ran "procedural" style game with my other group with 7 players. It worked great for...

Mentioning tv shows got me thinking. Longest lasting tv shows are procedural dramas, like NCIS, Law & Order, Criminal Minds, CSI etc. What do all of these have in common? Every episode is self contained story with some having a bit of connecting larger story arcs, but not so much that you...

My "campaigns" are pretty linear , 8-10 sessions, 12 sessions top, usually 3-3.5h per session. But i mostly run short games, up to 3 sessions, each 3-3.5 hours long. It's solid advice except when: 1) You run very character driven campaign with strong connected story that cannot really progress...

I have very dear and close friend whom i love like a brother. Great guy. For very casual, goofy, beer & pretzels game of D&D, he's awesome, makes whole table cry from laughing. But for anything more serious, more dramatic, rp heavy, character driven, he is bad fit.

Player turnover, that can be campaign killer also. In one of our campaigns we got from lv 1-12 and were near the end game when one of the players had to take brake from gaming. No point in continuing without him since that story finale needs all of us. In other campaign, only one character...

I've seen my fair share of these, both as a player and as a DM. Sometimes, you watch cool tv show or read interesting book and go "Wow, this would make cool game". So you pitch it to your buddies, you play couple of sessions and it just doesn't resonate with group. Or it goes in completely...

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." In HS, we finished almost all campaigns. In Uni, that number started to decresee rapidly. We finished 1 big campaign, few shorter ones. After Uni, so in last 12 years, i think we finished 1 long campaign and few shorter ones...

In the defense of VtM. As a player, you are not always in control, part of the game is constant fight with the Beast within. And that Beast reacts to being manipulated or intimidated. That's why rolls like Self Control and Courage exist. If you lost contested roll vs intimidation, but as a...