Funny story, years ago I was dating a guy who roleplayed. Shadowrun I believe was the name of the game. I used to give him so much crap about it because I just thought it was weird. Fast forward a few years after my love of Guild Wars had blossomed into WoW addiction and I was having a conversation with my hubby about how I was impressed with how they can make all this stuff happen in game. Like magic. He looked at me a little dumbfounded and then began to explain how WoW and games similar were based on DnD. I scoffed. Now way I am playing a real version of a made up in my head game.
It was a discussion that went on for weeks if I remember because I vehemently disputed I was a roleplaying nerd. Oh how wrong and ignorant I was.
It was until a few years ago he convinced me to give role playing DnD a go. Just a small experience to see what it was like. We set up a small one shot and it took about 4 hours for us to set up our characters and we played for barely half that time. I had no idea what I was doing but all the dice rolling and missing and hitting, picking and casting spells; it all started to seem a lot like WoW. I finally really believed him.
Fast forward again to present day and I am a full blown DnD addict. We have one group for DnD at level 4; we have been playing for a few months and meet every 3-4 weeks where possible – there are 7 people to organise so it can be a little hard. We are also in the process of setting up a second group with some friends interstate, so we skype the session, hubby DM’s and we just reached level 2. My husband and I are currently working our way through the many, many, many hours of Critical Role – Campaign 2 “The Mighty Nein”; of the 71 episodes out we are on 30. This doesn’t include the one shots we have played with friends, or the other youtube series we have watched like Will Wheton’s TitansGrave (which was awesome), LARPS (on repeat) or Acquisitions Incorporated by Penny Arcade.
Suffice it to say I actually really enjoy DnD. I understand entirely now how games like WoW are completely and utterly the same thing just all the dice rolling is done behind the scenes. It also isn’t as relevant today as it used to be with miss/resists taken out of the game.
I am not yet fully suffering under the weight of needing more dice constantly, although hubby did go through 3 sets last game because they were giving him bad rolls. We may need to set up a dice jail. I also might need to start buying more to cover the ones in jail. Just a few more sets, not many.
Like these guys – https://www.tumblr.com/search/dice%20hoarding
There is a deep joy in my soul when a bunch of friends gather and have a drink and some food whilst playing DnD and laughing at each other. This is the same feeling I get in a raid group when we kill stuff! Oooh!! Friends and gaming seem to be a consistent theme with me 🙂
Baldur’s Gate was my first adjacent exposure to it for video games I think. All the rolls were visible in the log. You didn’t need to know how it was working underneath, but it was visible.
Not as close, but Hero Quest was the same for me for board games. We never wanted to “use up”all the included quests but we sure designed and ran a lot of them. I loved carving up that map in different ways and dreaming up creative uses for the furniture.
I know I played BG but i can’t remember it all – especially in relation to the dice rolls!! That is very cool – might be worth pulling that out for old times sake 🙂 lol
I know it’s not really relevant any more but it had that process of rolling your stats at the start too. It was unashamedly straight out of D&D.
Some of the MMORPGs that preceded WoW did show the dice rolls in ral time as you fought. Or at least the results. As time went on more and more of that stuff was hidden so the connection to previous gaming systems became more obscure.
Many MMORPGs, and specifically WoW, derive as much and more from MUDs from the 1980s and 90s, particularly dikuMUD, which was a core influence on EverQuest, the game from which WoW was largely derived. How strongly the MUDs were influenced by D&D I’m not sure, never having played them, but I would imagine fairly heavily.
The Ancient Gaming Noob blog is a great source of information on the way MUDs turned into MMORPGs. if you;re interested in digging into it.
Interesting!!! I was relatively late to gaming compared to a lot of my friends so it is interesting to learn about it, and i ignored RPG entirely – I was addicted to city building games prior 🙂
I will definitely check out that website though! Thank you for the information.
Try Roll20 for the interstate group, though even though it has video/audio as well, we’re having more luck with Discord. It allows you to run characters, display, edit draw maps etc. very flexible.
*Also if you are interested in another player……
We actually tried Discord for the video calling on Saturday and it worked the best out of Skype/Facebook, which seems weird but nice to know you found discord better as well, means we were not just lucky. We only have 1 interstate player so we don’t think we need to get too crazy with Roll20 etc 🙂 My other group is all melb based now so not an issue.
You want to play more DnD? hahaha