Here's an idea on how to have smoother D&D sessions

Originally published at: Here's an idea on how to have smoother D&D sessions | Boing Boing

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Ginny D’s content is top-notch. Even her sponsorship bits are enjoyable.

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Back when I was an avid D&D player in 8th grade, I couldn’t imagine a girl playing D&D. Or even talking about it. Let alone anybody that looked like Ginny D. Nerd culture has surely won. But I am no longer all that interested in any of it.

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Amazingly, she answers you in the channel intro video right here: I'm Ginny Di! Welcome to my channel. - YouTube

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Can we please put Felicia Day at the head of the list of “Famous Nerds” who’ve driven the popularity of tabletop games!
The Geek and Sundry channel hosted Wil Wheaton’s TableTop show and the original episodes of Critical Role.
It is so frustrating to see her work supporting and promoting the tabletop gaming community before it was even “A Thing ™” left by the wayside.

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If you want to role play use Blades in the Dark.

Let’s abandon the tactical mini’s game. That’s what slows down your sessions.

Maybe abandon the idea that you should, nay, must, only play a single RPG system.

I don’t want to get stuck playing GURPS forever, for example.

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She makes really good points - the thing about the dice changing the way the game moves forward is really key. It’s why my mind immediately started perversely coming up with reasons to roll dice in her examples. Rolling to climb a ladder might be important if you need to know how quickly they climb it, or the ladder might be slippery and pratfalls will be involved if they try to climb it (generally rolling for normal things usually only has comical value, which can be hugely derailing even in a comical game). Rolling for something impossible also can have purpose - demanding the king hand over the crown may never be possible, but the roll could determine his reaction to that impossible demand anyways. A poor roll may mean he has the bard and their party arrested and thrown in the dungeon to be executed - a good roll may mean he’s greatly amused by the “joke” and grants some gift - before having the party thrown out.

Being prepared to play through the consequences of a roll and knowing whether a particular check will benefit the fun of the game is the difference between a good and bad GM. The heart of GMing is the combination of being able to improvise and foresee the eventual outcome of events - which is quite an ability, really.

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Roll when it adds to the fun.

TBH with the right group you could have an almost diceless storytelling game: a good DM and the right players can just tell themselves a story with the DM determining (based on player stats/effort) what succeeds and fails and the players doing what their character would do and maybe rolling when they want chance involved …

But I guess you’d need a very particular group of people for that. I dunno how many people would go for pure consensual storytelling.

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