Hi ya,
Sorry I’m late with this post – I meant to update the blog weeks ago! I do have a few hot irons in the fire, but they’re not quite ready to post yet, so bear with me! 😉
Talking of fire, and smithing, swords and the realm of Fantasy that this train of thought ultimately leads me to, I’ve been reading the Song of Ice and Fire books recently. (I know I’m late, I did watch the TV series first *gasp*) Although I used to be a MAHOOSIVE Lord of the Rings fan, I hadn’t delved into fantasy worlds in a while, but A Game of Thrones and a certain classic RPG have rekindled my love for it.
So this time, gather around as I tell you about my newest Dungeons & Dragons adventures, different means to play online across continents and oceans, and the magical world of Avani!
(DISCLAIMER: Avani and all associated names are copyrighted by Marie; she also provided most of the links you see in this post!)
You wouldn’t think this picture took me a whole afternoon to assemble, but it did! I even MADE the background! :O
How it happened
About a month or more ago, I was feeling a little depressed from the “all work and no play” situation that had arisen out of my university life. But lo and behold, I stumbled upon a fellow deviant artist’s journal post calling to arms all players and admirers of Dungeons & Dragons to play a campaign together, set in her own created fantastical world called Avani. Naturally, I immediately uttered a squeal of delight and confirmed that I was gonna do this!!!
Some weeks later, I met up with Marie to create my character through a join.me live session (you can chat and see the host’s PC/laptop screen) in a brilliant programme called HeroLab. Forget rolling up your stats and filling out that pesky character sheet; Herolab does it all, using an internal virtual dice roller and calculating all the attack bonuses and feat effects for you! By the end, what you’re left with is a printable pdf sheet of your stats, possessions and animal companions. Really practical!
Btw, in case you don’t have all the D&D books as pdf versions on your hard drive (Thanks Mambwe!), you can find descriptions of everything from races, classes and monsters to supplies, weapons and animal companions here.
A screenshot of what hero lab in the join.me session looked like.
HeroLab itself costs $ 29.99, but it’s worth the investment if you do a lot of role-playing. If not, letting a friend that has it help you out works just as well.
I should interject, at this point, that although I am new to online RPGs, I am no virgin to pen and paper role-playing. During the first and second year of my undergrad course at university, I was introduced to Warhammer RPG, Vampire – the Masquerade and ultimately D&D by my ex-boyfriend, whose friends had been playing for a while. It was an amazing group, the people as well as their characters, and it’s still some of the best time of my life. It all ended sadly when the majority of them left uni and we didn’t see each other any more. 😦
But anyways, even though by now I had forgotten most of the rules of D&D, that background experience had left me with a longing to play again.
Let me explain:
To most of you who read my blog, creating stories, art, anything “creative” probably comes quite naturally. There is a certain beauty and excitement to imagining and birthing – wit pen, pencil, brush, mouse or voice – a new character designed by you, a world of your own, with your rules and systems, filled with magic and exotic creatures.
For some time now, I had felt like I had lost that feeling. While I had been honing my writing skills via my course, I hadn’t been “creating”… But playing RPGs, even though it is a game that already has an existing world and rules, is much like writing a story. You create a character that can be you, can look like you or what you want to be, or it can be someone completely different; another gender, skin colour, hair, species. He or she can be a mage, a warrior, a hobbit, they can be good or evil – it is all up to you. I hope I don’t sound like I have a god-complex, but that kind of power is just intoxicating!!!
And not just that: Playing the game is just as creative. Imagine sitting around a campfire and telling a story taking turns. Everyone has their own character and ads their viewpoint to the story that you’re experiencing together! That – is role-playing.
Overcoming frontiers
The difference this time was that all of us were from different parts of the world. Most of the others live in North America, but me being over here in Wales and another girl living in Turkey did make it difficult at first to find a common time to play. We settled on two different sessions, one on Friday nights and one on Sunday evenings (as seen from my time zone: GMT)
Because we were all spread out, pen and paper D&D just wouldn’t work, so we had to figure out how to play online. Maybe some of you now say, “Of course, that’s how we play all the time!” but it was a completely NEW concept to me!
First we tried a downloadable FREE programme called Maptool, which looked really promising, but presented us with massive difficulties (because it just wouldn’t work), and thus our first session took place on AIM chat – and in our imagination.
Marie – our formidable Game Master (GM) – quickly came up with a new tool: Roll20. The best thing about it: no downloads necessary; it’s a web community, so all you need is create an account (FREE) and join a campaign. It has a handy map tool, on which each player can either move around their sprite icon or draw Xs in various colours, as well as having a private chat window including a dice roller.
In Roll20, the GM creates the maps, which are presented in a birds-view perspective, like a board game, with as much detail as is needed. We’ve had inns and whole towns, a mansion, the dirt road and the wild and a dungeon so far. Your imagination is your limit! The GM can also choose to only partly reveal some of the map to players, to keep up the suspense. 😉 Obviously, making maps can take a while, which is why we only play every second Sunday.
Roll20 is still in beta, and there are still a few kinks in it, but over all it is working quite well! What we tend to do is use the chat window on Roll20 for the in-game actions and speech, while discussing OOT (out of character) stuff on a separate AIM window.
So guys, that’s my little story of how I rediscovered D&D. Hopefully it gave you some pointers on how to set up your own campaign online and play together. 🙂 Thanks for reading, and watch for more posts soon!
I’ll leave you with a character art piece of my halfling rogue Cory.
Geek Girl and Proud 