Tech Night

"We will be checking everyone's ability to use the video function of Google Hangouts. As long as we pull that off, everyone will be introducing their characters and discussing the game."

Tech Night was the first meeting of the DnDnSkype group over Google Hangouts (contrary to the working group name at the time). Its purpose was to determine the feasibility of using technology to facilitate a tabletop, pen-and-paper game experience. While not a resounding success, it passed the test. Players introduced their characters to each other, and bonds were discussed in an effort to rout the "meeting at a tavern" trope.

What follows below is an interpolation of the meeting. Unfortunately the first 20 minutes of the session were not recorded, so it begins in the middle of Terra's backstory. Fortunately, Cassie recounted that backstory again at the end of the session for Carey, who missed the beginning, and the holes have been filled in from that.

Meet the Characters
The first order of business was for everybody to introduce their characters, so that we could have a rough idea of who we all were and how we related to one another before the campaign began. Any information contained herein should be considered player knowledge only unless it's otherwise known to be character knowledge, or is listed in the character knowledge section of that character's Wiki page.

Terra Hathrock
Cassie introduced us to her character Terra Hathrock first. Terra is a half-orc druid, planning to take the path of the land (the mountain) at 2nd level. She is also a shapeshifter that has taken the form of a wolf and been a member of a pack for some time. Somebody from the Circle of the Land visited her at the age of 19, the same age she is when she meets the party, and tells her this is her purpose. She has somebody evil after her, but she must start her journey and find the other Druids. This is the first humanoid that she has spoken to in eight years. At this point, she knows a little about her magical abilities, but not much. She is an outlander, she knows the land very well. Her best stats are strength, wisdom, and intelligence.

Terra had a human friend named Nathan up until she was 11 years old, when she had hit puberty, but he had not. Her mother had told her not to hang out with him, but she really liked him. When her (human) village was destroyed, she did not look for his body; so while he is assumed dead, there's a chance he's still out there.

Terra started out living with orcs, but when she was very tiny, her father left. She doesn't remember anything from this time period, but her and her mother found a village primarily of humans, but with some other half-orcs, to live in.

Milo Oberhill
Andy next introduced us to his halfling bard, Milo Oberhill. Milo was born to middle class, halfling parents. His mother died before he turned 20, which is when halflings reach adulthood. His father forced him into his own profession, calligraphy. Milo's father felt strongly that the halfling culture and language needed to be preserved, because he felt the halfling heritage was being absorbed into that of other races around them. He felt it important that he and his son make great efforts to preserve it.

Milo is an only child, and was the center of attention at all times. Due to this, at a young age, he decided to be a musician, but his father put his foot down and stopped that. Milo continued to practice in his spare time anyway, learning to play the lute ("the guitar of that..."). Milo agreed with his father about the dwindling culture of halflings, but wanted to do more than just write calligraphy. He wanted to write stories of halflings having adventures and generally being awesome, to make halflings seem a little cooler to the outside world. Once Milo graduated from the guild he had joined, he started a bookshop: Milo's Wondrous Words - Books that Sing and Everything In Between. He was also playing in a local band (Arrowsmith). The town he lived in was mostly for traders and people just passing through, so he loved to go to the bars and play for the travelers, but it wasn't getting him much notice. So, he eventually decided to close up shop and find some people to travel with that he could write stories about, and spread his fame.

Milo has a crush on the violinist in his band, a female dwarf named Nisra. The band also includes a flute player (male halfling named Osric), another lute player (half-orc male named Yar), and a drummer (male gnome named Floyd). Milo and Nisra always kind of had a "thing," but never really got together; Milo regrets leaving her and the band behind. Before he left, she gave him a necklace with the dwarven word for Extraordinary written on it.

Fafnir
Christi has built a barbarian named Fafnir. Fafnir is based on another barbarian named Fafnir from the game Dungeon World. That Fafnir had tasted Amanda's character's blood, and we may be exploring that again in this game. Fafnir has a criminal background; she has some contacts, knows some things, did some stuff...there was a little bit of jail, but we're not talking about it right now. Fafnir is a person who will just charge into things, which is different from Christi's typical roleplaying style. She has taken the personality trait "Never tell me the odds! I just do things!" She is a former enforcer, family and friends are a big deal, and she is completely willing to tear down a city to get at a person who has hurt one of those people. She's not a great liar. Not averse; just not good at it.

Fafnir was an enforcer, haven't decided who she was employed by, but she definitely went to jail for the employer.

Fafnir is a Half-Elf. She only has one name, like Madonna.

Chaotic Neutral.

Riot Woodhouse
Trevor is playing a Tiefling paladin named Riot Woodhouse. Hasn't picked a gender yet. Riot was employed by a royal family, but failed to protect them when their kingdom was overthrown, in a region which is now known as the Ruined Sea. Afterward, joined up with a foreign navy to hunt down the pirates which destroyed the royal family. Is now no longer doing that, for reasons which still need to be figured out. Riot's background is sailor.

The Ruined Sea was not a Tiefling kingdom; still need to work out what type of kingdom it was.

For the Tiefling Paladin thing: since it's an odd pairing, the gist is that Riot has entered "the religion or whatever" to try and combat the prejudice that Tieflings are evil, and wants to prove otherwise. Riot is Lawful Good. Riot has a burning hatred for pirates, who were responsible for the downfall of his kingdom. The kingdom was either island or seaside.

Trevor will neither confirm nor deny that Riot looks a bit like Kevin Costner.

Nope Nope Nope
Amanda has just decided in the last hour what kind of character she's going to play; she's had analysis paralysis and has read most of the book. The character is a Dragonborn rogue, because Amanda's not sure she's ready to delve into sorcery at this point. Backstabbing seems like a nice thing, Amanda like stabbing things and not being noticed while she stabs things. She has a weapons fetish: likes shiny, pointy things. The character does not have a name yet; Trevor suggested "Pete's Dragon" but Shayne wrote down "Nope Nope Nope."

[This character would become (Mornvenniath) Kazita.]

Carey's Characters
At this point, Cassie has informed us that Carey has created three characters, because he wants to ensure that he's making a character significantly different from anybody else. Trevor's character is a little similar to his original character, so he is probably going to pick somebody else. One of his characters is what he calls a "rage mage," a dwarf that charges into battle crazily.

The good news is that he has the stats and backstory written out for all three of these characters.

What Kind of Game Do We Want to Play?
This world will be a little less strenuous than Fate or DungeonWorld, but a little more concise and connected than your average D&D game where the DM makes up a bunch of crap and runs the players through it, video game-style.

At this point, Shayne asked us a bunch of questions about the game we wanted, and we gave him something to build off of.

Tone
What do we want the tone to be? Shayne offered options: Terry Pratchett's Discworld, kind of lighthearted and silly, almost to the point of being entirely ridiculous; or something super dark like Game of Thrones, where the only time jokes happen, it's when somebody loses their dick. In the middle there would be Lord of the Rings, a mix of humor and seriousness; starts out with The Hobbit, which is very light, and just becomes more and more serious.

The players unanimously decided on something in the middle: something fairly light, but with a looming threat of true evil, with high stakes. Where dark shit is going down, but you can still find wacky, zany things in the world: balance. Two Towers level, not as grim as Return of the King, but a bit heavier than Fellowship.

World
(For a partial transcript of this section, see Tech Night - World Transcript)

What kind of world do we want? What kind of things would we like to see in the world? What would we be excited about, what would make our eyes roll?

The party agreed to play in a somewhat standard D&D world, a medieval fantasy where there used to be large empires and impressive societies, but they have crumbled long ago. Basically, Lord of the Rings. There will be no electricity, guns, or modern conveniences. Andy expressed an interest in having different cities, towns, and locations we can go to and do things in that would have unique cultures, politics, and such. Cassie expressed a desire to have caves and wilderness play a large part. Low-level magic, such as cantrips, light healing spells, maybe some minor levitation, is not unusual; however anything more complex than that, i.e. fireballs, flight, basically anything from first-level up, is practically unknown and will be feared, or outlawed, or respected, or worshiped. Humans, Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings are well-known, common races; Half-Elves, Dragonborn, Half-Orcs, and Gnomes are more rare and not well understood; Tieflings are the bottom of the barrel of being "known" or "understood," with Half-Orcs just above them, and Half-Elves just above that.

Party and Bonds
Discussion from there naturally segued into how the party formed. It was mutually agreed that nobody wants to start with everyone meeting coincidentally in a tavern; we have agreed that the party came together sometime before the start of the campaign. We don't want to spend a lot of time dicking around trying to figure out if our characters trust each other. Two options were discussed: either we all joined a mercenary company and have been assigned to a job together, or we choose bonds, Dungeon World-style, which explain how and why we know individual members of the party. We wouldn't do bonds for every single pairing of characters, but just so each person has 2-3 bonds that intertwine the group on grounds that are not immediately adversarial. The party chose the latter.

Negative bonds were discussed. Though we don't want to hurt each other, the possibility that, organically, we may reach the point where someone needs to put a dagger through someone's ribs, we could be ready for that.

If we reach the point where we feel that a bond between two characters has been fully explored, both characters can take experience and remove that bond from their character sheets. They can then move on, and create a new bond with another character, or a new bond between them. So, like, growth...as disgusting as that sounds.

Technical Issues
We talked about quality settings on our webcams and Google Hangouts streaming settings.

Combat
Next game-related issue was the handling of combat. In a typical D&D game, about a third of the game should be combat, a third exploration, and the last of the pie should be role-playing. Shayne would like to keep this ratio intact. Exploration can really depend on how the world breaks down, but at least combat and role-playing should be approximately equal.

Combat can have different aesthetics: it could be very treacherous, where we need to move a quarter inch to not die; it could just be us being badasses all the time and dealing with obstacles by going though them like a knife through butter; it can be more sudden; it can be more tactical; it could be more cinematic. What do we want out of combat?

Christi has a preference for something visual. Shayne could put a whiteboard over his shoulder, where he can do a little sketch from time to time to show us where things are positioned. Unsure whether, logistically, the whiteboard can be positioned there. Otherwise, Shayne suggested just having it next to him on the table, taking a picture from time to time, and sending it over the internet. Over Skype, Shayne believes that worrying about gridded combat is ridiculous. As long as we're not, like, trying to run across a football field every time we need to make a combat action, it's probably fine.

Cassie inquired about spell distances. Shayne seems fairly unconcerned about it, he doesn't think anyone will try to take advantage of the whole "range" thing. In general, as is Shayne's style, things are going to happen more often than not. Shayne prefers a quick, to-the-point, cinematic combat. Shaye expressed that 4th Edition was his hell, since it was all about controlling zones, having defenders, basically needing one of every type of combatant in order to get anywhere.

Do we want a game where our characters could die at the drop of a hat, or would we find that annoying? Do we want it more thematic, where we don't have to worry about our character getting murdered all the time?

Andy prefers thematic, it's more interesting. Cassie concurred. But at the same time, we still want the option to fail, so that it's not "all sunshine and roses." It's no fun if we know we can't fail, but we still don't want to be murdered indiscriminately. Shayne agrees; if we've spent an hour, or four hours, or whatever, buiding our characters, it's been a significant amount of time; if these characters are going to die, it needs to be something important, heroic, and epic.

Shayne is against us just traveling around and murdering people. Christi says that if we're against that, then we're against Trevor playing the game, since that's his actual life. Trevor protested, then stood down. Captain America punching the director of the museum at Shayne's birthday LARP was brought up. It seems like everybody's on the same page, we don't want to be attacked every five seconds. Cassie mentioned a quote about how the DM isn't supposed to be trying to kill you, they're just supposed to try and help you enjoy the game, and be a hero sometimes. This is Shayne's standard as well.

[skipping ahead] Are we interested in mounts? It's a thing Shayne usually handwaves, but there is a whole big thing in D&D about mounted combat and that may be something Carey cares about. Andy is unconcerned, as Milo is probably not large enough for a horse. It was suggested that he get a large dog, or a dire wolf. The message that Shayne is receiving is that no one gives a fuck about mounted combat except possibly Carey, who is still not yet present to voice an opinion. Cassie, as a shapeshifter, is capable of turning into a horse, but she refuses to allow Carey to ride her.

What Would We Like to Get Out of This
What is everybody hoping to gain from this experience? It doesn't have to be anything huge like "I wanna grow as a person," but like something simple: "I'd like to have fun" or "I want to learn more about D&D" or "I watched Critical Role and i want to try that."

[skipping ahead] Final answer: We just want to have fun. Amanda wants to fill things with knives. Andy trusts Shayne to create a fun and engaging story. Nobody is looking for personal growth here.

Further Character Discussion
Cassie is looking over Andy's character sheet. She has pointed out that if we ever need anyone to persuade anyone of anything, Milo is the way to go. Milo has a +5 bonus to his charisma and just loads of persuasion. Shayne pointed out that in 5th Edition, a Bard is a spellcaster.

Christi is a barbarian, which means she hits things, and occasionally gets mad and hits them better.

At this point, we discussed spellcasting. Cassie has healing spells, and at level 2, can polymorph into animals. She is still rereading everything, but a lot of stuff happens for a 2nd level druid. She has chosen Cure Wounds and Thunderwave already; at level 2 she will get extra spells, because she joins a druid circle (she has chosen Circle of the Land). She will be a Mountain Druid, which offers more possibilities. She will gain additional spells at level 3. She wondered if we will play until we reach the really high levels; Shayne says we will continue until we get bored or until his story seems completed.

Shayne stated that once we get past level 10, we'll need to be worrying about things on a continental or global level; we're no longer worrying about things in a small town or kingdom. Christi asked, "But what if i like that little kingdom?" Shayne responded, "Then you own it, and you smile at the people as you fly by." We would get to be a ruler. We could be royals, royals. Shayne has killed Trevor's character.

As an outlander, Cassie gets cool features which can help us if we're out in weird wilderness areas. She can provide food and water for people, or at least find it. She has memories of maps. She knows a secret, ancient Druidic language, she can read it with no problems. Other people can spot it, but they have to roll a Wisdom check at a DC of 15. That's about it...she likes plants...

When she shapeshifts, it has to be a thing that she has already seen before, at least twice. Christi posited that she should visit a zoo. At 2nd level, she cannot fly or swim, so she must start as a land animal. Question: when she shapeshifts, does she keep her clothes? Answer: in D&D, it's up to the DM, and Shayne has determined that the clothes just magically shapeshift with you.

Shayne has not looked at Paladin at all, can Trevor provide some of the features?

Divine Sense is kind of a form of Detect Evil, and Lay on Hands is a light healing spell. Trevor also becomes a spellcaster at level 2, and will have some decisions to make upon reaching level 3.

We are still waiting on Carey, but asking Cassie about the characters he has prepared. One option is a Mountain Dwarf Barbarian named Fisk Fireball ([skipping ahead] his family makes whiskey. It's called...Fireball Whiskey). He has a human wizard, and a Half-Drow Eldritch knight. There is also a "rage mage." Shayne would like to avoid having two of one class, especially for a more martial character, because they will really step on each other's toes. Eldritch Knight would be cool, but he won't get that until later; he's just a fighter to start. Cassie thinks the Knight was his first choice; Shayne explains that Half-Drow is literally the most rare thing on the continent. Cassie also says this character sounds similar to Riot: he tried to do a heroic thing and failed, so now he's trying to make up for it. He's lawful neutral. Has a few spells.

Amanda is leaning toward the Criminal background right now.

Andy based his around the options given in the book, and the physical size of the boxes on the character sheet. His written traits are that he's well known for his work and is surprised when people haven't heard of him. Ideals: Everyone should be free to pursue their own livelihood. Is Chaotic Good, by the way. Pursues adventures with unique individuals, to document. Flaw: Is never satisfied with what he has.

Andy mentioned that he had a deck of Paladin cards with all of the spells and stuff on them, if Trevor is interested.

Cassie then mentioned an Android app that she and Carey are using called D&D 5 Spellbook Caster...or some such, the full name wasn't available. But it allows you to create a full spellbook for your character, shows all of the spells that you know and have prepared. It shows which are prepared, and you can tell it when you rest so it knows to re-prepare them for you. It looks like the app was based on the cards that Andy has.

Another useful app is Fifth Edition Character Sheet, just a nice, easy reference of all of your stats and such if you want to have that accessible on your phone. There are also many other options on the Play Store.

Is everybody in our party Good, in some shape, way, or form? Many are neutral, some have not decided yet. Shayne requests that nobody be evil, because even if the player is very good, it's a constant tightrope walk for them. Trevor has suggested that unless the entire party is evil, it doesn't really work; our characters would have no reason to keep an evil party member around.

Cassie's character traits. Cassie has done it the "old-fashioned way," rolling for character traits in the back of the book. She has rolled a lot of wolf stuff, leading to her character being raised by wolves. She watches over her close friends like a litter of pups. Ideals: Life is like the changing of the seasons, and we must change with it. Bond: Her wolf tribe is most important to her, even when she is far away from them. Flaw: Don't expect her to save those who cannot save themselves. To clarify, when she says her wolf pack, she literally means the small pack that raised her, not metaphorically the party.

Christi's character traits. Never tell me the odds, i just do things! Ideals: Loyal to friends and family. Once she determines her core values, nothing else matters. Example, if she pulls her people off of the burning building but lets 85 others die, that's fine. She will bring terrible wrath to those who have destroyed her homeland (implying that she is from a destroyed homeland). She is a terrible liar, but a liar on occasion; really only works on characters who are prone to deceit. Andy says this sounds like a barbarian. Good ol' Fafnir. Christi's first character to HAVE A BATTLE AXE, AND A HAND AXE, AND A JAVELIN!!

Shayne recommends that, for those of us still working on our character sheets, we just take the equipment offered based on our classes. This is because we'd have to roll for how much gold we'd get, and the standards are a much better value than anything you can roll anyway.

Carey, over the phone: If Amanda's not playing a Mage, i should probably play one of my Mage characters. One is a happy-go-lucky necromancer. (Shayne's head went so sideways at this that it was basically 90 degrees). He listened to the spirits of the dead people brought to the temple for healing, and learned how to resurrect things. Also he's just very positive, and can talk to dead people. Shayne asked if that was a thing that was available off the bat, and Carey explained that he was basically a Wizard, but at 2nd level he can take the Necromancy school of wizardry. Shayne doesn't have a problem with it, but thinks that a human necromantic wizard fits in with this group pretty well.

His other character is a dwarf, which he calls a "rage mage." Basically he's a barbarian for one level, then multiclasses to wizard. [audio cuts out pretty badly] But he can cast fireballs on his own party and keeps them from getting hurt, but essentially he jumps into battle and makes himself explode.

Shayne thinks we should lean toward something a little more straightforward, and would suggest the necromancer over the rage mage. He asked about the Eldritch Knight, Carey says it's not done yet. Shayne also thinks a human would be a nice addition to the party, since the world is mostly populated with them. Carey says that if the necromancer makes the most sense for the party, he'll play that. Cassie brought up the similarities between the knight and Riot. Carey offered that the necromancer at least has no tragic backstory, he grew up in a church, he's just always chipper and flamboyant and wears bright orange...and produces zombies.

Cassie brought up a concern about Carey being human, since he might not fit in well with our group of outcasts. Andy suggested that it might be nice to have a human for that exact reason, even though he's already the least-minority of all of us.. Shayne put in that the rarest races among our characters would go from Trevor, to Cassie, to Christi, to Amanda. People have the most fear of the Tieflings and the Dragonborn, but the Tiefling and the Half-Orc kind of tie for how much people don't trust them. People don't like Tieflings. Shayne says it's fine that Andy's backstory has his father pushing him toward preserving their language, even though halflings are one of the most populous races in the Known World. Andy says that Milo is aware that his father was delusional. Shayne says that the four main races - Human, Halfling, Elf, and Dwarf - are really integrating well, are fairly populous, and coexist well. The other races, not so much. A gnome would be right between our rare races and the more common ones.

How Often Do We Want to Play?
Andy would be fine playing every week. Cassie suggests every other week. Amanda is currently on a derby break, but will be having roller derby on Sundays in the next "near future." At least three weeks from now. After that, there is GenCon, and then who knows. Shayne and Christi also have a convention next Sunday. As for Trevor, currently he is free, but has resumes out and some jobs he is applying for may require weekends.

Shayne was originally going to push for monthly, but he is worried that if we do, people won't remember what the hell happened. He would prefer bi-weekly, at least to start, and if it becomes too much for him then he will let us know. Keep in mind that this is Shayne's fourth game, the second he is running. Trevor posited that Shayne is a machine, Shayne responded that he doesn't like anything other than pretending to be an elf. Some people like NASCAR, this is what he likes. He's just concerned about getting overwhelmed.

Shayne wants to create Facebook events for each session. Trevor suggested that instead we form a Facebook group, because he has found that it works better for his and Amanda's gaming group. Shayne still prefers events, and thinks we should do both.

Shayne has suggested that the Facebook group could be for if any of us wanted to write up extra backstory or anything in our downtime; he doesn't see that happening though (probably never saw this Wiki coming either).