RPG 101: Intro game for roleplaying newbies [Pathfinder]. Saturday, Jan. 5th @ 6PM (EST)(UTC-5)

_________________________________________________________________________ <a href="https://app.roll20.net/join/62573/M9sU0g" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/join/62573/M9sU0g</a> _________________________________________________________________________ What is this game? I will be running a game this Saturday for anyone who is new to rpgs and unsure where to start or what to do, is hesitant to join a game with experienced players, or has experience and would like to volunteer to participate and share the load of getting the new guys up to speed. This is generally a "one-shot", and while I may allow previous players to rejoin, I expect to be running the game for a new group of people every week. You don't have to ask for permission to join, just show up when I post the link on time (hopefully, I am a forgetful sort) this Saturday. If you have any questions then feel free to ask them here or message me. We will be playing Pathfinder as it is very similar to the popular Dungeons and Dragons 3rd edition, and has (IMHO) a very nice SRD (system resource document) site with anything a player will need to start playing (with some guidance in making sense of it). The SRD site may be found here: <a href="http://www.d20pfsrd.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.d20pfsrd.com/</a> As always, first come first served, but spectators are welcome, and anyone willing to sit in and help out players if I get a bit behind on answering questions would be most appreciated. The rules: 1. Be excellent to each other. Put the considerations of other players first and endeavor to benefit others rather than be a burden to them. 2. Keep it clean. Imaginary violence aside, this is going to be a relatively tame game that is solely intended to introduce new players to roleplaying games (of the DnD style specifically) and I don't want to see anyone miss out on an incredibly fun form of entertainment because they are offended by another player's words or actions. :) 3. Be ready to go. I can help people who ask questions in this thread throughout the week, but when I post the link to the game on Saturday afternoon it will be first come-first-served and a spot will not be reserved just because we discussed a character sheet. The first 5 players to join when I post the link, say [Player] in chat, and be able to maintain a mostly reliable connection will be the ones playing (I want you to experience a realistic party size, but it will also take time to help you sort out loose ends on your character sheets and the more people we have the longer that will take). Additional players may be added, assuming that they are experienced and willing to help out one or more of the newbies (offsetting the workload of managing more players). Spectators are welcome, but they will need to keep chatter to a minimum so that active players are not distracted and the other spectators can passively keep track of what's going on (typing "/w playername message" without the quotes will allow you to have discussions without worrying about spamming the chatlog). I've added handy link locations at the top and bottom of this post. The link should appear there on time. 4. You will need a microphone, webcam with integrated microphone, or some form of speaking as we will be communicating through the integrated Tokbox system that roll20 uses (I don't expect everyone to have skype or vent, and I really don't feel like setting up a vent server and corralling everyone into it). If you would like to play, but have some sort of physical disability or lack of computer hardware that would prevent you from being able to communicate through voicechat then let me know and we can work something out. I want everyone to get something good out of it, even if there are some communication barriers that must be overcome. If you have a disability of some sort then please let me know and I will do my best to make things work for you. Just be aware that it can be hard to keep up with the text chat when everyone is talking and I wouldn't want anyone to feel ignored. 5. Please use a set of headphones for your audio, or find a way to minimize audio feedback/echoes. It always takes a bit more time to get the communication kinks worked out, and if we can prevent feedback and echoes right from the start then everyone's experience should be a bit better. The game: I am limiting the choices to core races ( <a href="http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races" rel="nofollow">http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races</a> ) and core classes ( <a href="http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes" rel="nofollow">http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes</a> ) for the sake of simplicity and efficiency. You will have plenty of opportunities to make some crazy build, but this game is more focused on helping the inexperienced learn the basics. Player characters will start at level 1 so that it isn't too overwhelming (don't worry, we will be going over leveling up after we've played a bit). My boilerplate is getting a bit long so I'm simplifying the character creation guide a bit. Check out this page to help you get a character sheet started and learn some basics. <a href="http://www.d20pfsrd.com/basics-ability-scores/character-creation" rel="nofollow">http://www.d20pfsrd.com/basics-ability-scores/character-creation</a> Use any method you like to set up a character sheet, just make sure that you have some way of sharing it electronically so that I can go over it and help you make corrections or explain things as needed. Generally the best results I see come from people using Myth-Weavers for their sheets ( <a href="http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetindex.php" rel="nofollow">http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetindex.php</a> ). You have to register to use it, but it's free (just like roll20). I don't believe it was listed in the character creation link, but you may also choose up to two traits from the following page. <a href="http://www.d20pfsrd.com/traits" rel="nofollow">http://www.d20pfsrd.com/traits</a> These are some extra little ways to customize your character. Everything else we will sort out ingame. Although you are welcome to ask questions here, and having a sheet finished and ready to play will save a lot of time when we start. It would be nice if we could get a balanced party with a fighter, rogue, wizard, and cleric, so that most of the iconic roles and mechanics can be explored. I'm not going to force it though. ;) If any other experienced DMs/Players would like to weigh in with some advice/suggestions then I would appreciate the input. _________________________________________________________________________ <a href="https://app.roll20.net/join/62573/M9sU0g" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/join/62573/M9sU0g</a> _________________________________________________________________________

Hi Umutuku, I am certainly interested in playing your game this Saturday. I'm not a noob to D&D. I've played about 10+ games. I'd like to roll a Half-elf Wizard if that's OK with you. I normally play a ranger, but I want to venture out into other classes.

Hey John, I'll see if I can't stop in and help out again (will not be playing this time unless its required) but I may be going out of town that evening so no promises.

I'll make a character and try to jump in this game! I'm new to pathfinder but I have been playing 3.5 for a while. How do we decide the stats? And how much money we start with?

If you guys are sill looking for players, I'm certainly up. I've got a little experience with 4e and I'm in Pacific, time is fairly flexible.

Suna you can use any method of stat generation you'd like, it's a one-shot. Just be courteous and don't come in with six 18's haha. I'd recommend 25 point buy if you know what you are doing.

Hi, I was a spectator last week but would love to jump in a play this Saturday. I've played a bit of 3.5 but never Pathfinder. I'll have some characters ready by Saturday.

How long is it expected to last? I'd like to join up but I have to go to work at 11pm eastern. Thanks.

Thanks Zach. You are definitely better at providing a quick explanation than I am. If you've got things going on then don't worry about it though and try to have fun on your venture. :) @ Marc, It's always a big step when you're used to playing a certain way for a while. Since this game is going to start at first level and reach second level during play (I want to make sure everyone learns how to properly take their character up a level) then you're going to see some of the interesting challenges that a low level wizard faces before he really comes into his own. One thing you're going to be faced with is a very limited number of relatively powerful spells that you can cast during a day. It is your character and you can play how you like, but it is my personal suggestion to think about what is going to do you the most benefit for your spell slots. Sometimes it's really awesome to shoot magic missiles off everywhere and blow things up with fireballs, but when your resources are limited then you can start to see different priorities. Can casting a buff on your fighter friend get you more damage from a single spell slot than just casting an attack spell? Can you cast something that will hinder your enemies and make them take more damage for the entire encounter? What do you do when you run out of high level spell slots? It's definitely a lot to learn, but you'll do just fine. :) @ Suna, Zach pretty much covered it. Also, if you look at the class page then it should tell you to roll for your starting gold. You can spend that on items as you see fit. For the sake of expediency I do allow people to choose a free starting melee weapon, ranged weapon, and armor as long as their class is proficient in it and the cost isn't excessive. Anything specifically required by the class is included (e.g. Wizards have a spellbook). @ Gelatinous, Cool. @ Dana, It's always helpful to have characters ready. For these games I assume that no one knows how to make a character sheet, and while I would like people to attempt it on their own (for their own benefit) it's perfectly fine to ask questions here, and I do allocate a bit of time in the beginning of the game to helping people finish their sheets and explaining some of the hows and whys of the stats and their relation to the rest of the game. So no worries, just give it your best shot and we'll work out the rest. :) @ Craig, It lasts as long as you want to. I'll let anyone fill out the roster and have fun no matter what their experience, but it's mostly intended to be an icebreaker for people who haven't played before and introduce them to concepts like making characters, playing with a group of real people, and going through a few encounters to see what the game entails. I try to set it up so that everyone can get a steady introduction of new topics and themes with most of the basics being covered upfront. So if people have to leave suddenly or are just sitting in to watch part of it then they can at least have some experience to take with them. I'm hoping my pc troubleshooting doesn't push back the starting time, but if all goes well then we'll be starting at 6 which should let you play through 2 or 3 encounters. I'll be honest with you, slow play is my most glaring fault as a DM (at least within the subjective realm of self analysis), but I'm trying to work on it and improve efficiency.

This sounds perfect since I'm quite new to pathfinder. I'm totally up for playing a Cleric so if there is space at 6 I'd like to join in if I can. Lets see if I can figure out all the character creation stuff this afternoon.

I like what you're doing here Umutuku, and personally I LOVE creating new characters to get the right tweak out of a concept, I'll try to be around to help out any of the newbies, and gladly toss together a last minute character to run with if you end up short on one of those core roles and don't have enough new players.

I'm totally new to tabletop RPGs, but would love to get involved with this game just to get a go & wrap my heads around the concepts. My long-term goal is to convince real-life friends to play, & I'd presumably have to GM there first. So I'd like to play as a player first to see everything works & this seems like an ideal chance. I'm going to try fudge together a Dwarven Fighter in the next couple of hours & hope to be able to get in on time for the start

Actually I don't think I can this done in time as I've just not gotten my head around the Pathfinder rules (as until all I've read have been D&D4e & nWoD books) nearly enough to be comfortable with it. So I'd just hold things back

@ Caphall, Let me know if you have any questions. We can sort out the rest ingame. @Glorfendill, Thanks. Any help is appreciated. One of my goals with this is to bring community vets together with newbies to help bridge some of the experience gap and help the overall community health. @ Cameron, That's perfectly fine. I dedicate the beginning of the session to helping out with character sheets, and I assume that no player has even seen a character sheet by that point so everyone can learn together. If you have some questions then just ask here and we can clear the rest up later. :)

Oh wow, I just noticed... I've always used the "@" notation to clarify who I'm responding to, but I accidentally forgot a space and just noticed that the result links to profiles. Nice.

Ah, excellent. Well if it's not a problem. I'll still do the "fluff" (for lack of a better term) so I've got something to work from at least. Looking forward to this!

Just have an idea of what you want to play. Everything about making a character gets easier after you've done it once.

I'm still going to do my best and run the game, but my USB controller (or whatever it is) is still crashing and dropping my mouse, mic, and headset. So I may have to reboot now and then.

Here's the link: <a href="https://app.roll20.net/join/62573/M9sU0g" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/join/62573/M9sU0g</a>

Opening the roll20 live app caused my browser to crash out repeatedly. Hopefully I'll be able to get this issue fixed for a future session.

Had a lot of fun at this. Thanks for hosting mate.

I'll put this here to remember! Thank Everis (I think it spell like this?) for the watermelon sharing!

Haha, the watermelon Was good fun playing with everyone, shame I had to leave before the end but damn I was tired

I'm glad everyone enjoyed themselves. Hopefully it will be easier for anyone who hadn't played before to jump into a campaign and have fun without feeling too overwhelmed. :) I'm sorry I didn't see your message Brian. Did other browsers work for you?