An Introduction to Dungeons and Dragons Why hello again Roll20! Finn's Weekly One-Shots are back, and this time with an updated process and a completely new set of adventures to explore! Beginning on July 1st I will be hosting two One Shots (Single sessions D&D games) each weekend for new and experience players alike. The games I run aim to allow players to get a taste of as many aspects of the game as possible during a 3 to 4 hour session, while at the same time exploring a unique and ( hopefully ) memorable story. So If you're interested in giving D&D a chance, want to explore something new, or are maybe just looking for a chance to escape from behind the DM screen (I know your pain), continue on to the next section, because this is the game for you! What I'm looking for... In D&D the Dungeon Master may create the world, but it's the Players that give it life. So as I look through those applying to my games I try to pick the ones I think are the most enthusiastic about the game. Be that someone who has never even heard of Roleplaying games before deciding to try out Roll20, or someone who started back in 1974. To me it doesn't matter if you know the rules by heart or have no idea what a d20 is. If you're excited to play and willing to give it a whirl, I'm know we'll have a great game! I'll take care of everything else :) 18+ How I Run My Games Scheduling - I aim to run games every Saturday, from July 1st to August 26th. The games will begin at 5pm ADT and run for an estimated time of 3 to 4 hours (or until completed). Forming the Team - My process/schedule for setting up my One Shots: Mon - Recruiting Tues - Recruiting Wed - Final Roster Choices Thur - Character Creation Fri - Team 1/2 Ice Breaker Sat - Team 1 Sun - Team 2 (if demand warrants one) + The Reset Recruiting - I try to operate on a First Come First Serve basis. However, this game is advertised as a game to help beginners. For that reason players with under 100 hours of clocked time are given first priority on the first day of recruitment. I try my best to respond to all applications within a timely manner regardless of acceptance, however please bare with me as delays have occurred during times of high volume. * Reservations - Once the recruiting phase for a week's game is complete, all remaining applicants that I was unable to fit into the game will be notified and (in descending order) be given the option to reserve a spot in the following weeks game. The spot will than be held until the Tuesday of the following week. If I don't receive confirmation before the the cut off, the spot will be lost and given to the next available player. Doing thisI can guarantee that ALL players that apply get a chance to play! ** If Volume Increases - One blessing/curse I had last time I ran this event was that I had so many players applying that I ended up filling multiple weeks with only one Listing. To help prevent that I've already allotted some time towards running a Friday Session that will allow me to take on 5 more players /week. This game only opens pending demand. Character Creation - As each player is accepted they're given both a Discord Server Link and a Game Link. They can then enter the game and claim a character sheet. Players can either than complete the sheet by themselves, or wait until Thursday and ask for a walk through of the character sheet. Preferably everyone's sheet is done by Thursday night so that we don't have to spend any time during the Ice Breaker, however often times that doesn't happen, so don't sweat it. Ice Breaker - optional - Playing with complete strangers can be a little intimidating, especially during session 1. To help get out any nerves and to help people get excited for the following days game I like to host a small optional Ice Breaker for my players to become comfortable with each other and introduce each others character. These things usually go for about an hour, in which we generally just spend the time ironing out any character sheet glitches while I show off some of the sites features and give the players a little bit of insight into the world they'll be playing in. I have been known to give out little bonuses to those who show up / have put some the extra effort into filling their character sheets ;) (I.E. Information/Secrets/Mini Prologue Sessions). The Games - As mentioned above the game will start at 5:00pm ADT (unless otherwise decided upon). Each game has a lot of adventure to get through and not a huge amount of time to do so ( The hours FLY by ), so it would great if everyone could be online and in a call prior about ten minutes before game time to ensure we can start on time. Personally I like to be around about an hour beforehand just to do some run through of my prep and get my head on straight. Often times I've taken advantage of this time to work with any players who were unavailable to complete their sheets during the before mentioned time slots. * Making It Up As We Go - One of the coolest things about D&D is the fact that the Narrative is developed by a group. In long term campaigns one of the most powerful ways this manifests itself in the Backgrounds the players write and submit to the DM that they than slowly introduced into the world over the campaign. Sadly, we don't have sessions upon sessions to explore the beautifully complex and inevitably unfortunate history's of each of our PC's (Player Characters). So to make up for that I do something a bit different... ** Improvise - A big hurdle when playing One - Shots is that all the players need to start either in a group or with at least a common goal. It's hard to act as a party if they have precisely 0 history with each. So to remedy that I take the first 20-30 minutes of our game to go around the table and ask a series of questions to each of the players. The questions are meant to prompt each player into figuring out a reason for how and why they ended up in the situation they did. The vary from easy ones like "Where are you right now?" (forest) to things like "Whats wrong?" (the forest is on fire). Throw in a couple d20 'luck' rolls to help keep things interesting and the narrative just starts flowing. I've variations of success with this method, anything from the summary of entire first level adventure with inside jokes that continued to come up for the remainder of the game, to the story of how a tiefling lost his tail to a crocodile and is now owed compensation by the adventurers. Its all up to how creativity of the party. The Reset - The Reset is the day that I conclude one teams adventure and begin the next. On this day I clear out the game of all players, post the next weeks listing. Every week I run this game for a completely new team of players. This means during the short span of about 4-5 days I need to be able to post my listing, screen players, make a final decision for my roster, work with each player to create their character/sheet and than finally introduce them to each other for a quick icebreaker. And this all needs to happen before the Saturday of each week. So to ensure that this always goes as smoothly as possible I make a point to focus on only one group at a time. This means if you find yourself on placed in the following week's game, it's unlikely you'll hear much from me at all until the Reset rolls around and your week begins. The End - Each session is designed to have a beginning and a conclusion during the same session. Which is the nature of a One - Shot. The In the event that we run out of time or the party is unsuccessful in completing the task they are tasked with, an attempt will be made to reschedule the game to a separate time for the following week. This doesn't always pan out however as matching up five peoples schedules is no easy feat. Simply keep in mind that Failure is possible. Some teams may die, some party members may fall, some people have bed times. All you can do as a player is to give it your all and try to have fun whilst doing so, no matter the outcome. How to Apply Follow the link below to find the application page. <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/5216286/applications-july-1st" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/5216286/applications-july-1st</a> Available Games July 15th - Welcome to Pommeville (Lvl 3) July 16th - The Emerald Heist (Lvl 3)