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Do you play music whilst playing D&D and if you do is there any particular pieces of music that you play?

http://www.chess.com/tournament/wizards-quotnquot-dragonssorcerers-quotnquot-witchesdark-knights

There are actually several styles of D&D out there, so let me break it down a little bit: 1. One of the forms of D&D is played with miniatures and elaborate setups of battlefields. The miniatures used represented small armies (called "units"); thus, one miniautre often represented many creatures. Moves are declared (i.e. My orcs will attack the elves with swords), each unit's order of play established by random dice rolls (called "initiative"); on each unit's turn, the miniatures were moved accordingly and random dice rolls were used to determine the outcome of the move (i.e. a dice roll would be used to determine how many orcs struck the elves, and how much damage was done to the Elven units). This style of D&D is still played and is sometimes used with Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (see below) to resolve mass combat situations. When the 2nd edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (AD&D) was introduced, the rules for this style of play was rewritten and introduced as "BATTLESYSTEM". 2. D&D, the original, was played according to books. Characters had multiple choice actions that they could take. This is an outmoded and outdated form, replaced by AD&D (Advanced Dungeons and Dragons). I don't think there are any more original D&D players out there any longer, as no one is writing new adventures for this form. 3. AD&D is the most common form of Dungeons and Dragons. It is also, in my opinion, the most fun. With AD&D, a character is generated using random dice rolls. The dice rolls determine several aspects of the character (Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma). From there, a race was chosen (normally Human, Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, Halfing or Elf, though some Dungeon Masters do allow alternate races), and class is chosen. For Class, there are four major groups: Warrior, Wizard, Priest and Rogue. Warriors are your fighters with the most skill in combat but can not use magic, Priests are servants of a diety who use divine magic and have some combat ability, Rogues are your thieves, assassins and bards with little or no magic ability but special stealth and pilphering abilities, and your Wizards are spellcasters who use spells from their own knowledge and study (as opposed to the Priest whose spells are granted to them by a diety). When all of this is completed, the Dunegon Master (DM) prepares an adventure, often creating maps, towns, other characters (played by the DM), etc. The characters are then dropped into the situation. With AD&D, the characters have a full range of actions and options, unlike D&D or BATTLESYSTEM where the options are limited. Thus, a character can run, try to bluff its way of a situation, try to join the enemy, hide, commit suicide; options are limited only by the imagination of the player, the abilities of the character and a few broad limitations set by the rules and/or DM. The most important aspect of this mode of play is called "role playing". You, as the player, get inside the mind of your character and make decisions based on your character's background, experiences, race and other factors. Thus, the characters in a AD&D campaign can be very rich. The successes and failures of actions chosen by the player are most often determined by die rolls. As there is a lot to this game, I don't know where else to go with explaining how the game is played. That is the skeleton of it; we are more than happy to answer any questions you may have.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20001222b/

Earlier this year, Wizards re-released the original AD&D ("1st edition") core rulebooks, featuring original content bound by new cover art: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Product.aspx?x=dnd/products/dndacc/02410000 I didn't interpret this as an attempt to breath new life into a decades-old platform. Why compete against yourself when your current edition is already starting to lose ground to the competition? But I did think it was a neat nod to nostalgia - or to be more jaded, a cash-grab based on selling coffee-table books to people who did most of their RPGing in the 80s. But now they are rereleasing the books for 3.5 - and maybe other stuff from that edition as well!: http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4news/20120625 Now I don't know what to think. This, of course, was the edition that Pathfinder used as a point of departure... So is this meant to staunch the heavy flow of gamers from D&D to PFRPG? Is Wizards embracing the idea that they can hold ground by supporting semi-discrete gamer-communities on three (?) generations of the platform, just by keeping the core materials in circulation? Or... cash grab?  :)

Hey, guys, Rumple has never played, period. He is in Puerto Rico and D&D just isn't as big there as it is here. So, he has a group of friends and he wants to play.

Ok, im creating my first character. I choose to rolled 3d6 12 times and choose the best 6. Now, here are what i rolled! 1. 13 2. 14 3. 9 4. 11 5. 12 6. 15 7. 12 8. 13 9. 12 10. 6 11. 8 12. 4 Please help me choose which of the numbers i should use and where! Thanks in advance!

The following guidelines have been bouncing around from one group to another, shameless stolen and reposted; sometimes slightly modified. I am posting it here, not to create hard and fast rules for vote chess, but just for the group to think about and ponder. Vote chess can be very beneficial for learning; but it can lead to some real disagreements and infighting within a group. These proposed guidelines are to help each other work as a team in Vote Chess and avoid the unpleasant encounters that sometimes occur when people disagree. None of this is to be considered "official" until they have been discussed, agreed upon, and approved by the Super-Admin. * Individuals can suggest one or more moves - preferably with plenty of time to go. The moves are discussed and analysed, and the preferred moves will become obvious - and why. * During the first move of a Vote Chess game, one member will volunteer to be the group leader. If there is no volunteer, this duty will fall upon the Vote chess Coordinator. * The best result is where everyone agrees on a single move - everyone then votes for that move. The Leader will judge between the suggested moves and will give a FINAL CALL in BOLD LETTERS for one predecided move, recommended by the majority during the 24 hrs remaining (as further explained below). Members are encouraged to follow the leader and submit their vote as FINALLY CALLED by the leader. In case of dispute, members may vote for their own move, BUT it is always in the interest of the group that EVERYBODY FOLLOW the leader's final call. LEADER is expected to be neutral and willing to give final call even against his own wish if THE MAJORITY demands. Members are always free to contact the Super-Admin if they feel that the Leader is not being neutral and impartial. Super-Admin will adjudicate such disagreements.* At times, participants will disagree with the leader. When this is the case, participants may vote on which one they feel is the best.* People's geographical locations need to be taken into consideration - allow them time to read and comment.* Please do not vote until the last 24 hours of the game - this is to allow good discussion and preferred move/s to become clear. It is acknowledged that time zones may mean you have to vote with a lot of hours to go...* Exceptions to the above are if you know you're not going to be around in the last 24 hours, if there's a clear path to forced mate or if there's general consensus in the discussion to vote early for other reasons.* When discussing moves, please refer to them by their move number and using proper algebraic notation.

I posted this forum topic in my former D&D group. I am brining over the comments we shared there: CaptainPike wrote:My favorite character is Audey Smith. (Yeah, I'm not so creative with names. My players have stopped picking on me about that. I am a good DM and have great imagination elsewhere. But names? Forget it)!Audey was raised in Istan with his parents, Robert (LG Fighter) and Susan (NG Wizard). He has a sister, Ashley (NG Priest).Audey is an unexpected favorite character. He's a thief, which is my least favorite class to play. He's also not very powerful.Audey has tons of personality, though. He has nerves of steel when it comes to slinking and sneaking; but in actual combat, Audey is a coward! I don't know how many times Audey will be in a fight (he won't run unless he's dying, so he's not a complete wimp) and be screaming, "Steve! Sam! Someone! Help! Help me! He's killing me! Helllp!" Audey can be winning the fight and still swear up and down he was getting killed!He's the funloving rogue, for the most part. Just takes life as it comes, and moves on. On one particular adventure, they came accross a village that no one knew was there. These were simple folk, living much as the old Nordic peoples lived. In his attempt to procure information about their surroundings, who these people were, where they came from, etc, Audey decided that the ones who have the loosest tongues were children. So, he gathered a bunch of junk, and started playing with the village children; tumbling routines, funny stories, juggling the junk he collected, and teaching the kids to juggle and play his lute. Audey, I think, had more fun than the kids!He has great stats for burglary (traps, shadows, silent, locks) but can't pick the purse of a corpse.He's great fun.Po218 wrote:It has been more than 20 years since I played the game. My characters were usually lawful neutral or lawful good (?reflection of my desire for law and order?). I tended toward LN so that I have more freedom to act independently. I preferred warriors (straight to the point?), but liked the offshoots (paladins, monks, rangers-especially rangers). (Reflections of loner?) I had played a cleric several times.Memories:I once lost a good character (paladins) because my companion refused to back down against a impossible opponent. The creature was too high for our level and willing to parlay with us when my companion attacked against my protests. As a lawful good character, I chose to die uselessly rather than abandon my companion. What a shame.Another time, I lost a good character by destroying a tree that had grabbed me instead of applying patience before acting. I could have waited since I had not really been attacked but merely grabbed. My spell burnt the tree fullfully and instantly, however, the forest I was in turned against me and destroyed me in next with overkill x4 or so. Another time, I had a character be visited in a dream by a powerful creature. I rashly refused to give up my sleep shooing him away. Offended, the creature sent a minion to destroy me. Only begging and willingness to disfigure my character by removing and gifting a body part allowed my character to live. Later, when the episode was a faint memory the DM had our party facing a creature that caused damage mostly based on that body part. The creature attacked the whole parting resulting in massive damage to all, to which I replied that I took half-damage based on my previous encounter and the DM awarded me with many extra points for outthinking his creature....A different, but similiar game (cannot remember the name) had various alien creatures. I chose an insect like creature. One of my companions really gave the DM a hard time to the point he incurred some vengence from the DM. The companion forced the DM to seemingly kill him. At that point, being an insect, I chose to not let the body go to waste. So unbeknowst to the companion/player I passed a note to the DM stating that I cut off a nice finger, began roasting it over a fire, and ate it. Delicious. I would have continued, only the seemingly dead character was not really dead and regained consciousness. The other companions and I spent the rest of the adventure avoiding the subject of how he lost his finger.Fun times. I really do not play anymore.jpd303 wrote:slick willie tarson the "legitimate businessman"..a fighter/thief with the gift of gab. he could sell snow to a white dragon. in the early levels he peddled snake oils as magical potions and tacos as lich detectors. later on as he became freakin awsome at high levels he had a chance to pull out random magical items that he could sell...sometimes they stayed magical but often the enchantment wore off and the buyers would come looking for him..luckily he had an ogre magi fighter/thief bodyguard that was never very far from slick willie. once around level 10 the group took down a small army controled by a "powerful" (lv15) wizard in the loot i somehow won 101 +1 awl pikes...i was still trying to sell those damn pikes for another 6-7 levels.. we finally ended up using them as part of a plan to kill a rabid bronze dragon..theres sooooo much more to willie he became a longstanding NPC character in the questlines of just about every DM from the group. he was started in 2.0 AD&D and in some incarnation was last seen in late 3.5 D&D..

Given my recent experience with D&D 4e "Encounters" (pretty darn negative), and my reading through the rulebooks for Pathfinder RPG ("OMG, this is the game I hoped AD&D would evolve into!"), I was interested to see this website report that the upstart break-away Pathfinder (derived from D&D 3.5) was neck-and-neck with D&D in 2010 Q3! I love it. http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/18504.html

bad idea #1 i was playing a svirfneblin (deep gnome) fighter/thief 16/16 in an epic level quest (back in 2nd ed. long before epic rules were ever published)...we came into a room full of crystal skulls with ruby eyes, like 10 of em...i had never heard of a demi-lich before, but i learned quickly that they dont like having thier ruby eyes pried out with a vorpal short sword by a thieving little svirfneblin. on top of the fact that i had 10 lv25 demi-liches casting various nasty high lv spells on me, i had an insidious EVIL DM who thought that he'd have a good laugh with my stupidity...long story shortened up some, i ended up in the nine hells, polymorphed into a pink bunny, "insane with lust," and soul-bound some demon...ahhh good times..... etc #1 i had this player, great guy, good player, fun to be aroud, but he was also kindda slow, often intoxicated, and spoke with a lisp. he was complaining one night that he didnt have a magical battle ax...but he kept saying magical battle ASS...an i knew what he wanted of course but i kept repeating "so you want a magical battle ass right" and he would comfirm "Yeths i wan a mashical battle ASS" so i made him role a % die...pow he rolled a 1...so i gave him a plaid, steel hooved, fanged magical attack doney...a magical battle ass! he wasnt amused much but everyone else got a good laugh out of it and he ended up using that donkey for very long time and it became its own little NPC/player companion.

hi anyone want to play a D&D mobile version?no dice or anything needed play on the go,on your mobile!Get in touch with me to play,your new Dungeon Master!

http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/wayoflife/06/08/new.dungeons.dragons/index.html I guess this is some self-contained, just-add-water, simplified application of the 4e rule-set in what oldies like me would probably identify as adventure modules... Anybody tried this version of the game?

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... I'd want to ask him what his whole big issue was with magic-users using swords & such. Srsly, why not? Gandalf used a sword! That always bugged me a little. Also, why did alignments have *languages*?? That's just crazy - especially given how you'd spontaneously forget one lexicon/grammar and learn another if you started acting a little too chaotic to be truly 'lawful evil' part-way through a campaign. [shrugs] Ah, who knows.. It seems heretical to say it somehow, but maybe I'd actually enjoy D&D4e... Of course, I'm sure it has it's share of WTF rules as well. (?) :) (It's nice there's a group/forum where I can get stuff like this off my chest without having to take a beating.)

I started playing D&D back in the late 1970s and was instantly hooked. I played virtually everyday throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. Now I only get to play a few times a year with my best friend but I still enjoy creating dungeons and adding to the fantasy world that we created years back. When we started playing regularly we took it in turns to be the dungeon master and many, if not most sessions, were created off the cuff however this did not deter our the enjoyment of the game. After a while certain places reoccurred in adventures and I decided to gather up all this information and to create a map of the land where most of our adventures were taking place. In my adventures I have been to many places and faced many challenges and I'll be letting you know more as time goes by. Let me know how you got into D&D and if you still play.

Which authors or books have given you inspiration whilst playing D&D? Obviously The Lord of the Rings is a good one but I also got a lot of my inspiration when designing dungeons from Michael Moorcock and his Eternal Champion books.