Status check

[Joël of the FoS]

It is a little quieter here these days. I guess few people are playing D&D?

Me, I'm in a roll20 Dragonlance game with my usual suspects. It's fun, but we miss real D&D big time.

I do not think I could DM a roll20-based continuation of my RL campaign, as Roll20 is made much more for battle than role play.

So in the meantime, I plan the next arc of my campaign, but since it could be a long time before we play in real, motivation is not high and this project moves very slowly.

And you?

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Same here. One of my players has expressed interest in continuing Ravenloft remotely, but I'm not really relishing the idea. I'd rather play a different campaign and wait for the end of the pandemic to play Ravenloft in person. So my Ravenloft interest is kind of in a holding pattern...

[SkiBird]

I don't post very often, but I do check the FoS boards frequently. I enjoy keeping tabs on the discussions in the Ravenloft Forum.

[DocBeard]

It's been, what, twelve years since I last posted? Wow, time flies.

My Dark Heresy game's finally winding down and I was thinking of what I wanted to run next and Ravenloft was in the top three, so I wanted to take a look at the old place. Imagine my shock that my account's still here! So I've been spending the last few days reading up on all of the old fan-stuff and working on my own ideas on how I'd tweak things for a campaign.

[Strahdsbuddy]

Playing on Roll20 with my original gaming group, we’re in three different countries these days. Brought four of their kids along for the ride, too.

Speaking of kids, I introduced the game to my nephew this Christmas. While he learned fast, he wanted to run a game, so we gathered the family. My dad played for the first time; and he was hot with a d20! At the end of the night he thanked me for teaching him to play “wizard craps.” My sister said it must have been like him and I playing catch for the first time...

Sadly, none of these games are Ravenloft. I’ve been mostly writing for our setting with a QtR article in the works and maybe something for DMs Guild. And also I’ve sent some things to Gonzoron that I hope will be hosted here at the lovely Fraternity! (Subtle enough, Ron?)

[Alastor]

The gaming group I used to lead in person has been remote for almost a year now. We're still able to get a lot out of it: it helps that it is partly over the phone, so we can at least hear each other's voices.

[Mistmaster]

We are playing online with my usual group, no Ravenloft thought.

[DustBunny]

Still breathing, but due to work I have been running around faster than a hamster on an amphetamine and caffine cocktail, and its only getting more hectic for us due to to the bug vaccines finally being shipped out. So no time for our band to engage in "Butt kicking for goodness!", And it just wouldn't be the same if we weren't there in person.

Still, hopefully later in the year we can get back together, finally wind down, and take out our frustrations on whichever administrator errr I mean Darklord who manages to annoy us enough.

[FiranDarcalus]

Hey everyone! Things are going pretty well for me DnD wise. Running my Ravenloft game online w/ my buddies once a month. Been working well. We play through Zoom. DnD's been a bit of a godsend for me. I'm on work sabbatical this year. I work as a school Administrator and we have a sabbatical plan where you work a certain number of yrs at a lesser salary % than your max and bank the balance and then get a year off paid with the balance you saved. Was really jazzed initially as this school year was my year off. Had lots of travel plans, and then COVID happened! We can't change our sabbatical as we've already paid into it, so now that I'm basically trapped in my house (and winter in Montreal means going out is limited unless you ski), running my Ravenloft game has kept me busy.

I find online gaming not quite as fun as in person, but Zoom is a decent platform to play from. Plus, been rereading lots of Ravenloft stuff since I'm sitting in my house most of the time. I will be glad, however, to go back to work in the fall and be busy again (never thought I'd be happy to see all those high school kids again).

Hope all of you are doing well!!

[Mephisto of the FoS]

I had been renovating a house for the past months and moved in a couple of days ago... I was working 12 hours a day to for the past three weeks spackling, grinding and painting walls, so I was checking the forum daily but didn't post much.

As of gaming I haven't played for more than a decade (except a demo session with my girlfriend less than a year ago) but I 've been writing scenarios in case I start playing again. With some friends of mine we have a D.I.Y gig space for more than five years and before the pandemic some of them were interested in playing D&D with me as a DM. None of them has ever played before. But now with the pandemic we don't do gigs and we see each other rarely. Also all of us work as freelance so there is no time to even zoom (in case we wanted). I am supposed to start working next week, online teaching printmaking in a university, so lately I am mostly trying to figure out how to teach a clearly workshop lesson through a webcam lens.

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

I’m running CoS on Roll20. We stated before the first UK lockdown as our host’s dad had a brain tumour and was immunocomprimised. He unfortunately passed during that lockdown.

We’ve been playing on Roll20 for nearly a year now and I started Curse of Strahd the week before Halloween.

It’s going well. But I miss getting around a table.

[Igor the Henchman]

I've been working remotely for a year and only seeing my family and friends through Zoom meetings. Fortunately, that hasn't slowed down our D&D sessions. I'm currently running a weekly Storm King's Thunder campaign and playing in another D&D game at the same time. I've found that just using Zoom works well for D&D as long as you don't mind playing theatre of the mind. I definitely prefer it to Roll20.

But I haven't played Ravenloft in a few years. Maybe the new 5E setting book could change that, who knows?

[onmyoji]

We just started an IRL campaign that'll thread the first four GC modules together (5 and 6 are already planned for the second campaign). If players are interested past NotLD, I might go into the Grim Harvest. We're playing in Pathfinder 2, though. Our group has recently eschewed 5E.

We just started Sunday, and I'm finishing up the in-game-but-public wiki that documents our progress if anyone's interested. Was planning to create a new thread for it once the content is completed.

— onmyoji

[Scipio]

I don't post much but I do lurk. I haven't done any kind of TTRPG stuff in probably over a year because of a) pandemic preventing the group from getting together and b) bipolar kicking my rear section and making me kinda bleh on gaming. Still write a bit now and then, just haven't actually gamed in a while.

[Xararion]

Not much has changed, I lurk on these boards now and then as before, sometimes just forget to do so for a while and rarely post.

Currently playing 5e Curse of Strahd over the web. 5e isn't really my cup of tea as games go, but the GM is doing good job at running atmosphere and our group is good, even if I feel that the 5e CoS feels bit.. padded? Not sure if that's good word here but feels there is lot of only the most vaguely related sidequests.

One benefit of group living scattered cross the globe, game was on the internet even before lockdown.