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10 months ago ::
Sep 11, 2012 - 12:07PM
#11
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I like how 4E Essentials gave us 'games in a box'.
Even if you just get the Red Box (it's cheap) it will give you tokens for players and for monsters. It also has a map that you can use for other encounters.
I have the Dungeon Master's Kit and Monster Vault as well, so that adds a lot of tokens for me. That starts to get expensive if you don't plan on playing 4E however.
For me 4E is still a better fit for my game since my daughter was drawn to the game because of the maps and figures.
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10 months ago ::
Sep 11, 2012 - 12:31PM
#12
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Ohh...I forgot to mention something. Like others have said, Next does not need figures and battlemats. That's the basic idea of D&D Next. The tatical combat like we see in 4E is going to be in optional additions to the core materials.
To start cheap, just get some graph paper to go with the dice, pencils, pens, and notepads that you probably already have. The caves and maze from the adventure that came with the playtest are not easy to map, so you may not even want to try to match square for square what's in the adventure. I just draw the area of the encounter and make circles for the monsters. Then we keep track of what's left by putting an X in the dead monsters.
Someone else mentioned a dry erase battle mat. You can get one for about $20 from Amazon if you don't have a brick and mortar store near you. Even if you don't use miniatures you'll find uses for the mat for sharing notes and not using up a lot of paper.
You can make a quick DM screen if you find your wife keeps looking at your notes and maps. You can use a folder open on the table, or just keep your papers in the folder and close it when you don't need to look at them.
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10 months ago ::
Sep 12, 2012 - 5:23AM
#13
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Date Joined:
Aug 29, 2012
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Thank you, @OrkBard. I'm rather late to the party, but I'm here and willing to contribute what I have to offer. I'll shop local where possible and move out beyond that as necessary. It just helps a great deal if I have some idea what it is I am looking for.
@EpicFreak, thank you. I'm simply unclear as to how to begin. I regret that I am so stupid and unimaginative as to be able to pick it all up just from the test packet, but I will give it my best shot. While my wife and I are both avid readers, neither one of us are avid writers. If I do the 'theater of the mind' thing with my wife, she will not participate. She can't. Sorry. Both of us are too old and stupid to hang out with the l33t girls & boys. Perhaps this is not the game for us. That is what I hope to find out.
The main point is for us to be socializing with real people rather than interacting with them in MMO's and such. I'm still trying to feel my way through what makes sense for us, and what does not. Playing just the two of us may help me understand 5e better for playing with a 5e group, but the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing, and just her and I playing isn't the main thing. The group we are currently with wants to remain with 3.5e, and I have to pick & choose my battles. Thank you for speaking honestly, and honestly it appears my wife and I are simply too stupid and lacking in imagination to meddle with 5e at this time.
@MindWandererB, Theater of the mind does have value, and my approach is from the two games of 3.5e I have played with a group plus my reading of the 3.5e material. That has a huge impact on how I think things are supposed to work, so I'm willing to accept that my presumptions about 5e are not correct. I'll have to read through the material again. As I mentioned in reply to @EpicFreak, I may have to simply shelf 5e for keeping the focus on the group I'm with and what they wish to play. If things don't pan out with that specific group, I'll have to see what other groups we would wish to participate in and what they are doing. Dear God I hope I don't end up having to learn to knit and crochet. :p
Thank you for the link. I think I'll have to bookmark it and go back to it. I checked out D&D Online out of curiosity, and my wife started to play to see it as well. Unfortunately, she gets seasick with the full 3d stuff. I suggested that it may be more useful if she and I were to have our own game sessions. After some thought, this morning she suggested that once a month of D&D is enough for her, and she does want to try it and be involved, but she's getting her fill of the stuff. The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. Getting out with a social group is the main thing, and the current social group is 3.5e.
So... that kinda puts a kill on the 5e explorations as this time. I'm still very interested, but all I can do is all I can do. If the group doesn't pan out in social stimulation, meeting the primary goal of bothering with any of this, I'll have to revisit 5e and see if there are groups testing it that I can look into. And thank you for the link... sorry, I'm exhausted from a long day at work and I either respond with an incoherent ramble or I can't respond at all until the end of the weekend, which is too long to wait. I value your kind comments and reference to useful links.
And thank you, MrHotter. I don't think my wife would look at the stuff she's not supposed to see. A more important problem is that she is getting her fill of D&D stuff from me stewing over it, so I'm going to have to leave it alone and not involve or discuss specifics about the game with her until game night with our 3.5e group so she would be able to enjoy it. In light of my discussion with her this morning (our 'evening' as we just got off work) I don't think the one-on-one game with her is going to be an issue after all.
I should be asleep, I'll stop rambling now.
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10 months ago ::
Sep 12, 2012 - 5:40AM
#14
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One other thing you should do is look for a Gaming/Comic/Hobby store. It's a good place, most of the time, to meet new players. Or at least a good start.course use you can drag some other friends into it. That's what I did.
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10 months ago ::
Sep 12, 2012 - 10:38AM
#15
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Date Joined:
Sep 20, 2010
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@DontEatRawHagis you have a bold idea I ought to look at. I don't know if Paizo still makes what you said, but I ought to be able to get a small table size plain dry-erase board, score a 1" grid on it, and I can bring it to Game Night or have for my personal use at home. I can see possibilities with a 'homebrew' battle board, and I can use that for 5e testing.
Watch out for making grids on white boards. They can be trouble, even if you have a permanent marker grid it can get rubbed off.
Here is a link to the Paizo board if your still interested.
paizo.com/products/btpy8oto?GameMastery-...
Ant Farm
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10 months ago ::
Sep 12, 2012 - 2:07PM
#16
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Date Joined:
Aug 29, 2012
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@Orkbard Thank you. There are several such stores in our area, one in particular I'm familiar with. Hopefully the current group we are with will fulfill the social need, and that will be that. I can keep appraised of 5e changes and see how things go. @DontEatRawHagis, I was thinking of scoring into the surface and using permanant marker into the scoring, but that's an idea I'll have to save for when there is a need of it. If wishes were fishes, I'd spring for buying out Dwarven Forged.  Thank you everyone for your input. I just have to keep focused on the point of the exercise, which is not to play D&D as such, but to find and be in a good social group doing something I enjoy. I'd really like to be part of the 5e experience, especially from what parts of it that I could wrap my mind around. Time changes things. We'll see how it works out.
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10 months ago ::
Sep 12, 2012 - 2:12PM
#17
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@DontEatRawHagis you have a bold idea I ought to look at. I don't know if Paizo still makes what you said, but I ought to be able to get a small table size plain dry-erase board, score a 1" grid on it, and I can bring it to Game Night or have for my personal use at home. I can see possibilities with a 'homebrew' battle board, and I can use that for 5e testing.
Watch out for making grids on white boards. They can be trouble, even if you have a permanent marker grid it can get rubbed off.
Here is a link to the Paizo board if your still interested.
paizo.com/products/btpy8oto?GameMastery-...
They also have the roll up battlemats which I've used for years. You can use washable crayola markers and they will come right off every time. Also, a lot more portable than some of the others.
www.amazon.com/Chessex-Role-Playing-Play...
My two copper.
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10 months ago ::
Sep 12, 2012 - 3:10PM
#18
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They also have the roll up battlemats which I've used for years. You can use washable crayola markers and they will come right off every time. Also, a lot more portable than some of the others.
www.amazon.com/Chessex-Role-Playing-Play...
My prefered choice for mats. Though mine has a fading permanent maker, sharpie I think, mark on it from when I wasn't paying attention and started drawing the gangplank for a ship and realized, or it was pointed out, what I was begining to draw with.
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10 months ago ::
Sep 12, 2012 - 3:21PM
#19
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They also have the roll up battlemats which I've used for years. You can use washable crayola markers and they will come right off every time. Also, a lot more portable than some of the others.
www.amazon.com/Chessex-Role-Playing-Play...
My prefered choice for mats. Though mine has a fading permanent maker, sharpie I think, mark on it from when I wasn't paying attention and started drawing the gangplank for a ship and realized, or it was pointed out, what I was begining to draw with.
Every Battlemap has at least one
My two copper.
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10 months ago ::
Sep 12, 2012 - 3:26PM
#20
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Finally you could go the extreme option, like I did, and make/buy a complete table made for RPGs. Geek Chic is famous for theirs, but there are other brands out there. Me? I made mine. 8x4 with a glass top, grid underneath. Pull out drawers and cup holders as well. Finally, A DM space and a TV that connects to my macbook for displaying pics, playing music, and showing the initiative order But that's only if you are harcore lol. This is my setup btw, not some pic off the net lol. 
My two copper.
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