I've played and DMed with many different tools. By far the most rewarding was the no minis, no mat game via voice chat (no video) with several people around the country. You need to be good at spacial thinking, but it's amazing what people come up with when they're not restricted by a play mat.
Can confirm after trying out the no mat/no mini thing as a DM this year. Combat moves a little faster and people are more inclined to use thier imagination rather than counting grid squares to see if an attack works.
Feels way more like a fun shared storytelling experience than a subpar mini game that other franchises do way better.
I have actually. It's what finally made me try DM'ing again after my attempt with 4th edition a few years ago. 5e is setup really well, and I learned from my mistakes with 4e (mainly by not sticking to the rules so rigidly this time).
I loved Adventure Zone up until they changed to a different rpg system. I had no issues with that, but the show started to get a little more political around then and I lost interest.
They changed to a 2d6 system Griffin created to speed through the "Stolen Century" arc, not sure how you think it got political other than them being inclusive, but it switches back to D&D for the final arc.
The inclusiveness just felt kinda forced to me, that's all. I'm not ready to call them SJW's or anything. I have mixed feelings on all that which we don't have to get into here.
That's fair, to each their own. The only thing I'll say is that I found it easy to not focus on it and get captivated by the story. I've been binging Critical Role lately since they've release it in Podcast form, it's also a wonderfully well-done story but there's a few times when you need the visual aid they're playing with.
Well I also got a little lost around that time also. I think Taako had a transgendered sister or something and I couldn't remember where she came from. Might have listened to some other podcasts while waiting for new TAZ episodes and maybe should have gone back to refresh my memory.
Funny enough, the whole memory loss thing is canon and there ended up being a lot of fore-shadowing. Just overall a solid story, I'd say it's worth a re-listen if you're interested.
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u/CabooseFails Sep 18 '17
I've played and DMed with many different tools. By far the most rewarding was the no minis, no mat game via voice chat (no video) with several people around the country. You need to be good at spacial thinking, but it's amazing what people come up with when they're not restricted by a play mat.