D&D, VTT, and Me (Part 1)

Back to my own comments,the growth that I have made since as a DM, and how my group is now playing Dungeons & Dragons.

First, as I have said before, I am not an edition warrior. I had wanted to explore my own way to finding a new edition of D&D, trying my best to recreate the style of play that we had when I was a kid and first started playing during the TSR era of D&D. I had pretty much settled on going for a 2e/3x hybrid which I had been working out on my own... then the D&D Next (5e) playtest hit and I found a good base onto which I could bolt on my own hacks (house rules). The basics of the rules, to me, feel like 2e with a move towards the 3e universal mechanic... kind of like D&D 2.5. I have found the addition of the advantage/disadvantage system to be both lite and elegant.

In addition to basically playing D&D 2.5, I have added my own hacks which have sped up play by cutting through the superfluous rolling of dice and by taking mastery of the rules and systems which I have selected upon myself (some of which are based on the work of Zak S, Jeff Reints, Brendan, and others). Some examples are the hacks which are listed under my tabs above (20 Questions, Encumbrance, etc.). A lot of the hacking I have done effects the game that I am running behind the screen, making my life as a DM easier and making the game more fair for my PCs; sometimes random, crazy shit happens and I have a pile of great tables and lists which I have been developing to help me run my campaign instead of just picking what should  happen next ad hoc: I have implemented a system of carefully planned randomness.

My next post will continue my exploration of what is going on in my Saedom campaign and some of the other tools which I have been using to level up my D&D game.