First time running a game on roll20

Hey everyone! I've been very busy with work!  Which is good, as I've been enjoying it so very much. Unfortunately I haven't really been able to blog much.  My day off is Wednesdays, and for the last few weeks I've honestly been a fog trying to figure out what to do.  Finally decided I"ll try my hand at running an afternoon game on roll20.  I originally I thought about running a few of the Thunderrift modules.  However the first one I picked wasn't quite up to snuff, writing wise (no offence), it just felt like it needed a bit of a rewrite and was way too much prep for me.

I decided to make a change, and run an adventure in Mystara.  Specifically "the eye of traladar", which is super cool (albeit railroadey).  This morning I"m doing a re-read and getting a few things prepped.  As is typical I over prep.  We are going to play for about 2 hours, and I'm sure I have more than enough game to run for that. 

In other news I received a nice package with a TON of AD&D stuff.  I've got so much gaming material now!  I haven't quite decided if I'm going to create a homebrew world or just start incorporating all these cool bits and pieces.  I suppose time will tell.  In the meantime I'm going to delve deeply into Mystara.  It's funny how when you read a little thing and your like "wow okay, that is a great backstory for this, or that".  It gets the wheels turning!

Another fun fact, yesterday was Moldvay's birthday, and I think its appropriate that I'm running his rules today!  I was originally going to run 2e on roll20, but got very annoyed with the 2 character sheet options provided.  Neither was basic enough, and there was bits and pieces of skills & powers included in the sheets (of which I'm not going to run).  Long story short I realized that running b/x is the easiest thing for roll20.  The sheets are great, I have some backstories setup.  As well the sheets do all the math for rolls for yah, so it makes it easy for players who don't quite get "roll under" and descending armour class.  I even setup a basic monster sheet for myself that will allow me not to have to worry about the math (although its pretty easy). 

Anyways, this is going to be fun!  Thankfully I have some ice in the fridge for the scotch I'm going to pour myself. 

Epic conundrum

I had a wonderful session last night with the "Monday Night Miserable Bastards".  Lots of roleplaying, a lil exploration, a bit o' accounting.  I'll write up a play report tomorrow hopefully.

What I wanted to discuss today, is the fact that I didn't sleep last night.  I stayed up awhile thinking about running a game on roll20.  As you all well know I'm a big fan of Advanced Fighting Fantasy (as it was the first game I ever ran).  What I was thinking about was spending the time to work on the Blacksand adventure in roll20.  There's lots of little nice maps in the book that could be scanned or recreated for parts of the adventure (the battle ones could be done with pyromancers). 

The adventure (and most of the aff releases) were a bit of a railroad but fun nonetheless.  While I like all of the implementations that were done in Version 2 of AFF, I personally feel that the original rules would be perfect for a roll20 game.  It's just a bit more rules light.  The only real issue is the leveling up. 

In the newer version, during combat you roll to see who hits, and then how much damage and or reduction of damage happens.  This is a lot of rolls per person.  In the original I believe that all damage was 2, but if you tested your luck you could do 3.  Which is fine.  The combat is still quite deadly. 

Basically AFF2.0 is a bit fiddly, although not that bad.  I just think it might be a bit too fiddly for online play.  Speaking from having played Basic D&D, anything more than that might be quite time consuming. 

As well having the rules readily available for the players.  I do have a copy of the basics of AFF version 1 that I could kinda modify for the campaign, and I may just do that.

Of course I'm thinking far too ahead, but I do like the idea of slow prep.  Even if its just for giggles in front of a computer.

I suppose time will tell.  I do have some other more pressing work to get on before this.  Oh and I realized exactly how the next Isle of Dread session is going to go.

Finally figured out what I'm going to do when the PCs show up in Tanora. Originally I was going to have the natives on the beach with home made spears looking all concerned (but not outright aggressive) But I figured that would just start a fight. That said They haven't actually had a fight yet. So I think what I'll do is as the boat is coming ashore, they will notice the village is over run by giant lizards. This will hopefully create a bond with the villagers.

Well that was rambly wasn't it!