How do you play D&D?

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Hi all, I was thinking about hwo people play D&D. This can be very different per group I suppose. Is there something you always do before playing, to get in the mood? And in what environment do you play? We play in a dark room, with some small candles, a very big candle on the table in the center and with new age music, very calming, slow music of piano and flute, with natural sounsd from see, rivers, wind, birds etc. This creates a cool environment that makes it way easier to forget all and totally concentrate on the game.

And another question: Beer and D&D, is it a bad combination? We found out the first time that after we all had 3 bottles of half a liter beer, after a few hours we started to become less serious, however this can also be cause of the time we already played. At least we now restricted it all a bit, one beer when we eat before we play, and one beer (all bottles of half a liter Grolsch) while we play, and when you have more thirst, drink some coke. How do you think about this?

A last thing is just a funny thing a player in our group told me, one time the DM had smoked some Marihuana before playing. They came in a prisma with all different colors, and the most vague creatures did appear Never do that, DM's

 

To each their own. I have to agree that beer (and strong things) don't mix well this gaming. Anyone that doesn't play will laugh but playing well takes a lot of concentration. Drinking tends to limit you ability to concentrate for a long period of time. We usually have a ton of snack food and lots of soda or juice to consume during play.

As for here - it's nothing like what you do. I played for years in my buddy's basement on card table sitting in lawn chairs so the current environment is great. You usually play in someone's living room or at the park in nice weather. There some messing around before we start, playing video games, chatting, etc, but once we begin we stay rather serious for the entire session unless be break for dinner. A session lasts around 6 hours which appears to be the right amount of time. I think I could go 8 to 9 but that's hard now when you have a busy life.

 

Being a college student our playing enviroment is usually a cramped dorm with people on beds, chairs and the floor and a battle mat in the middle. We usually begin around 8 or 9 so the sessions don't last more then 4 or 5 hours (morning classes). No alcohol, but lots of caffine is consumed. There's a fair amount of goofing around, but we get the job done.

 

We always play at my house on Monday evenings, crammed in my teeny living room, usually with a pizza or something located centrally. There's some low music to provide background, like some Bach, or a soundtrack, or something heavy-classical. Lights are normal, beer is a big no-no, mainly because we only get to play one night a week, and if we drank we'd lose concentration. Beer is for the parties we have on weekends. Lots of tea and 7-11 coffee is consumed, and one of the group always drinks pineapple soda. This is a good topic, I was curious about it too.

 

In college, we always gathered in the lounge area around a pizza too. For the more battle-oriented adventures, we usually had the Imperial March in the background. And of course plenty of caffeine, although our sessions didn't usually last over five hours.

 

Haha the Imperial March! I love it. But even that gets repetitive over time :sad:, fortunately there are tons of other good Star Wars tracks . Hmm Star Wars music and D&D, that might be a good combo...

 

It is! Of course, Star Wars music and *anything* makes a great combo.

Imperial March wearing on you? Get the techno version! Sorry I don't have time to dig it up right now, maybe Thursday I'll find it for you. It's pretty sweet.

 

We normally gather Saturdays at 1pm in the basement area of a small school, which also serves as a youth recreation center. We put a large black bed sheet over a table tennis table, and put the DM at one of the short ends. We normally play 9-10 hours with a pizza break around 6pm. The school setting has some good advantages, like the extra room with the pool table where the DM can send players who for one reason or other shouldn't hear what's being said at the main table.

There have been players who have brought alcohol to sessions, but when some drink and others don't it's not even amusing. The drinking players get unconcentrated, start talking of irrelevant stuff, and it's generally hard to keep focused. Thus, when I DM, I never let my players drink.

For music, we've used some different stuff, but my favorite is the "official D&D music" supplied with the old Red Steel Campaign Setting. Great stuff!

 

I already noticed one thing:

The D&D-players are the main fundation of the pizzerias

We play on Wednesday, all pizza's 4 dollar

As I think, one beer is no problem, ik makes me even shaper I noticed. More beers is bad for concentration so that is no good. You all should really try not too loud music with sounds of nature and relaxing music, it works great. Btw, we play usually from 7-12, 5 hours.

 

Yeah, PnP stands for pencil and pizza doesn't it? We used to play on the floor, with paper maps and metal figures and 2 cans lager each. Funniest session was a helluva battle when, after 1 hour of dice rolling and with most of the party down to a couple of HPs the bad guy went down at last.
Everyone yelled: "Yowie! Gottcha! Take that you @*%#!" which woke the (real)cat sleeping by the hearth, which dashed panick stricken across the battlefield scattering figures in all directions. You had to be there.

 

We play mainly on weekends in daylight. Though I also play Vampire and I like to play it at night. We drink some wine, it hasn't any negativ effects in most cases.

 

I only started playing today but me and my freind (we're only 11) played just in my lounge room.

Pen and Paper is soooo much better than the computer games

Cheers, Void.

 

Well I dont do alchohol (too good of an athlete for it) or new age music, or creepy candle stuff. We just sit around my house and play. The braveheart soundtrack is good for non-combat times, and a little Linkin Park or Papa Roach anything like that for battles.

 

Ah sice the break up of college a lot of my friends have moved away, my DM friend lives up the road, but the others can make it only every fortnight, who cares we roleplay for a whole weekend!.
Saturday 6-7 hour roleplay session, with Pizza or chinese being conshumed in-between, then its time for beer, night clubs are most savagly thrashed.
Sunday hangovers solved, we moveon to another session to conclude the weekend, which is agaim 6-7 hours, this time with KFC or McDonalds being consumed, more beer and lotsa sleep, friends leave early monday morning, in fact next week is roleplay Weekend.

We play in the living room with Metalica for battle and anything soft inbetween.

Beer is forbidden during session, but junk food is a happy substitute.

 

Some people in my party think it's hard to concentrate really on the game so you can really become the character you play when you play rock music loud, so I'll keep the rockmusic for another time