Dungeons and Dragons Variant: Interest Thread

Dungeons and Dragons, or D&D, is a fun blend of luck, imagination, and storytelling. Players build characters and take on challenges that the Dungeon Master (DM) throws their way in a battle of creativity and wit.

I've been playing Dungeons and Dragons consistently for months now, and it's been an absolute blast. During one of my sessions, our DM took a break from the normal game to introduce us to a small variant known as Super Happy Fun Time. When I explained the game to some friends, we all attempted to try it out together. I gave DM'ing a shot, and apparently I did well enough that they wanted to play again. And again. And again. And so on...

SHFT works in a way that is incredibly simple. Stats are randomly determined, and there are no classes or other sorts of customization aside from character personality. Every game begins the same: you appear in an odd room that exists outside of reality filled with random items. You have a short amount of time to take whatever items you think you can use best before you are thrust into a completely random setting. To win the game, you simply have to escape the location.

The catch on my end is that everything is completely made up on the spot. I go in with absolutely no plans and must improvise everything players encounter. I often have to change ideas and plans in a split second when a player does something that completely screws up my ideas. For example, once my players completely avoided a large boss fight by prying open elevator doors and using tool belts to safely descend down the elevator shaft. I love it when this sort of creativity happens even if it means I have to quickly rethink the situations.

What I want to know is this: Who on Lake Valor would like to take part in this? I'm far from an experienced DM and this is not like normal Dungeons and Dragons at all, but I can promise I'll do my best to make it a fun experience for all involved. You need no prior experience in tabletop games. All you need is some time, a notepad, the ability to use the Discord voice chat, and some creativity.

Please reply to this thread if you're interested so I can see how much I will need to prepare in order to make this a consistent activity. Also feel free to ask any questions. I will attempt to clarify everything as much as possible.

 

So far, I've been using the Discord application to host the events. Two of my players used their phones and it worked perfectly fine. I don't know about your data plans or whatnot, but if you can get the Discord mobile app then your phone should be a viable option.

As far as the question of when goes, I admit I have not planned far ahead. As for where and how long, I can elaborate. I'll be using the Discord chat system since it is not heavy on systems and is reliable. Sessions can take anywhere from half an hour to an hour and a half, which is the longest I've ever had a single game go. It all depends on how the players decide to tackle the challenges. I had one game resolve itself in ten minutes when players got clever and used rising water to float to the surface and escape. Another game that could have been half an hour took much longer because the players made a few wrong turns and tried a bit to hard to search the caverns for traps.

I simply use Discord for easy voice and text communication. I don't need anything aside from direct communication in order for the game to run so there's no other programs to worry about.




I'll start looking into what times will work best for me and I'll also start gather more specifics about the Super Happy Fun Time variant from the creator who introduced it to me. Feel free to ask any more questions you may have in this thread or through PM and I'll do my best to answer them sufficiently.

 

I'm not certain yet. This was only the interest thread. I needed to see if this idea was even feasible. When I know when, I'll do a mention to everyone who's responded to this thread. I might even start a club for D&D.