On April 11th, 2022, I started a 5e playthrough of Curse of the Crimson Throne via Discord, Fantasy Grounds, and Syrinscape, streaming each game to YouTube.  We just finished on our 56th session tonight.  I also did an 'after stream', which someone on Reddit said would be wildly famous and very useful.

Thoughts...

1) Converting 3.5e to 5e didn't really work very well.  I started using pure monster and item swaps (minotaur for minotaur), which seemed promising.  The farther along we got the less and less it made sense.  The 3.5 paradigm of needing a ton of XP to level meant zillions of enemies the party had zero difficulty dispatching.  I wound up cutting almost all of those towards the end.  A party of seven level 17s doesn't need to bother with Bullywugs anymore.  It 'worked' but not better than running a sandbox would have worked.

2) Fantasy Grounds was great when it was working.  Most of my issues were either with the addon modules (Portals I'm looking at you) or undocumented changes to the application being made mid-game.  Having to help players keep their fat clients up to date has always been a pain, too.  I'm switching to Foundry for cost and convenience reasons.

3) Syrinscape wasn't ultimately worth it. It seemed great when shiny and new but quickly caused as much stress as it added value.  I was on the monthly sub and I cancelled it tonight.  Their pre-recorded voice actor reads weren't usable at all.  They were well recorded, but players tend to go 'wait, what did she say' in the middle, and there's no way to back up just a few seconds.  I wound up reading all those myself.  I made a python-driven web frontend for my players to do their own sounds, and 'fart' was the only one that got much use at all.  Also, a lot of the combat sound sets seemed cluttered.  I would switch off most of the groans and grunts about five minutes in.  Finally, digging into the XML shows me that most of the non-in-house sounds are Creative Commons licensed, and I can go accumulate that collection myself.  I've already started using some of it for my TV-table Rifts campaign.

4) It could well have been my last game of D&D, ever.  It's time to ditch the dragon.  More on that later.  I'm a bit melancholy about it, but I proudly reflect on all the logged hours.

5) The after-stream was... interesting.  The basic setup for it was a review of the prep, conversion, and GMing work I did.  I put how I thought it would go and reflected on how it actually went.  I caught myself making more rookie mistakes than I would have guessed going into it.  We're all human and blah blah blah, but some of what I did was dumb upon reflection.  I also had players watching the 'guys please do not watch this until after the campaign' videos.  I eventually used it to my advantage, sending them messages without their fully realizing it.  Each video was lucky to get 5 views.  Probably all players in my group...

There are links I could share, but you'll have no trouble finding what I'm talking about if you want to see it, so I'll spare everyone.

Happy to answer questions or provide more detail if there's interest.  Mostly I just wanted to exhale, and thank you if you read this far...

Ditching the entire genre, or just the D&D flavor of the genre?

However painful it was running it in 5e, it couldn't have been worse than running it in Pathfinder 1e! I still shudder at the memory of the Summoner (*aagh*) summoning 3 Giant Octopuses in the thronreroom. Not for the hentai imagery, or the way Fighter 8 Grey Maidens were completely helpless vs level 12 PCs. It was the Octopuses each rolling 1 bite attack, 8 tentacle attacks, & 8 grapple rolls every round. 17x3=51 d20 rolls per round.
Account of 34th and last session at https://smonscurseofthecrimsonthrone.blogspot.com/2015/10/session-34-2114709-ar-downfall.html

I later ran Shattered Star (they won) & Rise of the Runelords (they lost) as a combined campaign converted to 5e D&D. That worked better, it ran for 123 sessions(!), though the players managed to outsmart themselves and get defeated by Karzoug in the Spire of Avarice. Text of sessions 112 & 113 where they were defeated, dooming the setting & campaign, at https://smonscurseofthecrimsonthrone.blogspot.com/2020/06/ep-112-2234720-ar-9pm-angry-karzoug.html and https://smonscurseofthecrimsonthrone.blogspot.com/2020/06/ep-113-22-2334720-ar-fall-of-claw-eldrin.html

10 more sessions after that running bits of Return of the Runelords, but with no prospect of defeating Karzoug.

These days I generally feel that sandbox campaigns offer more fun for less work.

Quote from: Jam The MF on February 06, 2024, 01:05:08 AM
Ditching the entire genre, or just the D&D flavor of the genre?

I'm leaving behind the entire Gygaxian lineage of rules and avoiding anything that a layperson might construe as belonging to WotC.

I could still do fantasy if my player wants it, but I'd want it under a different brand, e.g Warhammer or LotR.

Quote from: mcbobbo on February 06, 2024, 08:25:16 AM

Quote from: Jam The MF on February 06, 2024, 01:05:08 AM
Ditching the entire genre, or just the D&D flavor of the genre?

I'm leaving behind the entire Gygaxian lineage of rules and avoiding anything that a layperson might construe as belonging to WotC.

I could still do fantasy if my player wants it, but I'd want it under a different brand, e.g Warhammer or LotR.

Care to share the reasons? I gave up on 5e too, but my own version of D&D (house-ruled B/X) is working okay.

Also, did you like the campaign itself? Was it easy to run? I enjoyed Phandelver, Curse of Strahd and Tomb of Annihilation, but haven't found many good campaigns elsewhere.

Quote from: S'mon on February 06, 2024, 04:04:34 AM
These days I generally feel that sandbox campaigns offer more fun for less work.

Both my Cairn game and my Savage Rifts game are sandboxes and I really enjoy running them.

It's weird.  Originally I felt like having the VTT front-loaded with maps and assets would save me a ton of time and effort.  I suppose when no conversion work is needed it probably does.  But in this case it was worse by a mile.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on February 06, 2024, 08:28:03 AM
Care to share the reasons? I gave up on 5e too, but my own version of D&D (house-ruled B/X) is working okay.

That's its own topic, but to be brief:

1) Hasbro/WotC no longer deserve my support, which was previously at whale-level.

2) D&D is a lifestyle brand to them, and participation in that aligns myself with them.

3) There are SO MANY other choices/options.

My eye needs to heal, but as soon as I can, I'll make the case to the public as well.

If you need a break from fantasy, that's cool. Sometimes doing that will revitalized the creativity after some time.

When you do return to fantasy, if you want to avoid supporting WoTC, you should really consider OSR RPGs.

They're simple, backward compatible with TSR material (pre-3e), and you're supporting the independent publishers (RPGPundit being one of them).

Seriously, take a look. DriveThruRPG has a ton of OSR RPGs, supplements, adventure modules, etc. from independent publishers that IMO are way far superior than anything WoTC has put out in years.

Quote from: blackstone on February 06, 2024, 08:59:35 AM
When you do return to fantasy, if you want to avoid supporting WoTC, you should really consider OSR RPGs.

Thank you, but I'm aware.  My 'how to GM' class has an OSR section in it where we consider the Principia Apocrypha.

I also run a Cairn game for a family of friends who have never roleplayed before every other Thursday, though that's probably OSR-adjacent.