David Given Schwarm

Wizards of the Coast – D&D Celebration 2020 – Friday – Sept 18th View in browser D&D Celebration – Using Discord Greetings! In less than a week, you’ll be one of hundreds of players participating in one of the three presentations of Great Knucklehead Rally, the D&D Adventurers League Epic adventure running as part of the D&D Celebration. Since Epic adventures are different than a normal game of D&D, we wanted to present you with some information that we hope will heighten your enjoyment of the event.   Normally Epic events are run in-person at conventions or larger events, and the story that plays out during the adventure is directly affected not just by one table (one group of players with a DM), but by all the tables together. These Epic events often include event-wide announcements, wandering NPCs, larger-than-life villains with a visible presence, and increased interaction between tables. Capturing that feel in an online event is obviously much trickier, requiring expanded use of different technologies.   Another important part of many Epics is a sense of chaos, of events spiraling out of control with the characters frantically working together to solve a large and seemingly insurmountable problem. Again, this sort of event feeds off the energy of dozens or hundreds of people being in the same location. Capturing that energy, and harnessing it to make an event memorable, requires much work with an online event.   With all that in mind, we want to help prepare you for Great Knucklehead Rally with some tips and previews. Most of the event will take place via a dedicated Discord channel. You may be asked to move rapidly between channels to get the full effect of the event. Below are some tips for using Discord:   • You may have the opportunity to upload image files to a Discord channel, such as image files. Tips on doing that are provided later in this document.   • This event is timed, and much of the success or failure in achieving the goals of the events will be based on time. As a player, it may be more important to do something quickly than taking the perfect action. The DMs will remind you of this, but keep it in mind as you play the event.   • The event is scheduled for three hours. There’s a good chance the event will run a bit longer than that if we run into any technical difficulties, or if we find that players need a few more minutes with any of the scenes in the event.   • There will be children of all ages taking part in this event. Please keep that in mind as you interact with the other participants in this event.   And finally, here is a welcome message from your hostess and the sponsor of the Great Knucklehead Rally, Kreena Copperknight!   ———————————————————————-   Well Met! Please accept my invitation to attend a celebration of the spirit of the hardy individuals, great and small, who make up the population of Icewind Dale. My recent good fortune has left me in a position to offer food, drink, and entertainment for a day of enthusiastic revelry, friendly but fierce competition, and camaraderie. All I ask in return is that you bring your best self, an open heart, and a resolve to make the best of this long winter. Dress warm and prepare to experience the Great Knucklehead Rally!   ———————————————————————-   DISCORD INFORMATION   In just a few days you’ll be joining hundreds of other players and DMs in playing Great Knucklehead Rally, a D&D Epic adventure! When playing in this Epic adventure, you’ll be using our Discord server for audio and video. Below are some tips and tricks that may come in handy during play. A lot of the stuff in this document may already be known, or completely obvious to you, but we don’t know what you know, so we err on the side of caution.   FINDING YOUR TABLE   So, you are in the Discord server for the Epic and you have found out from the #mustering channel who your DM is. How do you get there quickly and easily?   OPTION 1   Find your DM’s name in the category & channels panel on the left. Let’s assume your DM’s name is Jeremy Arnold. Scrolling through the list eventually leads you to a category with their name. Under that category you will find a text channel #jeremy-arnold and a voice video channel 🔊Jeremy Arnold. Join those by clicking on them, and you have joined your table.   OPTION 2   CTRL-K. Since we will have a lot of DMs, option 1 may not be the quickest. A different way is to use the ctrl-K Discord shortcut.   a. Pressing ctrl-K will bring up a search window:   b. Start typing your DM’s name and channels you can join that fit your search will appear below the search:   c. Click the channel for your DM, and you have joined their text channel.   d. The search above only showed us the text channel for the DM, if we want to find the audio/video channel we can start our search with an exclamation mark:   e. In addition to letting you search, the popup from ctrl-K will also allow you to go back to the last text channel you were in before the current one without needing to search. This comes in handy when you want to quickly check something on a different text channel.   Using one of the above methods should help you get back to your table and your DM easily.   CATEGORIES AND SPECIAL CHANNELS   Categories are just groupings of channels that can be ∨COLLAPSED, showing just the category name, or >OPEN, showing all the channels in the category.   Looking at the ℹ-EVENT INFORMATION category above, we see 3 text channels in the category:   1. #ℹ-info. You will find a text channel with this name in several categories. This channel contains an explanation for the category and the channels under it.   2. #📢hq-announcements. You will find important announcements from the Event Admins at Epic Head Quarters in this channel. Critical information will be put here in such a way that you get notified and a red circle will show to the right of the channel name:   But less important status updates will also be found here.   3. #📄boxed-text. You can read back the information from any boxed text in the adventure in this channel. If there is new information in this, or any other, channel, this will be shown by an indicator to the left of the channel name:   This type of indicator will also show up on a collapsed category if there is something new in an underlying channel. Just open category and click the marked channel to see what is new.   OTHER SPECIAL CHANNELS   1. #mustering. This channel under the MUSTERING category is where you will find out how your Table # from the Yawning Portal registration website maps to your DM. In the GENERAL SERVER INFO category you will find several channels that serve a non-event related purposes:   a. #code-of-conduct. This channel contains our Code of Conduct. You will have to signify your acceptance of this code by clicking on the reaction icon below it. Until you do this, your access to the Discord server will be limited and you will not be able to participate. The code of conduct applies everywhere on the Discord server.   b. #announcements. This channel is used by the organizer for announcements. The stuff in here can be very important so make sure to check it when there are new messages,   c. #faq. Frequently asked questions, and answers. If you are stuck on anything or have a burning question that needs an answer. Please check here first.   d. #troubleshooting. If you have a problem that cannot be answered by the #faq this is where you post your issue, and someone will be along to try and help you as soon as possible.   e. #open-discussion. A channel for informal text chat with your fellow players and the DMs. Please remember to keep things PG-13.   f. #botspam. This is the channel where our Discord bots put their spam. It is also the place where you can use the Avrae bot for D&D Beyond.   g. 🔊The Eastside. A voice channel for informal chatting with your fellow players and the DMs. Please remember to keep things PG-13.   Channels a to d are the only channels can be accessed before accepting the Code of Conduct.   UPLOADING CONTENT TO DISCORD   During the Epic some of you may be required to upload a picture to Discord. Your DMs will inform you of the channels you need to put this content in, but how?   There are two ways to accomplish this:   1. Use the upload button. To the left of the message input field you see a + sign in a light grey circle. Clicking this button will allow you to browse the files on your computer and select a picture to upload.   2. Copy & Paste. Select, part of, or the whole picture in your drawing/editing/or viewing application and Copy it, then go the Discord channel message input field and Paste.