Brevity is anathema to me. This intro is 3 posts long. Most, but not all, of the description of the setting and flavor of the campaign are in the third post.
D&D 3.5 with lots of homebrew (potentially including stuff made specifically for the campaign by request of the players).
Campaign is heavy on tactics (in other words, the opposite of "kick in the door" style play), and philosophical roleplay. It isn't necessary that every player be able to meet these requirements in and of themselves, but if I run out of slots, I'm going to be giving preference to those who are better able to meet these critereon. If absolutely necessary I will bite the bullet and start dropping more hints rather than less about tactics, but the philosophical stuff isn't going to be going away.
For deeper details, especially on the setting, ask questions and/or see the (probably) 5th and 6th posts in this thread. Of course, the number might be wrong if I mis-estimate how I'm going break stuff up to work around the character-count limitations.
Style of Play:
RULE NUMBER 1: If you have one or more questions, ASK IT/THEM. If you don't have (a) question(s), BE THINKING OF SOME. I often have to "rush" things out lest I lock up with social anxiety, and I just plain don't think the same way other people do. While this second point makes my campaigns very interesting, it also can require a lot of clarifications that I have no way of predicting.
Heavy on both the roleplay and the tactics.
Characterization and backstory are strongly encouraged, but most of my strength tends to lie in world-building (thus part of the reason for Rule Number 1). Seeing the party comment on in-character or even debate the aspects of the world is going to be a plus.
Regarding tactics: "adventurers" in my campaigns tend to die. "Heroic Professionals" tend to survive. Do the heroic thing, but don't take risks that aren't necessary. For example:
-Stopping a rampaging mob of orcs from reaching a village that send its best defenders off to fight elsewhere, and now requests you fill in? Good.
-Doing so by standing right outside the town and waiting for them to come to you? SUICIDAL.
-Organizing the villagers to build defenses for you to man? Slightly better.
-Above combined with hit-and-run raids while the orcs are still several day's travel from the village? Better.
-As above, but staging raids in such a way as to give the idea that a fire-breathing dragon defends the village, such that the orcs surrender to you (or at least buy time with the discussions for the defenses to be built better)? Now we are talking...
In short, the optimum is to design your character to be interesting (see below about Allowed Content, Character Creation, and Wealth) and then play them tactically, but hash out the tactics in-character rather than OOC.
There are some themes strongly presented in one of the later posts in this thread... feel free to relegate them to the background to the point of utterly ignoring them... but only if you can come up with other ideas that I find as interesting.
Technical Methods:
We will be using Google-docs spreadsheets for the battle-maps... HERE is an example. You should be able to edit this if you want to play. This does NOT require a GoogleDocs account, but certain firewalls might be an issue. Tell me if there are any problems, I may be willing to create work-arounds.
I expect notifications and strongly encourage a pre-selected "second" to play your character if there is even a chance that you might go a week without posting. That means you should be checking the IC and OOC threads at least twice a week. If no other course of action is possible, then see Rule Number 1.
I will assign another player to play your character and/or I will kill them off if this schedule fails to happen. People fading off is the number one killer of Play By Post games, and I intend to make sure that we end up with a group that will not fall victim to it.
Skype access (for text-chat only) is a plus, but not required. If so, no particular time of day is necessary to check it, and no meetings are likely to be scheduled.
House Rules:
Fractional EVERYTHING. Don't round until the last minute. This includes such things as two-handed weapon damage, skill ranks and ability modifiers to skills (but you still need a full rank to roll a trained-only ability). If you grant me editing permissions to a character sheet on www.Myth-Weavers.com I can handle this for you soon after we start. Characters with an odd intellegence BONUS may select an additional language that they can EITHER read and write OR speak and understand when spoken, with great difficulty in either case).
Alternate Turning/Rebuking table for lower levels: (Table won't fit in character-count limit for this post, won't be coming up in first adventure.)
Fighting defensively and Total Defense also give the same bonuses to Reflex saves as they do to AC. (Including modifications for high ranks in Tumble).
Two new actions:
Reverse Enchanting: Characters with the appropriate item-creation feats can, for instance turn a +1 Unholy Vorpal Sword you captured into a +5 Vorpal Sword so it won't give you a negative level anymore.
You must be able to use a metamagic feat at the level you first take it. Thus no +2 spell level feats at character level 1.
Saving throws for spells and SLAs from class levels are 10 + 1/2 Levels of Relevant casting classes (AKA Caster Level in most cases) + Ability Modifier MINUS Spell Level. This does NOT apply to martial maneuvers or SLAs from a race.
There will probably be more, but that is it for now.
Allowed Content:
The following should be little to no problem.
Ask specifically about any other material (in other words name the specific feat/class/item, and then I will probably ask you for details). I am likely to approve it if I don't feel it is overpowered. In case you didn't/won't catch the implications let me explicitly call out a few points that are mentioned throughout this campaign description before and after here: One of our potential characters is a giant insect, and everyone is getting an oddball magic item (or something equivalent), and this is a campaign where we may or may not be examining the question of "in this world, is the phrase 'justifiable genocide' actually inherently contradictory". Dream crazy and, if necessary, dream big. I'll work with you on scaling down anything that needs scaling down... or just give me a well-written character and I'll figure things out.
Character Creation:
To speed things along, partially pre-made characters are available to use as a starting point. Time allowing I am willing to do the following:
1.) For less experienced players, I am willing to do an equal level of work on custom requests.
2.) For ALL players I am willing to create homebrew races and perhaps other things.
D&D 3.5 with lots of homebrew (potentially including stuff made specifically for the campaign by request of the players).
Campaign is heavy on tactics (in other words, the opposite of "kick in the door" style play), and philosophical roleplay. It isn't necessary that every player be able to meet these requirements in and of themselves, but if I run out of slots, I'm going to be giving preference to those who are better able to meet these critereon. If absolutely necessary I will bite the bullet and start dropping more hints rather than less about tactics, but the philosophical stuff isn't going to be going away.
For deeper details, especially on the setting, ask questions and/or see the (probably) 5th and 6th posts in this thread. Of course, the number might be wrong if I mis-estimate how I'm going break stuff up to work around the character-count limitations.
Style of Play:
RULE NUMBER 1: If you have one or more questions, ASK IT/THEM. If you don't have (a) question(s), BE THINKING OF SOME. I often have to "rush" things out lest I lock up with social anxiety, and I just plain don't think the same way other people do. While this second point makes my campaigns very interesting, it also can require a lot of clarifications that I have no way of predicting.
Heavy on both the roleplay and the tactics.
Characterization and backstory are strongly encouraged, but most of my strength tends to lie in world-building (thus part of the reason for Rule Number 1). Seeing the party comment on in-character or even debate the aspects of the world is going to be a plus.
Regarding tactics: "adventurers" in my campaigns tend to die. "Heroic Professionals" tend to survive. Do the heroic thing, but don't take risks that aren't necessary. For example:
-Stopping a rampaging mob of orcs from reaching a village that send its best defenders off to fight elsewhere, and now requests you fill in? Good.
-Doing so by standing right outside the town and waiting for them to come to you? SUICIDAL.
-Organizing the villagers to build defenses for you to man? Slightly better.
-Above combined with hit-and-run raids while the orcs are still several day's travel from the village? Better.
-As above, but staging raids in such a way as to give the idea that a fire-breathing dragon defends the village, such that the orcs surrender to you (or at least buy time with the discussions for the defenses to be built better)? Now we are talking...
In short, the optimum is to design your character to be interesting (see below about Allowed Content, Character Creation, and Wealth) and then play them tactically, but hash out the tactics in-character rather than OOC.
There are some themes strongly presented in one of the later posts in this thread... feel free to relegate them to the background to the point of utterly ignoring them... but only if you can come up with other ideas that I find as interesting.
Technical Methods:
We will be using Google-docs spreadsheets for the battle-maps... HERE is an example. You should be able to edit this if you want to play. This does NOT require a GoogleDocs account, but certain firewalls might be an issue. Tell me if there are any problems, I may be willing to create work-arounds.
I expect notifications and strongly encourage a pre-selected "second" to play your character if there is even a chance that you might go a week without posting. That means you should be checking the IC and OOC threads at least twice a week. If no other course of action is possible, then see Rule Number 1.
I will assign another player to play your character and/or I will kill them off if this schedule fails to happen. People fading off is the number one killer of Play By Post games, and I intend to make sure that we end up with a group that will not fall victim to it.
Skype access (for text-chat only) is a plus, but not required. If so, no particular time of day is necessary to check it, and no meetings are likely to be scheduled.
House Rules:
Fractional EVERYTHING. Don't round until the last minute. This includes such things as two-handed weapon damage, skill ranks and ability modifiers to skills (but you still need a full rank to roll a trained-only ability). If you grant me editing permissions to a character sheet on www.Myth-Weavers.com I can handle this for you soon after we start. Characters with an odd intellegence BONUS may select an additional language that they can EITHER read and write OR speak and understand when spoken, with great difficulty in either case).
Alternate Turning/Rebuking table for lower levels: (Table won't fit in character-count limit for this post, won't be coming up in first adventure.)
Fighting defensively and Total Defense also give the same bonuses to Reflex saves as they do to AC. (Including modifications for high ranks in Tumble).
Two new actions:
- Steel Will fighting: Equivalent action to Fighting Defensively, provides no bonuses to AC or Reflex saves, but DOES give a +2 to Will saves instead.
- Total mental defense: Equivalent action to Total Defense, provides no bonuses to AC or Reflex saves, but DOES give a +4 to Will saves instead.
Reverse Enchanting: Characters with the appropriate item-creation feats can, for instance turn a +1 Unholy Vorpal Sword you captured into a +5 Vorpal Sword so it won't give you a negative level anymore.
You must be able to use a metamagic feat at the level you first take it. Thus no +2 spell level feats at character level 1.
Saving throws for spells and SLAs from class levels are 10 + 1/2 Levels of Relevant casting classes (AKA Caster Level in most cases) + Ability Modifier MINUS Spell Level. This does NOT apply to martial maneuvers or SLAs from a race.
There will probably be more, but that is it for now.
Allowed Content:
The following should be little to no problem.
- My own Homebrew (see next post, due to character count limitations. Do NOT go looking through the full listing on a certain other site since it contains monsters and such that I may be using against y'all.)
- PHB
- MM I
- Tome of Battle
- Compete Arcane/Champion/Divine/Scoundrel
- Eberron Campaign Setting (although be careful with the Artificer)
- Tome of Magic
- Draconomicon
Ask specifically about any other material (in other words name the specific feat/class/item, and then I will probably ask you for details). I am likely to approve it if I don't feel it is overpowered. In case you didn't/won't catch the implications let me explicitly call out a few points that are mentioned throughout this campaign description before and after here: One of our potential characters is a giant insect, and everyone is getting an oddball magic item (or something equivalent), and this is a campaign where we may or may not be examining the question of "in this world, is the phrase 'justifiable genocide' actually inherently contradictory". Dream crazy and, if necessary, dream big. I'll work with you on scaling down anything that needs scaling down... or just give me a well-written character and I'll figure things out.
Character Creation:
- Backstory: Rich back-stories and personality descriptions are encouraged. Try to avoid making either melodramatic.
- Experience: 6,200 XPs (in other words, 4th level, plus 200 XPs worth of crafting/headstart on level 5). In addition, all Level Adjustments will be replaced with an equal number of levels of Commoner.
- Wealth: 5,400 GPs, plus one item I will be assigning. Other than that one item no single item may have a price of over 2,700 GP. These will be items that are designed to be interesting/playtest stuff. Suggestions welcome, but make them INTERESTING. Blanket numerical abilities, or casting a given spell X times a day are boring. Conditional versions of each CAN be interesting.
In addition, I am much looser with the standard items. For instance Gloves of Dexterity +1 exist (rather than only items of even-numbered bonuses) and armor that offers a bonus to any one type of saving throw rather than just the save types covered in Magic Item Compendium..
Don't forget mundane stuff. You are going to be traveling around a lot, and you may get ambushed during travel, camping out, or even (under certain limited circumstances) while one of you is taking a dump in the woods. Mules can save your dexterity bonuses and "light load only" class features. - Ability Scores: 32 Point-Buy with the usual +1 to any ability SCORE for hitting character level 4.
- Hitpoints: Maximum at first level, average rounded down at each level after that.
- Alignment: Good strongly preferred, and must be able to work as a team. Neutral will be allowed only after review for how interesting of a story it makes. That being said... time for the first look at my world.
Good is not Soft in my world. In fact, just as it is possible in-game to be smarter, or physically stronger than it is possible to be in real life, it is also possible to do things that would turn a real person into a sadistic monster in real life, but with Good results, and inflicting the 'evils' only on those who are, in fact, monstrous in their personalities... and then go on to a quiet retirement without a single twinge of regret.
Some examples of how this differs from what you might expect:- The equivalent to the Geneva Convention includes phrases about how "and none of these protections apply to individuals who break them, and who are members of a chain of command that does not aggressively discourage such acts... in fact it is encouraged, though not required to violate as many of these principles as possible, as publicly as possible on such individuals".
- The use of poisons with effects that can naturally be recovered from (IE no ability DRAIN etc), and don't kill (so no targeting Constitution) is ENCOURAGED in Good individuals, but represents a commitment to capture rather than kill any individual they are used against.
To speed things along, partially pre-made characters are available to use as a starting point. Time allowing I am willing to do the following:
1.) For less experienced players, I am willing to do an equal level of work on custom requests.
2.) For ALL players I am willing to create homebrew races and perhaps other things.
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