New D&D Encounters Season 2 (GMT+1) Seeks Players

[Jonny Tenebrous]

Funny you should mention that. One of our players has decided after 4 sessions that he simply has too much on at the moment to continue for the time being. I suspect one of the others may as well. The other four have been solid as a rock, on time for every session, even when travelling to foreign countries for work and whatnot. Our average player age is over 30... I think I may be the youngest at 27, actually. Basically, there's some really good stuff going on. The first few sessions were a bit clumsy, as we were all coming to terms with the interface, using the latest 2.7 test builds and so on. The last few sessions have gone much smoother... I've made custom tokens for all the characters, drag-n-drop status tokens for the players to visually indicate various effects, and more. Plus, the official Dark Sun Campaign guide will become available in about a week... next month's DDI Character Builder update should allow to easily make new characters for Dark Sun and so on.

Which brings me to my next point. Dark Sun is ****n difficult. We had two player deaths last session when the party was ambushed in the midst of a silt storm which severely impacted visibility. The players prefer that I roll most of my attack rolls in the open, so "that's how we roll".

If you'd like to play this Sunday, just let me know ASAP... we could really benefit from your presence and have a permanent slot available. I'll send you some premades which you could use directly, or as a template/inspiration for your own design. Our striker just died, so that role is presently in need of being filled. Also the party seems a bit soft in the ranged attack department, so there's opportunity there. Let me know, thanks.

Cheers,
Jonny

[VenomousFiligree]

Unfortunately I'll not be able to make this Sunday. What are the session play times?

[Jonny Tenebrous]

We begin gathering at 7pm, everybody is usually present by 7:45pm, game begins at 8pm and generally lasts until 11:30-Midnight. All UK time. Even if you couldn't start until the following week, do you want the slot, or shall I advertise it?

[VenomousFiligree]

Thanks for the offer, advertise for now, I'm still not sure if I can commit every week. Is the campaign suitable for drop in slots?

[Jonny Tenebrous]

Well, Encounters Season 2 was originally built to be specifically suited to drop-in players, but the fact that I allow player characters to die (instead of just come back a bit gimped the following week as per the Encounters rules), affect the environment in more permament ways than usual for an Encounters Season, etc., means.... that it's not really suitable for it anymore. If a player doesn't show up once in a blue moon, we're generally alright... any more than that, and players are likely to die. We're finding that the players all need to be able to rely on each other (strength in numbers, and strength in playing to one's role) to survive in Athas and they're all mature players who choose to live with the grave consequences of sub-optimal teamwork rather than encounter adjustment and pulled punches by the DM.

If you know any players who you think we be a good fit, please send them my way.

If anybody else reading these comments would like to be part of our Dark Sun experience and can be relied on pretty much week-in and week-out, please get in touch. We have 1 and possibly 2 permanent slots to fill, available NOW.

[Stitched]

I would like to try since it's in my time-zone, for a change.

So it's Dark Sun 4e? How does that work for character creation if you don't know or own the rules?

[Jonny Tenebrous]

Well, it works like this: Wizards makes pregen characters, and you choose them . Now, of our original batch of 6 chars, 2 are out of the running (dead). I found another 6 made for an earlier test of Dark Sun 4E for a "Free RPG Event" earlier this year, so I'll send you a pdf of those if you want to join up (use directly, or as a template). Or, you can make your own, with a small list of restrictions (no Divine classes, for instance). We are only starting at early levels yet, so flesh out a basic idea... then the campaign guide will be released in about a week, at which point we can add further details. When all the materials become available, I am happy for players to phase into characters that best suit their idea of fun, if they so wish. If you want to join us this weekend, send me a PM with your email address and I'll send you the welcome material tomorrow.

Regards,
Jonny