[LFP] 5e D&D Long Term

[Kevlyn]

FG License: Ultimate

Game System: D&D 5e

Time Zone: CST (UTC -06:00)

Day of Week: Sunday or Friday

Start Time: 6pm - 7pm

End Time: 10pm - 11pm

Planned Start Date: Sunday June 10, 2018

Frequency: This works with the visitation schedule. Sunday - 10th, Friday - 15th, Sunday - 24th, Friday - 29th, Etc.

Voice Software: Discord

Roleplay & Combat Mix: 60/40, but as the party is inclined.

Number of Players: 4 - 6

Starting Level: 1st Level

Restrictions: PHB Races and Classes. See the notes below for details.

Campaign Details: The game is set in a homebrew world of dark fantasy. Humans are the dominate species at this point in the game. Racial prejudice, slavery, well, just about every ill of society you can think of is present in some shape or form. The game will start out in one of the tamer regions, but even still playing a non-human will be a challenge. If the game progresses into an area dominated by another species, well then the humans are likely to get a taste of their own medicine. As the game opens, the players are in the city of Abordell -- the City of Crowns. It is a neutral place, usually, that sits at the corner of four different empires. The Northlands, to the northwest, is a conglomerate of city-states, that share a common defense, the Wardens of the North. The various cities each have their own lists of depravities, though as a group they would come closest to the standard fantasy settings in other games. To the north east is the Rakta'hrim, an empire that entertains the world. They have numerous caravans that bring entertainment throughout the known lands, and as a result they are one of the wealthiest kingdoms. They are the primary source of pleasure slaves, gladiators, acrobats, and drugs. To the south east are the Timarkians, a group of cult-states, each with its own ideals of how the world should work. Where they disagree on most things, they bond together steadfastly to keep their kingdom together. Most characters with a religious background would likely be from this region of the setting. To the southwest are Vixlyn, a matriarchial empire. If you are playing a female character, be from this land. Otherwise, women are typically treated as second-class citizens at best. The Vixlyn are the fiercest of warriors, they are absolutely relentless in the pursuit of their goals. Crossing one of them earns a lifelong vendetta, which is why most will give them more respect than women typically receive in the other lands.

This will be a semi-sandbox campaign, I will have a few adventure seeds, but the desires of the characters will be the driving force behind what happens as the game unfolds. Check out the next section which outlines some of the house rules in use, with a bit of reasoning sprinkled in here and there.

House Rules: Fight at your own risk.

Injuries: Injuries will be taken when you receive a critical hit and when you are dropped to less than 0 hit points, but not outright killed.

Massive Damage: Getting hit, especially early on, can result in System Shock.

Morale: The party's morale is their own. I will check for morale for opponents. Fighting to the death is actually not frequent in this setting.

Magic: Magic is very powerful, very dangerous. People fear spellcasters. Spell casters will receive information about these special rules.

My Expectations: 21+. I'm in my 40s, I just don't think like a teenager anymore. Nothing is off-limits in this game, however, some things may be a fade-to-black scene at my discretion.

I plan to run this game until A) the players quit playing or B) I am physically unable to play anymore. So a while, yes. I have this set as 2 days every two weeks. Those are the days that I can play, however, I can easily turn this into 2 different games, so the frequency becomes every 2nd Sunday and 2nd Friday. When applying for the game, just specify which day(s) work for you.

I like the characters to have a great background. But this is a homebrew setting, so you might know much of what elements work and don't work. So when applying, give me a general backstory, then if accepted we'll work to flesh out the details so that your desired background works.

I am not one to divvy out magical items often, so when one is encountered it will be something special. It will have a background of its own, and because items are so rare, there is no real need to identify them. So that spell is not available. So when you find a +1 weapon, be prepared to defend it because you will not be the only one that covets such a thing.

Let's try to be ontime. Especially for the Friday night game, if any sessions run late this will be the one. I will try to open the session about an hour ahead of time, giving everyone enough time to connect and update as necessary. If more than 2 people are missing, we may skip the session.

Use Discord primarily to communicate, the exception is that you intend to say something in a language other than Common. Then type that message out and let the Language system show it to everyone that understands it. Nifty.

Your Expectations: This is what you can expect...
Encounters are encounters. Not every encounter leads to a fight. But that is not for me to decide, I am the guide, the players make the decisions.
Characters will die. It's designed to be deadly, smart play can extend a character's life. But the wrong fight and the wrong time, someone will be pushing up daisies.
Recovering is hard. Hit point recovery is simply not as speedy. Hit dice are replenished weekly or when healed by magic. Good luck with that whole spell caster thing.
Gaining experience. I give experience for role-playing. The more you act the character out, the more you accrue. If your character causes the party problems, because of their flaws, etc. Great for you, they'll deal with it or kill you. You also get experience for combat encounters. If you survive them. Got a solution to avoid combat, but get by the problem. That'll get you about the same amount XP. Now, I do not believe in handing out the same amount of XP to everyone. So if your character rolls initiative, does things that does not help the party solve the problem, then you don't get the XP. If you hid, because you didn't want to die, well that'll get you something at least. But you might end up over time being a few levels behind the other party members. Or, the highest level member, if they decide to fight and you hide but they die. That's a reward all its own I suppose.
Character Journals. HoloDarksbane posted about keeping a character journal. If you did that, and it was good, you'd earn some XP for that as well.
Help drive the campaign. If I mention something that really piques your interest. Go for it. If I don't, then let me know the kinds of things you'd like to see your character encounter. It helps me, it makes the game more fun for you.

Thanks for checking this out!
-- Kev

Game Calendar
Four Crowns.PNG
Arythia PHB
DM's LOG
Shorts

[JasonRazCalZevr]

Meat grinder!!! lol.

[Kevlyn]

Meat grinder!!! lol.

No, I don't think so. Smart play and some restraint should result in characters being not only successful, but --in my mind-- building relationships with NPCs in the world. Be it rivals, allies, or enemies.

[Aster]

I am interested. I added my name to the game calendar. I am 44 years old and have over 20 years experience playing DnD. I also have a moderate level of experience with fantasygrounds.

[GodsEvenNV]

Hey there sent a PM and applied on calendar hope you have space

[yankee]

Very interested, 50 yo, long time player (started with the blue box version) as well as early versions of chaimmail.
Time frame works as well as the fact that this is a long term campaign.

PM for additional details as needed

[Zantatsu]

I have me and 2 friends that might be interested.

[Kevlyn]

Zantatsu, just feel free to jump in on the calendar!

To those who left messages, I'll likely get them tomorrow evening. I was going to tonight, but I got called out to work.

So, for today, I thought I'd just drop some thoughts I was having about my games in general.

Historically, I've mostly played FtF games. I've been living in FG for the last few months, I've played in a handful of sessions. My games have always been 20% planned or less, the rest I typically make up as I go along. In that regard, I can tend to deliver a great experience for the players. From the technical side, though, I think I'm going to have to have a little more planning so that I don't hold things up trying to setup encounters on the fly. So I expect that I'll prepare about 4 encounters to have handy at any given time. That should do keep things flowing easily. Another thing that may be a challenge are maps for encounters. At best, I've only ever really used a blank map and drawn a bare minimum if needed, for clarity. I tend to do a pretty good job of keeping track of things in my head, but I've also played with people that couldn't and needed the visual aspect to understand where everyone is at.

So, I'm going to grab some maps from somewhere to give me a few that'll help, but they probably won't be exactly the scene in the game. I've been relearning Campaign Cartographer though, I haven't used it in a few years, so I'll start producing a few decent maps here and there. And I think that really covers the main two points that cropped up in mind today.

Additionally, if I can remember to get my ISP stuff sorted out this week then I'll likely be on Discord for a while Friday night while I'm preparing things. It'll be a great time drop in and talk if anyone is interested. I'll post the details here once I get it setup.

Thanks for all the interest!

[yankee]

Sounds good... will try to hop on but it is my wedding anniversary this week and my son is graduating high school, so a fair amount going on

[Thravior]

Hello there, this setting looks quite promising and while I don't have decades of experience playing tabletop, I have been looking for a good long term game for a while. I am 25 and I have started background and concept I could share in details by PM.