FORUM D&D GAME (UPDATED: FINALIZED DETAILS) JOIN NOW!

All right, I'm getting close to a breakthrough on the campaign front. Mostly, I've identified an old (3.5-era) campaign that I'll be adapting to 4e for this thing. There's still some stuff that I'll be needing to do to get ready, but everyone who's going to play should probably start throwing together character sheets if they can, and contacting me or someone else who might be able to help if they can't. We'll be needing a firm commitment to move forward just so that schedules can be set in place--don't worry, you're not getting married or anything. If you can't make a session that's cool, and there's no reason any particular session can't be rescheduled if an agreement for a different time can be met, either. Just be sure to let people know ahead of time if at all possible.

I still haven't finalized on the programs for playing in, but Skype and MapTool are sounding likely at this point. Turns out the diceroller won't be necessary, since the text-chat interface in MapTool will do dice rolls for us.

So, players, here's what you need to have in the next....let's say two weeks:

* A character sheet.
* MapTool and Skype downloaded and installed to your computers (Note: if this proves impossible, the program might be changed later, so make sure you try this now, rather than at the last minute!)
* A microphone and working speakers (or a headset) for your computer--if this will be impossible, we'll discuss just using the text-chat interface, though I'm preferring the sound of VoIP.
* A clear idea of some potential times each week that you'll be available for a few hours, (Preferably three to four. Two will work in a pinch.)
* Any questions you need answered before playing.
* A copy of the Player's Handbook. If you do not have this, PM me and we'll work something out: this will not necessarily prevent you from playing, but it needs to be handled ahead of time!


When making your characters, use either the Standard Array or the point-buy system. I explained this earlier in the thread, and it's also mentioned in the Player's Handbook. I am not using House Rules, so the PHB should be on-target.

Like I said, at the moment I'm thinking that two weeks might be a good target for when we get this started--the day is not finalized yet, though.

While making your character sheets, remember! Try to make sure there's at least one person for each of the four roles! We've already got a Striker and a Defender! We can have more than one of any given role, but try to make sure that we have a Controller and a Leader before we start doubling up.

Edit: I forgot to mention: at the beginning of the game, the party will largely already know one another and will have adventured together before (though they'll still be starting at level one). The game will begin with your group getting back together after having been separated for some time. If you wish to work this into your backstory, please do--if you'd rather be an outsider who joins the group just now, that's cool too, but I'd prefer if there was only one "newbie" to the group for every....let's say three veteran members.

As a side note, the campaign I'm adapting is itself adapted from a fairly well known series of D&D based novels, and while both the official adaptation and my own adaptation of that adaptation should make it a unique experience, let me know if you read much in the way of D&D tie-in novels in PM so I'll know how careful I need to be about not making you feel like you're retreading something you've already been through. And no worries--though the setting itself uses special rules, there are only one or two that should make a difference to any of you, and I'll PM you once I get your character sheet to let you know if you're one of the people who will be affected.

author=NoblemanNick link=topic=1335.msg22679#msg22679 date=1215028782
My connection on Skype is really slow and huge lag.. So I think I can't use Skype.

Are you on Broadband, and do you have a router? If you've got a router, you might need to set up QoS and port forwarding or something, and you'll get better performance.

It's not like I haven't Played by Chat before, but I feel like a voice conference would be better....still, I suppose if you can't get your lag under control we might have to just use MapTool's chat interface.

author=NoblemanNick link=topic=1335.msg22679#msg22679 date=1215028782
Also for MapTool what do we use for Dice Rolling like you said so we can make sure nobodies cheating

/roll 1d6+4

Or whatever your particular expression is.

So wait, the voice chat feature works on Xfire but not Skype? Huh. One would expect VoIP to take about the same resources one way or the other.

Xfire appears to be Windows-only, so it would only work if we had no Mac or Linux users in the game. Or I if WINE can handle it.

No, that would be way too difficult, and it would defeat the purpose of using voice chatting in the first place, since we would have to type everything we said for you to interact. Guys--anyone on Mac or Linux?

The Big, Bad, Finalized Rule Post Of Massive Importance
Everything you need to know about Shadowtext's RMN D&D 4e campaign

Introduction
This is a 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons game starting at first level. It is open-ended, with no specific "end time" planned, though there is plenty of material about where the campaign will go ahead of time, so for the moment we'll just assume that it will keep going until we get bored of it. I'm using the Dragonlance campaigns from 3.5 (Dragons of Autumn, Winter, and Spring), so there's a handful of "fluff" changes, though I'm going to keep rules changes to the minimum, so don't worry--if you're playing a Halfling, you won't have to be a Kender (you might get called a Kender, but mechanically you'll be a Halfling, and you'll still be able to play the Halfling however you wanted to before--if you do want to play a Kender, we can discuss how to handle that and ways to not be an annoyance to the other players, though), and I'm not adding Gnomes, Minotaurs, or anything like that to the player races.

The list of Deities for your characters is going to change, though. This shouldn't have an effect on anyone but Paladins and Clerics mechanically (and probably won't affect them, either, but we'll discuss specifics in the PM)

I'm going to walk you through the backstory so that you can work whatever you need to into your own character's backstory:

Campaign Backstory:
This is the Age of Despair. A little over 300 years ago, the humanoid races on the continent of Ansalon tried to command the gods themselves with their own divine magic, and were struck down for their arrogance. The Cataclysm rearranged the whole continent, and dropped a fiery mountain on the most powerful nation in the world, Istar, sinking it to the bottom of a newly found sea. With this final act, the Gods took their true followers and left the world.

Clerics and Paladins were gone from the world. Prayers were no longer answered. Magical healing was gone from the world....the only answer for the sick and the weak was to find herbalists or such rudimentary medical care as was available.

Your adventuring company was formed initially in the little village of Solace--minor adventures which required little skill were your specialty because at the time you were little more than civilians clumsily wielding such weapons as you could find. You did some mercenary work. You got paid, so it wasn't purely altrustic work (so no reason more cynical characters can't have been part of it).

Five years ago, your group began talking about the Old Gods. The party, by and large, wasn't convinced they were gone for good. Eventually you decided you would disband for a time and search individually for signs of the Old Gods....or take care of your own issues. You agreed to meet in five years time at the Inn of the Last Home in Solace.

Those five years are up, and as we join our heroes, they are returning to Solace to meet up with their friends and tell them what they've found.

Character Creation:
Use either the standard array or the point-buy system to assign your abilities. Follow the rules outlined in the Player's Handbook and you'll be golden. Contact me if you're playing a Cleric, Paladin, or Dragonborn.

Try to make sure that the party has at least one of each of the four roles (Leader, Controller, Striker, and Defender).

Pregenerated Characters
I made some test characters for trying out the encounters I've got planned, and I figured I'd put them up for you guys to use if you don't want to make your own characters:

• Flint Fireforge (Dwarven Fighter)
• Tanis Half-Elven (Half-Elf Warlord)
• Raistlin Majere (Human Wizard)
• Tasslehoff Burrfoot (Halfling Rogue)

These characters are loosely based on the pregenerated characters from the modules I'm adapting, or more specifically, the books that the modules are based on.

Rule Changes:
Minimal changes. Half-elves, please don't choose any powers with a Divine power source for your Diletentte ability. Clerics, Paladins, and Dragonborn, please contact me so we can discuss a special situation for you. I'd prefer if we kept Clerics and Paladins to one of each at most, and if possible just one or the other. Dragonborn this will not be the issue, but like I said, we'll discuss that special situation in PM. Warlocks, the rules for you will be the same, but you might want to PM me about some fluff changes about "where your powers come from" or whatever.

If you're familiar with the Dragonlance setting and would like to discuss special rules for your character, PM me, though I'd prefer to keep special rules to a minimum. If you're interested in playing your Halfling as a Kender, contact me then, too. My special love for Kender means I might actually make an exception about the special rules, there, although one I can assure you of is that playing the character to be much of an annoyance to the other characters won't be okay. (Minor annoyances are, of course, something that happens in any D&D game, so that will be tolerated to a certain extent)

When Making Your Backstory:
You can be creative here, but basically there have been signs that the Gods aren't really gone, but nothing conclusive. You can make up whatever you want for what you did during your five years away, but remember that you're still only level 1--you probably didn't slay any dragons. You can certainly claim you did, but it's unlikely your friends will believe you.

If you're meeting up with the group for the first time, you might need to explain why you're coming to Solace--it's a small, quiet town. There's a small school for wizards or warlocks nearby and it's not far from the elven nations or the larger town of Haven, but it's hardly a center for commerce. Its inhabitants are mostly humans, but halflings, elves, dwarves and halflings aren't uncommon. Eladrin are somewhat more rare and you might want to explain why your character lived in (if he's a veteran) or is visiting (if he's a newbie) Solace. Tieflings are extremely uncommon and largely mistrusted (aren't they always?) but will probably be tolerated if the character in question had lived there for a long time--visiting Tieflings might have more problems. Dragonborn....well like I said, PM me if you're playing Dragonborn.

The Gods
Here is a quick rundown of the good and unaligned gods of Krynn. In parentheses are my best attempt at PHB equivalents if you just want to transpose.

• Branchala (Moradin); Good; God of Music, poetry, creativity.
• Chislev (Melora, Pelor); Unaligned; Goddess of Nature, Wilderness, Animals, the Seasons
• Gilean (Ioun, Sehanine); Unaligned; God of Knowledge, Balance, Watchfulness, Freedom
• Habakkuk (Melora); Good; God of Animals (both land and water), Water, Love and Passion
• Kiri-Jolith (Bahamut, Kord); Lawful Good; God of War, Courage, Honor
• Lunitari (Sehanine, The Raven Queen); Unaligned; Goddess of the Red Moon, Mysteries, Magic, Illusion, Transmutation
• Majere (Erathis); Lawful Good; God of Patience, Law, Meditation
• Mishakal (The Raven Queen); Good; Healing, Goddess of Mercy, Fertility, Beauty
• Paladine (Bahamut, Erathis); Lawful Good; God of Kingship, Guardianship, Redemption, Dragons
• Reorx (Moradin); Unaligned; God of Creation, mountains, metal, luck, pride
• Shinare (Avandra, Sehanine); Unaligned; Goddess of Wealth, Enterprise, communication, travel
• Sirrion (Moradin); Unaligned; God of Fire, creativity, passion, renewel
• Solinari (Correlon, Ioun); Lawful Good; God of the White Moon, Vigilance, Good Magic, Abjuration, Divination
• Zivilyn (Ioun, Erathis); Unaligned; Wisdom, foresight, prophecy, enlightenment

As a side note, some of these are better matches for PHB gods than others. Avandra, Paladine, Solinari, and Reorx are pretty much expies of Sehanine, Bahamut, Correlon and Moradin respectively. The Raven Queen doesn't really match up with any of the Krynnish gods very well, so Mishakal and Lunitari are sort of shoehorns for her.

Given the nature of the backstory, most of your characters won't know much more than what I've told you here about these gods, but there will be more information explain in the course of the story--the gods play a big role in this story.


Confirmed Players:
NoblemanNick
Quiversee
GreatRedSpirit

Character Sheets in my Possession:
NoblemanNick's ("Hadrian Hawkeye", Ranger) (Character Sheet)

Schedule:
I haven't heard enough from people, but it sounded like Friday nights were going to be best. If anyone has a problem with this, make sure I know before we start playing, but tentatively the schedule is going to be 8:00pm CST-11:00pm CST, though that "11:00pm" is an estimate....it'd be safe to assume that some sessions might only go until 10:00pm and some might go until 12:00am.

We are beginning July 18th, 2008, 8:00pm CST. That's the Friday after this coming one.

Programs and Play Environment:
Voice chat is sounding like it's going to be too much trouble at the moment, so we're going to be using just MapTool for the time being, playing by chat. (If anyone has a problem with this, again, let me know!) I have collected some tokens and such that you will be able to use for your characters, but if you want to make your own (use TokenTool to do so, if you would), feel free.

MapTool Homepage

I am running the Development version (1.3.b34), so you should also use this version. You will need Java installed to run MapTool.

Please remember that the maps and tokens in MapTool are only an abstraction of what's going on in the game, so don't get too fussed if my descriptions don't match up perfectly with the maps or the pictures on the tokens for monsters or NPCs (or even PCs!). Generally speaking, the stuff we say in the chat environment trumps anything said anywhere else, except maybe a few character sheet or rules issues.

Confirm you're playing:
I would like to have at least one player for each role (leader, controller, striker, defender) before I start playing. I am accepting confirmation from this point forward, so even though you've expressed interest before I won't consider you confirmed until you respond AFTER THIS POINT. This includes you, NoblemanNick, but I assume you're going to respond pretty quickly anyway so that shouldn't be a problem.

Joining Up:
If you haven't expressed interest yet but still want to join, you've still got time. But hurry! Get a character together by....let's say Thursday. I'll accept late submissions but please tell me you're going to be late if so.

Inviting Friends:
I have no problem with this if they've got access to a copy of the PHB and can contact me before play starts--just make sure they know the schedule.

If you don't have the Player's Handbook(PHB)
PM me if you don't have the PHB, and I'll discuss what needs to be done about that there. This is still not a bar to entry, but it needs to be taken care of quickly, especially if you're going to have a character by Friday!

What You'll Need to Play

• A character sheet.
• MapTool 1.3.b34 downloaded and installed to your computer (Contact me if this is a problem!)
• Any questions you need answered before playing.
• A copy of the Player's Handbook. If you do not have this, PM me and we'll work something out: As before, this will not necessarily prevent you from playing, but it needs to be handled ahead of time!

You might also want to have a set of "Power Cards," (tiny playing-card-sized notes about your character's powers that make keeping track of their effects easier), as these mean you don't have to search through the PHB for the effects of your abilities. There are several sets of these online. This page has a set with all of the powers that appear in the PHB:
Power Cards and Character Sheets for 4e D&D

Additionally, I would appreciate some sort of communique about how you would like your character to develop and what sort of game you're looking for here. This is not mandatory, but might help everyone to have a better time. This includes the sort of magic items you might like--I'm not going to do the "Christmas List" thing with magic items, but I will keep player's wishes in mind when alloting treasure.

Missing Sessions, Being Late, Leaving Early, and Connection Problems
Don't worry too much about missing a session here and there. You'll still get experience and some treasure (though people who are present will probably get first dibs on treasure), but as long as there are enough people on-hand, the session will go forward without you. Your character will just be treated as an NPC until the next session (or, more probably, he'll just "go upstairs" for a session, like a forgotten sibling on a TV sitcom).

Try to let us know ahead of time not to expect you, if you can. We'll probably have a fifteen minute rule or something, like in school--if you don't show up by fifteen minutes after the session officially starts, we start without you. You can join in when you get in, though joining in the middle of an encounter would be too much trouble, so you'll probably have to sit out for a bit if an encounter starts before you get there.

Leaving early will be tolerated but discouraged. Please, please, please try not to leave in the middle of an encounter. That is lame.

Connection Problems happen. They're a fact of life. We'll work around them such as we are able.

For Those Afraid of Commitment:
Some D&D campaigns go on for years. Most go at least a few months. If that scares you, don't let it.If you need to drop out, just give us some advance warning (two weeks seems like a good round number, but things come up suddenly some times, so don't worry if you have to drop out quicker) and there'll be no....well we're not going to hate you for it, but there will probably be some moaning, especially from me.

Most of all, this is just a game. We understand that it's not your first priority. No, not all of us have lives, and having to drop out because you've started dating someone or have some joined some sort of social group will result in the less life-havingly among us to whine at you (*cough*me*cough*), we'll forgive you....eventually. And you can always join back up later, if it's still going on when you get some free time.

A Final Note for Fans or Anti-fans of Dragonlance:
Though I'm using the campaigns as a basis for my own, this will be my own campaign and my own version of the world of Krynn. Events will differ from the books, the world will differ from canon. For the purposes of this game, assume anything I say to be canon and anything that you know from the books to be apocyphal. And don't assume that just because you dislike Dragonlance (if indeed you do) that you'll dislike this game. Like I said, this game is going to be my own, not Margaret Weis' or Tracy Hickman's.

Contacting Me
You can contact me via PM here, but I might be quicker to read e-mails, so e-mail me at shadowtext@cox.net. Please include "D&D" in the subject line.

Some Rules to Keep in Mind

• The DM's word isn't just law, it's reality. If I say something is true, it's true, regardless of rule books, dice rolls, or logic. You can question me if you want, but please do not hold up the game to do so. Rule-lawyering is discouraged--if a ruling really bothers you, try to discuss it with me after a session rather than during.
• The DM is not your enemy. I am not trying to kill your party, and even though I'm "Playing the Monsters," I am not on the monsters' side. My primary obligation is to make this experience as fun as possible for everyone. I will challenge you wherever possible to keep things interesting, but I will avoid situations that I don't think you can handle.
• Death. I will try to avoid situations where the player character dies, but if you mess up too bad or if a good reason for your survival is all but impossible to come up with, my hand will be forced. The Raise Dead ritual gives you a way around this, and I will allow you to make a new character if you prefer.
• TPK. "TPK" stands for "Total Party Kill." I can almost guarantee this won't happen unless you do something suicidally stupid like dividing by zero.
• Special Rules Exceptions. I'm avoiding them early on to keep things simple since a lot of us are just starting off, but I am willing to make rulings on special situations that crop up during gameplay, so if you need something unique to your character, let me know. Know that I will veto anything that makes you too effective for your level, though.
• Rule Zero, The Most Important Rule IN ANY RPG: Any rule is subject to change at any time for a funner or fulfillinger experience. This includes rules of grammar, so yes, "funner" and "fulfillinger" are perfectly reasonable ways for me to say that.