What do I mean by adventure-romance? What I don't mean is sexually explicit erotica. Not looking to cyber. On a scale of 1-10, where 1 is purely sweet, innocent romantic adventure (The Princess Bride), and 5 is sensual and steamy in places (Kushiel's Legacy), and 10 is pure smut (The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty), I would like to keep the explicitness rating at about a 3-4 or below. Adventure-romance is what it sounds like: Rollicking, intense adventure with danger and daring, but a heavy dose of romance. A story is romance if it makes relationships between characters (PC's and NPC's) important. This includes all kinds of relationships--infatuation and courtship and paramour relationships, certainly, but also spouse and family and friend relationships, religious devotion (to whatever faith or deity), loyalty to king and country, devotion to a group (for example, the camaraderie of a military unit). To paraphrase William Faulkner, it's writing from the heart and not the glands. So there will be combat, but what's important is not just what you fight, but what you fight for. And even Miracle Max knows that the greatest cause to fight for is true love, whomever or whatever that love is for. It is also important that the campaign be inclusive of all kinds of love relationships. LGBTQI (and whatever other letters have been added since I last checked) players welcome. No homophobes. Now, within the game, some cultural groups might be socially restrictive--with old fashioned sexual mores and gender roles, etc. Exploring those themes in an imagined world can be a good way to reimagine our own world's attitudes and values, as the best social science fiction and fantasy does. Does it have to have a sunny, light tone? No. Just because it's romance doesn't mean it has to be all unicorns and rainbows and hotties (of any gender) with flowing midnight hair and billowy unlaced pirate shirts. Ok, maybe a few of those would be nice... Although this is something the group can discuss once we're all together, I'd suggest maybe a spooky feel, like Gothic romance, with clouds streaking across the moon and crumbling castles and creepy manors, sinister but alluring Byronic heroes and mysterious, lovely, tragic heroines. You know, that sort of thing. Maybe even some horror elements. Maybe an exotic locale, like a desert or tropical jungle. I would say, though, that while morality shouldn't be black and white, it's nice if all the PC's are people we can admire, or at least would be willing to sit down and have dinner with. The more moral quandaries, conflicting loyalties, and wicked temptations the better! But at the end of the day, I find campaigns last longer and are more fun in the long run if the PC's are the good guys (loveable rogues, perhaps, but still the good guys). They can and should have flaws, and make mistakes, and do the wrong thing (and pay the price, at least emotionally) sometimes, but ultimately have something redeeming in their hearts. So what is the format and the time commitment? It's hard for me to commit to a particular night of the week for a game session. Rather, people can hop on and post whenever they have the time. (So it would be text based, naturally.) To keep the game moving at a decent pace, please only play if you can commit to posting most every day. Not every single day, but more often than every other day. Life happens, I know. That's understandable. But if you're going to be afk for more than a couple of days, please let the group know, and work out with the GM what will happen with your character while you are gone. If it is not an emergency that takes you afk, please let everyone know how long you will be gone before you disappear. For the GM, of course, the time commitment is higher--there's the time spent in preparation and, if the PC's are split up, perhaps having to send out several posts in a given day to the different groups or individuals. Who will be the GM? If you would like to GM this, awesome! I'd be fine with just getting to play and enjoy running my own character. But I'm happy to GM, if no one else has a hankering to. I have been playing RPG's and running RPG campaigns for many years--if I say I started with Keep on the Borderlands, you get the idea. I have played on Roll20 but haven't run a campaign on Roll20. If I'm the GM, I'd like to do most of the campaign by email (which makes it easy for me to dash off a post from my phone when I'm at work). Expect some old school hand-drawn maps that I will scan in and send as attachments. I will likely use Roll20 just for battle scenes and stuff like that. What kind of players are right for this campaign? This is a campaign for players with maturity, regardless of their physical ages. Join this group if you believe that an RPG is an interactive entertainment/art form, like playing jazz in a music group. We are all making it up as we go along, but we all have to cooperate to make it work. As the saying goes, you get out of it what you put into it. Everyone in the group is responsible for contributing to make it fun for everyone, and everyone has an obligation to be respectful to the other players. If someone tries it and decides they just aren't having fun, it's not right for them, then they should contact the GM to discuss it. Maybe it's a fixable problem. If not, then that person should let the GM know they are leaving, rather than just disappear and leave everyone wondering if they are going to post again or if they got hit by a bus. Dan Savage's rule of GGG applies: Play in this campaign if you can be Good, Giving, and Game. Good meaning post reliably. Exercise your imagination to roleplay well, developing a well-rounded and interesting character. Put some energy into rich description and dialogue. Giving meaning support other players and let their characters have the spotlight some of the time. Game meaning be open to new ideas, to trying things you haven't tried before. If this kind of a campaign seems right for you, drop me a message and/or post a reply. I'm looking forward to hearing from you.
