These will be adventures worth winning! I am looking to run a DnD 5e campaign based in the Lost Lands, the official setting of Frog God Games: purveyor of goods using new rule-sets but with an old school flair. I am the best teacher, so new players are absolutely welcome. I find they tend to think more "outside the box" which is an element of old school games where you aren't able to roll your way out of a situation. Constance vigilance will be required. Please be able to commit to a weekly game of 4 hours. Saturdays at 3pm PST. The game will be for ages 18 and up. I
will stream audio and video from Facerig because I think it is funny and my
face scares little children. You can do whatever you want. We’ll use discord as
an audio backup in case there are issues with roll20. Summary of Setting Play will begin in a large city and the surrounding area. The first two meetings will be fairly linear, leaving the players the issue of how to solve the problem (but not the ability to pick the problem). It will grow more open-world (sandboxy) from there, but Frog God Game's strength is in writing old school dungeon crawls where the players have to figure out how to not die. So it will be like a contained sandbox. Constance vigilance! Feel of the Game Your characters will be small fish in a big pond. So it will not be like Critical Role where wherever the players go they that the world has been specially crafted just for them. The world will be the world and player backstory will be woven into it. It will be up to the players to be the agents of change. The ration of roleplay:battle will lean more towards battle. This does not mean hours of endless meaningless battle. It just means the player has to make different choices in how they approach things. Character Creation Player's Handbook (PHB) only, standard stat array, no feats. If you need help making a character we'll set up a time to walk through that together. It will require constanct vigilance. Character customization will primarily be done via the narrative. So the player will be responsible for earning boons and magical items. These will be what will make the characters unique, so extra classes and archetypes are unnecessary. Boons could be things things that act similarly to feats or class features or abilities that exist outside the PHB, but don't come in planning on getting something specific. Boons will fit in with the narrative and character choices and are often at the will of the gods who are quite capricious. This means that some part of character development will be outside your control so you will have to take that risk if you want a possible reward. Paladins are Lawful Good. If you want to play a non-Lawful Good “Paladin” then pick a different name for your class. Warpriest, for example. Or Knight of the Angry Charter. I don’t care. But you are not a Paladin. However, any spell that states, “Does an extra 3d6 damage to a paladin”* will still deal the extra damage to you. Rangers People on the Internet believe they PHB version of rangers is too weak. Others believe the Unearthed Arcana version is quite strong. If you are interested in playing a ranger I will make a slight buff to the PHB ranger, but will have to look into it further, depending on what you're going for. Old School Style DM None of the NPCs follow the rules for PCs. Rules rulings: I am typically fairly linear in my thought process so odds are that I will make rulings consistently. (eg, there may exist a race feature where the frog-people have the ability to jump away without provoking attacks of opportunity. Such things are not put in to screw the players but are to push the narrative of how awesome these frog-people are, if they even truly exist). However, I have more experience in other systems so I may get some things wrong about 5e and will welcome corrections. DM will still always maintain final control.
Some areas will be above your power level and
running away may be the only choice.
A glorious death is not guaranteed. Sometimes you just die
to an especially dangerous trap at the front of the cave. Part of what makes epic gaming moments is all the hard work and failure it took to get to them so they cannot be handed out freely. Sometimes the world just isn't fair. But you will endure. And use a replacement character to get back into the game. Character Death Resurrection will be difficult/limited. Players will not be casting resurrection. Constant At the onset, each player will create two characters, in
case one dies. The backup character should be maintained at the same level as main
character so you can get back in the game quickly. All players will always be at the same level. To “earn” more replacements, you must befriend NPCs in game which will make them recruitable and at player death they will become playable. Not all NPCs are
recruitable. This encourages non-murder-hoboism and creating diplomatic solutions to some encounters as well as provide enough tension regarding player death. Vigilance To Join Respond here to keep all replies in the same spot. After the weekend I'll go over them. You don't need to create the character yet. I just need a short paragraph (maybe two) of backstory on the general
concept of your character. Character can be developed and expanded upon during play. So a sprawling backstory is not necessary. (or put another way: long backstories are better left for novels)
I like the Personality Traits concept on page 123 of PHB. So make sure you include an ideal, bond, and flaw that you
like. It creates a really compact character concept. If you have seen Dice, Camera, Action (on twitch or youtube) then you are familiar with Simon and his personality traits are quite good. He is a court jester construct who has some... issues. Here is his personality traits: Ideal: "I wish I could make people happy." Bond: "I would like to find someone--anyone--who isn't afraid of me and who enjoys my company. Flaw: "When I'm upset, I do bad things." Once we reach level 7 we'll evaluate the campaign and see where we're at. See if you still like me. See if we're compatible and fun as a group. One possibility: A particularly good Frog God Game campaign starts at a higher level, so we may "transport" to that area. It's in the same general area, and you through the course of the campaign you should find some clues about it. It may require a "soft-reset" on magical items. This would allow me to be more generous with magic items at lower levels without having to worry about long-term balance (plus if the characters get too rich, they won't want to adventure any more. And the focus will be on adventuring, not nation building). Thanks for listening! EDIT Forgot to mention: no evil or chaotic evil characters. All characters are assumed to be friendly and on the same team. *may or may not applied to every spell with the evil descriptor
