EDIT: Wow, terrific response! Thank you all. I'm closing this round of recruitment, but if I didn't get back to you this time, I will follow up with everyone who messaged me the next time we grow. The Basics Adding our "3rd wave" of players to our growing campaign. We've been scaling up slowly. D&D 5e, Online, Roll20, Discord, voice (video optional) Using most of the Darker Dungeons mod (but not the Class Compendium) West Marches style persistent world All current players are in North America Ad hoc scheduling, play as often as you want/can rally a posse We're a bunch of middle-aged parents reliving our D&D youth. Age 21+ required because some of us are high school teachers in our day jobs, but also for mild swearing, beer-drinking, and ability to understand our dated references, plus a dash of grimdark and colonialist themes. Howdy! I'm the primary DM for our D&D 5e Darker Dungeons West Marches campaign. We currently have 12 players and play 2-4 times a month, as scheduling permits. We've been playing for 4 months to work out the kinks and are now looking to add another group of players and increase the frequency of play. Everything is working well, so this is a great time to join. What is this " West Marches " thing? WM means different things to different people, but to us it means a sandbox world where the players self-organize schedules, parties, and plans and then recruit a DM to run it. A big pool of players means that ad hoc scheduling makes it much easier to pull off games, compared to the cancellations and scheduling conflicts that can plague a regularly scheduled game with only 4-6 players (especially for working parents!). It's a living, persistent world that is always changing with time and the player's actions. And tell me about this " Darker Dungeons " mod? Giffyglyph's DD is an amazing crunchier, grittier, mod of 5e. It makes the wilderness itself very adversarial - weather, terrain, supplies are very important. Players need to think about "defeating" the journey to the Ghastly Woods with skills and spells and gear as much as defeating the evil inhabitants within the haunted forest. It adds mechanics for Stress, Injuries, Crafting, and Encumbrance. Most importantly, it stretches out Rests: Short Rests take an hour, Camping a night, and Long Rests an entire week (however, adventures are designed to have the same number of encounters between Long Rests, so it's not a punishing mechanic. It just keeps the party from going nova every wilderness encounter.) If you've played the excellent video game Darkest Dungeons, you'll clearly see the inspiration. About the Setting One of the players is getting his PhD in English, specifically related to RPGs. Probably 6 years ago at this point, he started running a homebrew world called Apshai. Each era in the world represents an edition of D&D, letting us get a 'feel' for how each edition's mechanics influence narratives. He's been running the AD&D 1e and 2e eras, and I'm now running the 5e+DD era. The previous era was a dark age: The Old Gods of Order got killed, the World Tree uprooted, and the Prime Material Plane is now adrift in the metaphysical cosmos. It was very much a 4e "points-of-light" setting. Our story picks up in the era after that. We've crawled our way out of the darkness and have adapted to a universe of waxing and waning extraplanar influences, and the perpetual scramble among demigods, demons, magi, and madmen to claim the mantle of the Old Gods. City-states and kingdoms flourish once more. So much so, in fact, that lost continents are now being resettled with new colonies. This is where you come in! Home Sweet Home: Dún Machairí This is a brand new colony -- I mean, it hasn't even had its first winter yet -- and many of the homes are constructed from the hulls of the storm-damaged ships that brought them here. The settlement sits on the bones of a previous, failed, colonization attempt centuries ago. It's the Roanoke Island of the New World. The players are part of an expedition to recolonize it without succumbing to whatever destroyed it the first time around. Mysteries and clues abound. T his is a lean, mean, colony. This is not the "let's bring our families and start a happy new life on a farm" style of colony. This is one made up of the destitute, the persecuted, the ambitious, the divinely inspired. Some of the players are convicts who have been transported, others represent commercial interests, some have pasts they are fleeing, a daring few have dreams of carving out kingdoms, but most are just desperate fortune-seekers. Each player has a roster of three PCs. The PCs account for fully 10% of the entire settlement's population. The Old World is far, far away. For game purposes, it has no influence on the campaign. The Crunch Factor This is a pretty crunchy game. 5e is crunchy enough as is, and then there's Darker Dungeons on top. Plus you have a roster of three characters available at all times! It's sandbox, which means there is no guarantee that encounters are balanced for your level. Parts of it are very "Accountants & Abacus" when it comes to supplies, encumbrance, travel, downtime activities, etc. We have a broad range of player types, but I think players who enjoy planning, exploration, and simulationism are going to have a particularly great time. Tech Roll20 is the VTT Discord is the heart of the campaign where almost all game conversation takes place, plus in-game voice chat Scheduling Process Every Friday an automated message is posted to Discord with a link to a datepicker tool for the next two weeks. Players select all the dates/times that are doable for them. DMs also fill out their availability. Dates where there's overlap and enough players for a game are posted to Discord. Players coordinate among themselves to decide who, when, and what they do for a game and then lock it in with a DM. Player Responsibilities Able to use the tech No jerks Play as little or as much as you like, but visit Discord weekly to keep up to date Find a way to give back to the group – be active in Discord, take notes, post in the RP channel, organize parties, draw maps, write macros to speed gameplay, gift the DMs stuff that makes the game better, or whatever works for you. West Marches games are as fun and smooth as you make them. Why should you join or not join? All the reasons listed in our campaign pitch deck . Interested? PM me or comment below. Please include: Name: Time Zone: Experience with RPGs: Player or DM-preferred, or both?: Tell me a little bit about yourself, your hobbies, and why this sounds good to you. I'm also happy to answer any questions. Cheers, and happy gaming!
