[LF1P][5E][Existing Group] Murder on the Highbeam Express - Sunday 9pm EST, 3 - 4 hour sessions

Below you'll find everything you need to know about the game and group as well as an application. I, the Dungeon Master, will be running a one-shot before we begin the campaign proper as a means of making sure everyone plays well together so that we have a solid group going forward. If you are invited to the one-shot, you will be on equal footing with the existing members of the group and will have as much say regarding who you believe is a good fit or not. This is the time for blunt honesty, before we are 5 months into plot and character arcs. Game night will be on Sundays at 9pm EST and run for 3 – 4 hours. Ideally, games are tight, well-paced 3 hour sessions with an hour left of breathing room for epic encounters, great RP or those oh-so-fun post-game discussions before everyone collapses for the night. This one-shot will be taking place on Sunday the 30 th . Expectations are integral to establishing a good gaming group. I believe that D&D is a group effort. We all collaborate to tell a fun and exciting story  together . The Dungeon Master and the Players have different roles, as might the actors and the writer of a play. As a DM, I will set the stage each week for the characters to tell their story, keep the action moving while in play, and communicate with players between sessions with the ultimate goal of making the game as fun as possible for everyone involved in and out of sessions. You can expect me to take a personal interest in your investment in the game and any problems you may be having with it or other players. Should the need arise, you can expect me to address you in private directly, openly and honestly, if there is a problem that is disrupting the game. Players are expected to show up on time each week ready to play, to plan out combat turns in advance to help keep the game moving, and to be cooperative and engaged members of a team effort to tell a great story. We’re here to have fun but we can only all have fun if we’re on the same page, shouting and laughing at the same things. So yes, your fun can be wrong if your fun is ruining the game for other people with an unbridled bloodlust to kill every NPC, roleplaying explicitly deviant characters who make everyone uncomfortable, making the game all about you and your character or trying to roleplay other players’ characters for them. I believe that if we all agree to the above, everything else should fall into place. Myself and the other 3 players are coming from a game we all recently played together. We’ve known each other for about 5 months and may make references that initially go over your head, until you too have your crazy memorable moments to share. Historically, we’ve been a pretty easy-going but engaged group with a healthy balance of serious RP and some in and out-of-character comic relief. This was under the leadership of another DM so what changes I bring to the table in terms of tone and engagement remain to be seen. We’re an accepting lot so chances are you’ll find a place here for yourself. For the campaign proper, I’ll be using a number of optional rules, restricting certain races (largely of the animal variety) and running a heavily homebrewed setting, but I’ll keep things simple for the purposes of the one-shot. It will take place in the setting but all you will need to know will be in the prompt below. I don’t use battle maps, preferring the freedom and creativity Theater of the Mind allows. I like to look at combat as another opportunity for roleplay and character development, so I find it’s better to have more options in a less rigid space. Forewarning: The one-shot, and elements of the campaign proper, will include themes of loss, death, grief, acceptance and so on. While the atmosphere of the game is intended to be fun and exciting, these darker elements will come up. Murder on the Highbeam Express In the Spring of the 331 st  year of the 3 rd  era, a train is leaving for the capital. You  have  to be on this train. For a reason particular to your character, be it familial obligation, lover's tryst, trouble you're running from, a court date, whatever, you have purchased a ticket aboard the Highbeam Express, an arcane railroad built hundreds of feet above the ground. It's the fastest, most reliable means of transportation within the Greater Trividean Area, secured via a combination of on-board marshals and preemptive divination magic. A lot of gold goes into the Highbeam Express, making tickets quite costly. Whether passage costs you your family's life's savings or a paltry sum is up to the details of your character, however given the great demand for tickets, you were only able to secure leftover seats in Car E. Car E is known as the scalper's car as it is low enough budget for people looking to make some quick gold to purchase but not so economic that those buying the resold tickets would rather wait for better seats to become available. The prices weren't too obnoxious this time as a great many people from a number of cars were looking to return or resell their tickets after seeing the Augury results in  The Morning Read  newsletter. While departure was significantly delayed well into the evening, the train is ready to depart, filled with the more skeptical or desperate travelers of the Highbeam Express. You arrive at the station in time for departure and when you do, as if to confirm the newsletter's Woe reading, you will see several crows sitting atop the train... on Car E. Application - Write as much as you like. Your name:  Your age (range is fine):   Your gender (optional):  Does the time and day work for you?  You gonna show up on time?  No, but really? You good with combat being exclusively Theater of the Mind? Roleplay Experience (none required):  What got you into TTRPGs?  What's your favorite aspect of TTRPGs? What's a memorable experience you've had in a TTRPG (or watching TTRPGs)?  What's a bad experience you've had in a TTRPG?  Are you okay with your character being able to die?  What kinds of characters have you played in the past or are interested in playing?  Would you say your character *is* you but different, is an extension of yourself, is a separate entity from yourself, or none of the above? Explain. You will be playing a 5th level character for the one-shot. Your Character's Name:  Your Character's Race:  Your Character's Gender:  Your Character's Class/Subclass:  Assuming a standard D&D fantasy setting with some high fantasy elements (big cities, magic trains): What does your character do for a living?  Character Backstory (Protip: Include the reason they *have* to be on this train.): Given the delays, your character would have a day longer than expected to spend in the city from which they'll be departing. Their ticket would magically glow when the train was getting ready to depart, giving them enough time to get to the station. What would they do in that time?  

Your name: Popo Your age (range is fine):  9000 Your gender (optional): GOD Does the time and day work for you? TIME has no meaning to me.  You gonna show up on time? AGAIN time has no meaning to me.... yes No, but really? YES NO You good with combat being exclusively Theater of the Mind? If you dont mind looking into mind of a Greater OLD ONE! Roleplay Experience (none required): N/A I am the Roleplay Experience! What got you into TTRPGs? Not you! What's your favorite aspect of TTRPGs? TRYING TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD! What's a memorable experience you've had in a TTRPG (or watching TTRPGs)? When a group of enemies fought again my and I had an effect that let my hatred damage them all slowly. And I got to kill the villain with it because his allies were holding me back but still in my aura of damage.   What's a bad experience you've had in a TTRPG? I had people talk to me about how I should play the game and why I should play it. So I gave up  Are you okay with your character being able to die? NO What kinds of characters have you played in the past or are interested in playing? ALL kinds of them Would you say your character *is* you but different, is an extension of yourself, is a separate entity from yourself, or none of the above? Explain. N/A You will be playing a 5th level character for the one-shot. Your Character's Name: Norra Your Character's Race: Goblin Your Character's Gender: Female Your Character's Class/Subclass:  Gloomstalker Assuming a standard D&D fantasy setting with some high fantasy elements (big cities, magic trains): What does your character do for a living? Stealing Character Backstory (Protip: Include the reason they *have* to be on this train.): Stealing and killing a passager that destoryed my village PS: I KNOW THE GM SO THIS INSIDE JOKE FOR US.

Your name: Ky Your age (range is fine): 30s Does the time and day work for you? Sunday evenings is the best time for me! You gonna show up on time? Yeah, I prefer to be ready for games early so I have time to check that my connection's good and get my materials prepped. No, but really? I really do intend to, and expect to! Most of my weekend commitments, family functions and the like, are on Saturdays or Sundays midday, wrapping up mid-afternoon since most people have work Monday mornings. It'd be rare that I'm not available at this time. This weekend I have no Sunday plans at all - the day is mine. You good with combat being exclusively Theater of the Mind? I admit, I'm not as used to it, but I've played Theater games before. So long as there's some way for me to keep a rough record of layouts - maybe I could type up summaries of what I hear described as we go? - I should be fine. And I probably won't try to play a character who focuses on environmental control. Roleplay Experience (none required): I've played D&D on and off for more than a decade, and a smattering of other systems here and there.  What got you into TTRPGs? I never really let go of loving to play on the playground, and I picked up non-tabletop roleplaying when I was still a kid. Things like D&D seemed like all of that but better - things of fantasy novels and movies, but created in a group.  What's your favorite aspect of TTRPGs? I love the mix of game and storytelling, and don't see any reason to emphasize "role" or "roll"playing at the expense of the other. Using dice and the game of it all to introduce unexpected twists and turns in the story we create, and using story to make a game that's more memorable than the average quick card game, is the mix that I love. What's a memorable experience you've had in a TTRPG (or watching TTRPGs)? In my first tabletop campagin, as we were approaching the land conquered by the final boss, my druid reached out to check the land for corruption. The DM had me make a willpower save, which I failed with a 1, and a constitution save, which I also failed with a 1. We were all somewhere between gasps and laughter, anticipating what was going to happen, as the DM had me make a final willpower save... on which I got a 19. Things seemed to go fine, and we continued to the boss without incident... but the DM later revealed that I'd accidentally made contact with the fading god of decay, and nearly been possessed by it - if I'd rolled poorly on that last roll, my character would have become an NPC. Instead, my final success on the willpower meant that I absorbed the god's power - and was the means by which my druid became a demigoddess in the epilogue. Not knowing what the consequences would be, but knowing something significant was happening, was a very cool moment. What's a bad experience you've had in a TTRPG? I joined a game advertised as a story of characters in one setting, working to get to safety outside it, with the idea that we'd be going for weeks or months of exploring together. After a couple sessions of brief explorations of interesting locations and hints of our histories, the group had trouble meeting for a few weeks... And when we met up again, the DM surprised us by introducing a group of NPCs imported from another story entirely, meeting our characters by chance and offering to just take us to safety. The campaign's premise was solved for us in an abrupt twenty minutes, without warning. We were all a bit at a loss how to proceed, especially since the DM didn't really introduce or describe these new NPCs - they seemed to expect us to recognize them and be enthusiastic about playing with these characters.  Are you okay with your character being able to die? Yes, though I hope it's not very likely, and that there's opportunities for rolling up a new character to continue joining in the game if it does. What kinds of characters have you played in the past or are interested in playing? I've played a range from a quiet druid most interested in exploration, a sailor interested in gaining wealth and fortune to impress the girl she wanted to date, a barbarian most interested in getting in fun and dangerous situations, an amnesiac skeleton avoiding the necromancer who'd raised him, to a wizard who meddled with forces beyond her measure and was corrupted by the backlash to a degree that she couldn't fully control her magic anymore. For this test one-shot, I'd like to dig up a character (strongly inspired by Winnona Earp) that I made for a West Marches game that never took off. Would you say your character *is* you but different, is an extension of yourself, is a separate entity from yourself, or none of the above? Explain. Typically, my character is a mix of separate entity and extension of myself. I'd compare it to the distance of using a handpuppet: the outer form, the character's appearance and backstory, aren't me at all. But I put a little of myself into them, in order to guess at their feelings and act out their motivations.  You will be playing a 5th level character for the one-shot. Your Character's Name: "Blaze" - Blazenka Smythe Your Character's Race: Scourge Aasimar Your Character's Gender: Female Your Character's Class/Subclass: Revised Ranger (Gloom Stalker) Assuming a standard D&D fantasy setting with some high fantasy elements (big cities, magic trains): What does your character do for a living? Crime, mostly. Some burglary, some coersion, some friendly neighborhood enforcement for the local crime boss.  Character Backstory (Protip: Include the reason they *have* to be on this train.): You know the classic story about adventurers settling down and having families, and many of the family following in the job, until it's generations of magical warriors with more ancient foes than they can beat off with a stick... and then some of those enemies catch up and burnt their hometown to the ground, so the protagonist is free to go off adventuring on their own - with loss overshadowing them? That sort of happened, except only some of the family and hometown were killed, and mostly the family splintered in the aftermath out of guilt and blame and grief.  So 'Blaze' wasn't a child orphan on the streets, or a fully adult and competent adventurer - she was an angry teenager who wanted to disregard the family's guardian deva's guidance, to go do crime for a living. She lucked out in making friends - some up-and-coming thief with an eye for talent and a skill for networking had enough sincerity to be genuine friends, and the pair had each others' backs for years. They worked on behalf of a thieves group her friend was rising in the ranks of, and were reasonably successful at it.  But petty crimes got boring over the years, with her family destiny hanging over her shoulder, and Blaze started getting homesick for her childhood. She fixated on ideas of reconnecting with family, maybe continuing the old family mission of hunting demons... and, most of all, starting with revenge. Her friend decided it'd be best to part on good terms, and did her the favor of sending out feelers for rumors of people fitting the descriptions Blaze offered - especially if those people had any known demonic affiliations. Eventually, word came back of a warlock, skilled with a life-drinking blade, who looked like one Blaze saw that terrible night. Blaze went hunting, following the rumors to this trip on the Highbeam Express. She's here to confirm the warlock's onboard, shadow them when they get off the train, and hopefully trace them back to some more of the creatures responsible for breaking her family.