Strange Happenings

The Game Pitch
Interested in discovering mysteries of a strange town left entirely abandoned over a hundred years ago? Join me for a short series of classic dark fantasy adventures with bent into the somewhat strange. Expect ghost stories, dark academia, sinister company towns, strange monsters, lite eldritch horror, and character-driven stories. Our story will be told through a series of player-selected short adventures (some one-shots, some slightly longer) that are inter-connected but do support a bit of a rotating cast, so having a few players swapping out characters for a night or having folks miss one adventure won't break the overall narrative.

I expect we'll get through one adventure together so you can get a feel for me as a DM and I can get a feel for you as players to decide if we want to continue together! If not, no hard feelings, but it's fun to branch out and try something new. :) Only players age 20+ please.

Technical Stuff
Our game will use Theater of the Mind for some scenes and extremely detailed maps for the majority of our combats, mostly ones that I've made specific for this setting. Expect use of Dynamic Lighting for all maps and a game soundtrack. We'll use Discord for audio and game chat. We also use Kanka for our note-taking platform. Additionally, this game features a lot of downtime between adventures, and I've developed a comprehensive guide of fun and easy to follow mechanics to support whatever goals your character might have!

TLDR the rules work as intended to the best of my understanding, but, when there's confusion in the moment, I work out an outcome that makes everyone happy and moves our scene forward. :)

Character Creation
I use point buy for stats. There are no race or class restrictions, but no Unearthed Arcana without approval. 3rd party content might also be okay subject to review. Just post what you were thinking.

House Rules
1. When readying the attack action, you can benefit from the Extra Attack class feature.
2. I play with the Flanking variant rule in the DMG.
3. We use the One DnD Playtest Exhaustion mechanic. Each level of Exhaustion provides -1 to all D20 rolls you make and your Spell Save DC. If you receive 10 levels of Exhaustion, you die.
4. It does not cost an interaction to draw or sheath a weapon. This means that you can switch between weapons freely between attacks on your turn. Example: You may cast a spell, stow your focus, and then draw a dagger to have a reaction attack on your turn.

Player Safety
This game will be a safe space for LGBTQIA+ players. Strange Happenings will also use a Lines and Veils system for all participants to keep players on the same page of what to expect during game sessions.

Lines are subjects that will NOT show up at the table in any way, including off-screen.

LINES
-Animal Cruelty
-Bestiality
-Cruelty to the Cognitively Impaired
-Nonconsensual Sex
-Sexual Violence

Veils are "pan away" or "fade to black" moments. Veiled subjects may be part of the story, but are kept out of the spotlight. This allows us to have dark themes without having to describe potentially triggering graphic details related to those themes.

VEILS
-Depictions of Sex
-Friendly Animal Death
-Slavery
-Torture Scenes

Keeping Things Fun
Our fictional world is a grim one, on the frontier of civilization where politics, war, violence, bigotry, arranged marriages, cruelty, etc. exist, but HOW we depict these things matters. It's our goal for everyone to have FUN at the game table. If you feel that the way I as a DM or one of your fellow players is depicting a sensitive topic is making the game unfun for you, please bring it up after the game with me so we can fix the issue. I never want to make anyone have anything other than an awesome time at the table, and I’m only having fun if you all are.

About Me
Hey, I'm Josh. I'm a 30. I’ve had an interesting career that’s involved working for a wide array of nonprofits that ended in me co-founded a therapeutic start-up school for students with behavioral challenges due to prior trauma (think foster care stories).

In terms of RPGs, my first exposure to roleplaying games was D&D 3.5. I was in love. Since then, I've been a player and DM for various games and systems. My three favorite genres are action, horror, and fantasy, and most of my games include elements of all three. I've been known to do long form adventures and one-shot horror.

The story is the most important part of RPGs for me. As a player, I want increase group engagement with active roleplaying, combat quips, and in-character humor and am constantly looking for reasons to get other players invested and pick up on plot hooks. As a DM, I try to customize the story around each player's backstory to increase their investment in the game. I often provide players with ways to contribute to the world I'm building both on the spot (the "I know a guy" mechanic, etc) or out of game. The best stories are the ones we tell together!

Right now, I'm way into D&D 5E and have run many modules for three separate groups and admin in a free West Marches D&D discord group. I also have a long-running World of Darkness: Slasher game with elements of Grimm fairy tale horror going.

How To Join
If you wanna play, please post the following…

1. A short bio about yourself. Include your age and interests outside of D&D

2. Share your overall experience level as a roleplayer and what you love most about roleplaying

3. Share your 5e proficiency and what you look for in a D&D game.

4. Let me know what sort of character you’d like to play. General framework is fine. We can work out setting-appropriate details together if I think you’re a fit so I can customize the narrative around backstory.