The Champions of Secomber

Welcome brave Adventurers...

**Having lost one player I'm reopening recruitment. The next session is 7.30pm Monday 8 October 2018, West Australian Time. This is an ongoing campaign running from 1st to 20th level forecast to conclude around the end of 2019. Preference will be given to applicants in a favourable timezone.

The players are now sixth level and include a Human War Cleric, a Firbolg Monk/Druid and a Human Fighter.

See original Ad below which includes information about application/character creation. Note also the group and I have altered/finessed some of the rules listed below since the inception of the game.**

You call the town of Secomber your home. Known as the 'Garden Town on the Greyflow' it is a beautiful and peaceful place built on the hard work of the folk that live there. It is inland a ways from the 'Sword Coast' and on the border of the 'Savage North'. You and your friends enjoy some renown although you are yet to be known as the 'Champions of Secomber'.

A bit about the game

• If I have enough interest I'd like to do a Session Zero on Monday 8th January 2018.
• The Session Zero would test the medium(s)- roll20 for maps, sheets, handouts, typed chat and blog; discord for voice and chat.
• Then the Session Zero would finalise characters and sheets including some starting macros.
• After that we'll work out some connections, friendships and shared histories of the characters.
• Finally we'd run a mock combat to test the media, dice rolls, macros etc.
• Session One would then run on Monday 15th January 2018.
• I'll provide interesting fight scenes with different levels, terrain and challenges. In return I'd like you to describe the effects of your blows and spells with gusto.
• I'll write prologues leading into each game and epilogues leading out again.
• Character level ups will be your homework- I'd like this complete prior to the session where required so as to save the Monday nights for actual game play. Likewise we can work on other aspects of character and plot development plus rules queries outside of the sessions where possible.
• After the first introductory game 'Tengwen's Grudge', you'll be able to choose from a range of hooks into the next game as I have several prepared. In this way I hope for the game to be sandbox style (with limitations- if you go off the track too much I may not have maps and tokens prepared so you won't get the full experience.)

Tengwen's Grudge

The first game of ‘The Champions’ begins in a tavern in the character's home town of Secomber. The local villain, a spiteful half-orc called Tengwen, having learned of the new 'champions' of the town, steals items of worth to the characters (I’ll determine what these items are after I’ve seen some applications.) and goads them into coming after him.

A bit about me

• I’d like to build a solid group of four mature players that can play most Monday nights 7.30-10.30pm GMT+8.
• I’m offering a series of homebrew games based in the Forgotten Realms setting. I’ve chosen to use this setting as more people are familiar with it and there is a mountain of readily available information and inspiration, eg. http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
• I gain inspiration and use materials from the web to create my games. I can produce many games in this way without over investing my time. You may recognise some of the material if you spend as much time online enthusing about DnD as I do.
• I’ll use commonly available maps (with some changes so you can’t always guess what’s around the corner) rendered in black and white or sepia so as to keep a common flavour. The characters tokens can be rendered in colour so as to be easily definable.
• I’ve been playing DnD on and off since 1992 so the game style I prefer is old-school and heroic. I don’t like murder-hobo play styles- I prefer a team-based problem-solving style.

A bit about you

• You’re keen to be part of a regular game run by a committed and creative DM.
• Can commit to playing once a week at the listed time and live in a friendly time zone (ie. Western Australia or nearby timezone) to help this happen. (I’ll more favourably consider players from the same or similar time zone to myself.)
• You enjoy DnD5e, own the Player’s Handbook at minimum and have ambitions to be a renowned adventurer among a group of your peers.
• You’re happy to abide by your DM’s judgement in most cases.
• You like a fast rate of character progression and overcoming increasingly difficult challenges.
• You can verbally roleplay your character and are not the strong silent type (even if your character doesn’t talk much you’ll need to communicate that to your fellow players…).
• You're happy to advance the plot/character progression or do some character admin a couple of times per week in between sessions via Discord.
• You'd like to invest time and effort in my campaign to explore the setting and build characters as we go.

Future Modules

I've prepared games to complete the first 'tier' (Character levels 1-4) along with plot, introductions, maps, npc's and monsters. The 2nd level games to choose from are

• The Crown of Madness.
• Missing Persons.
• The Forest and the Throne.

The 3rd level games to choose from are

• The Siege of Loudwater.
• The Temple of the Sea Queen.
• Amanitas' Puzzle. These will get us through the first tier of progression after which I can tailor make games for the characters.

Application to join the game

I'm going to ask new players to create an outline of their character including

• Name
• Class
• Race
• Description including a picture I can tokenise
• Two Personality traits, an ideal, a bond and a flaw
• A short backstory
• A few lines about your gaming history I don't expect an essay I just want enough information to try to assess whether we'd enjoy playing together.
• Which timezone you're from. I have a strong preference for compatible timezones

Character Creation Rules

• Characters begin at level one.
• Ability scores are derived from the standard array (before racial modifiers).
• Hit Points are maximum at level one and the highest of a roll or average thereafter.
• Multiclassing PHB p.163
• Feats PHB p.165
• Standard equipment as per PHB to speed into the game play.
• Custom backgrounds PHB p.125. I encourage players to build their own or adjust an existing one as I often find the standard backgrounds do not quite fit the characters I make. You can also check out sites such as http://www.orcpub.com/dungeons-and-dragons/5th-edition/backgrounds Just stick to the rules on p.125.
• Material from the PHB and Volo's Guide to Monsters (books I own and am happy to reference.) including Variant Human and UA Rangers.
• I won't allow most other material as I feel there's plenty of scope here for a cool character. You can always ask though.

Optional Rules

• Variant Human PHB p.31
• Equipment Sizes PHB p.144 (In that halfling armour won't fit a human etc.)
• Skills with Different Abilities PHB p.175
• Encumbrance PHB p.176 (Your character sheet calculates this and I like my adventurers to travel light.)
• Flanking DMG p.251 (except that instead of providing advantage on attacks flanking gives +2 to attack rolls. This is so as not to negate abilities and feats that give advantage.)
• Milestone XP DMG p.261 *(Each game in this campaign will provide one level of experience unless the players stuff it up really badly.)
• (I'd consider Plot Points DMG p.269 if the players wanted it. Good to keep your DM guessing!)
• Action Options DMG p.271- Climb on to a bigger creature, Disarm, Overrun, Shove Aside, Tumble. (Not using 'Mark'.)

If you've read this far you're obviously interested so put in an application! Welcome to 'The Champions of Secomber'