Solo Game

Ok, it has been a long time ago, I had made a character for a game that never start. After that, the master suggest to take my character in a solo game, which never start either, but the idea to play a solo game have been germing in my mind since that time. Pretty frustrating to see a 8 pages background character never been put to life.

So, I want to make that idea I have in my head become true, participating in a solo game. You can note, I didn't said playing, but participating, because I doubt I'll find a master out here willing to run a solo game. If by any luck there is one, tell me.

But to be more realistic, I'm willing to master a solo game. I have many ideas, varied ideas and no ideas about how the game will be, in other words, that game will be something that me and the player will agree on. I see a solo game a chance to make a game more character oriented than quest oriented.

So, for recruitment, what I seek, it is stories and backgrounds. I want something that will give me seeds of idea. Be creative, be inventive and give me place in your story. For stats, I don't care for the moment.

Now, for the system. I'll be more likely to master a D&D 3.5 game, but I am pretty familiar too with Mutants and Mastermind and you might win my heart with it too. Out of these two systems, not thanks.

A note on me. I've been playing for now over 10 years (I've stopped to count), but I have few mastering experience. I'm presently running one game on another board, you can find the threads here if you are curious. It is a Mutant and Mastermind adventure.

IC, OCC

And if you want to know how can look like a background that I seek, here my 8 pages background I wrote down some times ago, but I don't ask you to have one that long, it's just me who likes to write down a bit once in a while.

Background

Any question? Any interest? Any comment? Any insult?

Are you still available for running a solo game? I'd consider giving it a shot.

Sure.

As I said, I have no fixe idea. I have a lot of idea, but I want first to discuss it with the player (that mean you).

First, what do you want to play? (System, type of character, style of world, style of game, power level of the game, ect...)

I'd want to play, probably D&D 3.5 since you probably don't know the other system I'd play. (World Tree is pretty rare)

I can adapt to a variety of games, so if you have a couple ideas you like better than the rest, that'll help me brainstorm on my type of character and we could maybe come up with a middle ground that we both like.

EDIT: Oh, although I'd prefer not being 1st level, as they can die pretty quickly. Unless you have an idea for that too. I also like to play with my variety of books (I have the Complete books and most of the Races books and the Draconomicon that I like to use) although I can try to limit the use of those and show you want I want to use beforehand, depending on my character ideas.

Jvdn1 said:

...and we could maybe come up with a middle ground that we both like.

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That what I'm looking for.

Go for D&D 3.5. I have only the basic books, plus afew other books (mainly some Monster manuals and some Sovereign Stone books), but if you want to take something out of some other book, just submit it to me.

For the level, I was thinking to start at level 3 or 4, something low level but as you said, not too deadly if you enter combat.

Here some concept of story I was thinking of:

Forgetfullness:
You just had some dream... a nightmare you should say. But worst than that, it is the only thing you can remember. You have no memory of your name, your family, your past. Nothing but a dream. You want to figure who you are and what happen, but you have the intuition it is not good.

Peasant Hero:
Some heroes are ones of a nation, but when you live in a remote land, it takes nothing to become a local heroes. You hometown have some trouble, and it seems that events put yourself in the middle of that, and you are now seen as the local hero now, but the things are only starting.

Slave:
You are a slave since some times, you have been capture and transport far from your homeland. You don't have any idea where you are, all you know it is you have been carried on boat to some unkown island to you. You are now working in a mine with some other slaves.

Squire:
You are the squire of a knight. You follow him and help him in his quests. The lord have some trouble with a neighbor, and your master is sent in mission to find a solution to it, and where you're master go, you go.

Underworld
A large city never sleep, but when the sun goes down, the people who wakes up are not the best kind of people. Thugs and thieves walk the streets and scared people. But those are low-life people, the worst of the Guild. You are one of the premium, you are called by the guild for the hard jobs.

Velmont said:

Go for D&D 3.5. I have only the basic books, plus afew other books (mainly some Monster manuals and some Sovereign Stone books), but if you want to take something out of some other book, just submit it to me.

Click to expand...

Sure thing. I'll try to not use those books too much as I don't want to bog you down.

Velmont said:

For the level, I was thinking to start at level 3 or 4, something low level but as you said, not too deadly if you enter combat.

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Sounds great.

Velmont said:

Here some concept of story I was thinking of:

Forgetfullness:
You just had some dream... a nightmare you should say. But worst than that, it is the only thing you can remember. You have no memory of your name, your family, your past. Nothing but a dream. You want to figure who you are and what happen, but you have the intuition it is not good.

Peasant Hero:
Some heroes are ones of a nation, but when you live in a remote land, it takes nothing to become a local heroes. You hometown have some trouble, and it seems that events put yourself in the middle of that, and you are now seen as the local hero now, but the things are only starting.

Slave:
You are a slave since some times, you have been capture and transport far from your homeland. You don't have any idea where you are, all you know it is you have been carried on boat to some unkown island to you. You are now working in a mine with some other slaves.

Squire:
You are the squire of a knight. You follow him and help him in his quests. The lord have some trouble with a neighbor, and your master is sent in mission to find a solution to it, and where you're master go, you go.

Underworld
A large city never sleep, but when the sun goes down, the people who wakes up are not the best kind of people. Thugs and thieves walk the streets and scared people. But those are low-life people, the worst of the Guild. You are one of the premium, you are called by the guild for the hard jobs.

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I like all of these ideas, really. At first I was thinking Rogue (for Underworld or Peasant Hero or Slave)... but well, what I do is come up with ideas and then try to find a way for it to work mechanically. As a Rogue I think my main class ability, Sneak Attack, would be pretty useless. I couldn't ever flank and denying my opponent his Dex is tough. I could do it with a Bluff check (to Feint), but that'd mean that I could only ever have one attack per round (Improved Feint lets you do it as a move action). There's a prestige class that would let me do it as a Free Action (Invisible Blade, Complete Warrior), but the prereq's for that class are considered kind of messed up (it's not a ranged PrC, but it requires PBS and Far Shot), so then to make it a decent build, I'd have to take Master Throw (again, PrC from Complete Warrior). Which is a neat build, but I thought it was probably too much supplemental information and I wanted to narrow my usage of books a bit more.

My current ideas are mostly high Dex...
-A Ranger or Barbarian (a nonstandard Barbarian, having a decent Int) for Forgetfullness or Peasant Hero (although the Bbn could be good at Slave too).
-A Bard or Bard/Fighter for Peasant Hero or Slave (maybe focus on using the whip or alternate between whip and rapier).
-Fighter or Paladin/Fighter (if you let me multiclass between the two, or if I can take the Eberron feat that allows it) for Squire (although now that I think of it, Ninja or Ninja/Fighter could be cool for this too).

Really, I like all three of those ideas and could go in a couple more directions, even. The last two ideas are probably favorites by a slight margin. Any comments/recommendations/ideas? These ideas aren't very strong casters because I think a d4 HD would be very bad in this sort of game, although I could be convinced to try it or to try a divine caster.

A bard is a caster... but don't care about the hit dice. I mean, the challenge will depend on the class you choose, and for XP, it will most likely not work on combat, but on problem solving challenge. Defeating a group of Orcs with a fireball is less impressive for an invoker than just passing next to them by using an illusion to divert them. (ok, I'm a fan of the illusion school, that's why I have Opale in LEW )

And the last game I run, the number of post for combat was less than 5% of the post of the thread. So there may be some heavy combat oriented session, some heavy roleplay without even combat. And I can garantee that if you run head first.

Another thing, I'll be flexible on rules, so if you want to make some break in the rules (like your figther/paladin), as long as it come a nice background, I will accept it, but the background is the important point for the change.

Now for the game, after some thinking, I think we will go for Squire. So tell me how you see your character and his "knight".

That's a good point about the Bard, but especially in mid- and high- levels, Bard spells aren't as great. A 6th level Bard spell doesn't get as high a DC as a 9th level Wizard spell, so I'd expect most creatures to pass their saves. I was thinking a Bard/Fighter might have some useful spells (and illusion, although since I don't have a lot of casting experience, I'll probably be trying a variety of things with that), but also be able to hold his own in a battle.

And a Bard is going to generally be good in roleplaying situations anyway. Same with a Rogue. I think a Bard/Fighter might cover enough bases that I won't be completely lost in most situations.

I have a couple ideas for a Squire, though. The first couple are based on older characters of mine (first I want to mention that a Knight doesn't have to be a Paladin, although one gets the idea that he should be Lawful and have some ranks in Ride).

1. Some backstory: Sblock'd because there's more than I initially expected. I have a lot of story on this one since I actually played much of the backstory and planned it for a while. [sblock] My very first character was a NG Half-Orc named Teg'ruk. We played from 1st level to 22nd over a few years and over the time our party (named the Companions) grew to be wildly famous. Teg'ruk was a Half-Orc Fighter who fought alongside (often under the direction of) a Human Fighter, Theron, that he befriended (another PC). Theron had extensive military training, but he made it very clear to everyone that Teg'ruk was the more powerful combatant. Whenever Theron introduced himself to an army (always a long, impressive introduction), the army would grow worried and restless. Then, Theron would introduce Teg'ruk simply by saying, "This is Teg of clan Ruk. He scares me. The army would then move a few feet backwards.

Anyway, Teg'ruk eventually bore a child, whom he planned would make a strong adventurer himself, but the child would (to Teg's dismay) become a Paladin, although of the same god Teg followed (a nature deity). The child, Ther'ruk I believe he was supposed to be (named after Theron), was initially trained by his father (fighter levels), but followed his own path (paladin levels). I'm thinking he would continue to follow his father's training (continue fighter levels) but also try not to lose sight of the higher calling (paladin).

Teg'ruk's original clan was barbarians, but Teg was more intelligent than the rest (hence Fighter instead of Barbarian), and he eventually civilized his clan by moving them into his town/fortress, so it doesn't seem like a stretch for such a civilized Half-Orc, although it'd still be uncommon.

Teg'ruk was Neutral Good. While Ther'ruk would have to be Lawful Good, I think he'd still have kind of a free spirit, so Ther would probably want to leave home to try to make it on his own. That's why he'd become a squire, at least for a time. He wants to prove he's strong without having the legacy of his father following him. The knight he follows probably hates Ther for his father (a squire that's more famous than you? preposterous!) or doesn't know about it at all.

He focuses on TWF, mostly. I'd also consider using Races of Destiny for the Half-Orc Paladin Racial Substitution Levels. It changes Smite Evil for something that's a cross between rage and smite, if I remember correctly, and they get some other stuff that I don't recall at the moment.[/sblock]

Now, despite what you might think, I'm not bound to that idea at all. I plan to play him sometime in the future when I get back together with that gaming group, but if you like it I'll be happy to try to pick it up.

2. I have two Dwarf characters that dont' get as much play as I'd like them to. One's in a LEW game (which you know! ) and the other is in an FR game that died. I like both of their backstories.
http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=2048611&postcount=164
and
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?p=2199444#post2199444

You don't have to read those, I suppose, but they each LG Fighters and want to make a name for themselves and discover the world. I can really see them focusing on the Fighter and joining a kind knight as an opportunity to learn and try new things. Then, they'd pick up a few (not a lot in the long run, maybe 2-6) levels in Paladin due to their training. He'd follow a god of Strength.

One of them is a TWF (with Dwarven Urgosh) and the other uses a Warhammer and plans to go into Battlesmith (Fighter/crafter PrC).

3. The first two are atypical characters, which I often make, but I have a weakness to stereotypical characters too. I really like playing idealistic characters that uphold what you think the class/race should be. It's a weakness of mine, maybe, but for my third idea I'm gonna have to say a Human or Half-Elf Paladin.

Focus on Lance and Longsword (or maybe Bastard Sword, but probably not). Low Dex (the first two are high Dex! just realized that! well, one of the dwarves isn't, but still), high Str, high Con, medium Cha, medium Wis. Follows your typical Paladin sun-lawful-good-undead-hating-demon-hating god.

He'd probably come from a poorish town (as a lot of squires do) and find any knight that would treat him somewhat kindly and sponsor his training for knighthood.

4. Now that I have that out of my system, my last Paladin idea (I think this is my last one, anyway. Once I came up with a bunch of Paladin ideas to see how flexible the class was and was impressed).

This guy is a pretty scary guy. He's really tall, very dark skin, completely bald, and carries a big greatsword where ever he goes. This is a Power Attack/Cleave sort of guy, follower of a god of Strength and War. Human Paladin all the way. He takes Intimidate to pry the truth out of people. He's Lawful Good, but he's also kind of mean and has a short temper. His family was probably some Paladins or Fighters too, so his knight is probably someone pretty important.

This is a long post and I think I'm getting a bit scattered on my ideas, so if you have questions go ahead, but I'll stop this post now

Oh, also -- with your other four ideas... I have a friend who wants to play a duet with two PCs (me and her). If you have time for it, would you want to run another?

Lots of idea, I like it. I must tell I like the Half-Orc, but the father seems to have a long story (level 22 my highest character have been of 13th level in table top) and I think it will be better if you can play it with you gaming group again, as they know a lot more what happen.

Anyway, I have been thinking a bit about the plot, and I must tell I am wondering how your scary Paladin would react to some idea I have, it could turn the tide of events. I think we could go on that way.

~~~~~~

Here what that have been running in my head lately.

The great kingdom of Gaile is a coastal kingdom, surrounded by sea on the north, south and east. On the west, the land is populated with the small kingdom of Theor and many barbarian tribes. The barbarian nations are living on there own, but when bad years come, they generally starts to raid the kingdom of Gaile. Theor have always refuse to support Gaile in the protection of the border, telling the force of Theor are just large enough to protect there own border. The prince Falkon, present ruler of Gaile, have tried to convince Theodor V, ruler of Theor, to join the nation of Gaile, but Theodor, as his ancestor, have always defended the independance of there nation.

In the nation of Gaile, no order is more famous and praise than the Order of Crian. The order have been protecting the nation against many threat since the rule of Gaile itself. The Order of Crian is based on the Crian's rock, a small island a mile away from the coast line in the north west of the country. This land have been given to the order by Gaile. The rock have since been transform into a small forteress. The fort is renown for the many blacksmith that have establish itself there, helping to the reknown of the Order, having the chnace to have the best weapon of all Gaile. Another thing make the rock exceptionnal. The tide is so strong in this region that the coast line move about 2 miles between the low tide and the high tide. That make the fort almost impossible to siege, as during the high tide, land weaponry can't reach the fort, and during low tide, no boat can reach the fort, and neither can stay near the fort for long as the tide raise and go down.

~~~~~~

So, what do you think of that? The setting is far from complete, but it's start to take form. Another question I would like you to answer. As you have guess, the paladin order you'll be in will be the one of Crian. That god is not yet define. What type of god your paladin would follow?

~~~~~~

For the duet game, we could give a try too. I would go for Slave if you are both willing. Forgetfullness is pretty hard to play for a duo. Peasant Hero and Underworld could be a possibility if you have some good suggestion to do.