Legacy of the Silver Dragon (Swords and Wizardry Core, 4th Ed)

[Binder Fred]

One week might be a little optimistic, considering that three players are still working on their PCs two weeks into this thing. Perhaps a deadline is in order? All PCs must be complete and posted by the time you leave -- so we can, as you say, settle on a hook to pull and start the group adventure when you get back? Else we'll need to start looking for alternates...

 

[gambler1650]

You're probably right. We'll see how things look around Wednesday-Thursday and I'll decide where to go from there....

 

[Binder Fred]

Frankly, given the quality of the game so far, and the promise of what's to come, I'm kind of surprised people aren't rushing to dive into the roleplaying pool. Something holding you back, guys?

Once out on the wooden planking of the street, [...]

Since this is a small town with, from the background, strong ties to the logging industry, I'm suggesting that (main?) streets be paved with planks (half-cut trees set into the ground maybe, planned face up?), with maybe the main square itself paved with cobble (assuming we have one of those)? This assumes either low horse-traffic, magically/naturally strengthened wood (iron wood?) and/or that the planking is just, in fact, side-walks...

 

[gambler1650]

I know mdengler's busy RL with a few things, and he lives near me where Irene did a bit of her work this past weekend.

Fenris indicated things were busy the past week/weekend for him, so hopefully he'll be able to sneak back on and get going soon.

Myself, I'm probably going to be fairly busy the next week or so with Irene cleanup, errands, social stuff, but should be able to make an update every day or two at worst.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Was swamped with work/family the last few days (my boss just quit, so my workload has shot up quite a bit), but I'm here. I'll likely be posting at night, Pacific time, for the next few weeks, until things calm down.

 

[mdengler]

I'm here as well but I've been very busy starting a new job. It's taken a lot more hours than expected so I'm a bit behind. Hopefully in the next fews days things will calm down and I can jump into the play thread.

 

[gambler1650]

So, a little 'old school philosophy' discussion here, or at least a comment so that y'all can get an idea of where I'm coming from with this campaign. This came out of a chat that mdengler and I had recently.

One of the interesting type of comments I see regarding old school modules or campaigns is that the stories told afterwards tend to be as much or more about the setting (the dungeon, the town, the region), than about the characters. A lot of these old school modules/campaigns are "killers" or meat grinders, so characters often die. However, the players enjoyed peeling back the layers of the locale, even if it's with multiple characters each. In effect, the campaign is about the place and the people who uncover its secrets. And the ones that actually become higher level through extended play are truly epic characters as opposed to many more modern campaigns which are character centered and the starting characters are assumed to be the ones which will carry through to the end, and given advantages (and die roll fudges, other GM interventions, etc) so that they can do so. That's not to say that either extreme is bad, I have great fun in some of the real world RPGs I've played in the past few years that fall more into the latter category. And I've seen Story Hours where the DM's goal is to kill (fairly using the rules) his players as often and in entertaining ways as possible using published modules (and his players seem to enjoy the type of game he runs).

While I won't be your 'adversary', my goal is to explore the region with you. I won't make the whole thing a 'meatgrinder', but there may be places within it that are. Characters may (most likely, will) die, but my hope is that uncovering the secrets, and building a shared history of the region will counteract any such occurrences.

And one other note on the subject: As is the case with many sandbox environments, just because someone says something about a Dragon in a cave (as an example), doesn't mean that the DM has a guaranteed way for characters to defeat it at their curent level... I think everyone understands this, but just making sure it's upfront before things really get going.

 

[Binder Fred]

Hear, hear!

 

[gambler1650]

Ok guys. I have until tomorrow where I'll be able to definitely reply to things and then I'll be somewhat sporadic.

So, here's where we stand...

Character wise, I think we're in good shape for three (Antares, Bosco, and Matt's character - he sent me the character stats/equipment via e-mail, I'll probably upload it for him as he's not very familiar with posting on forums and some of the formatting).

Fenris is set as a Cleric with stats, and he has indicated he still wants to play. I _may_, if he continues to have setbacks, open it to another player and then have Fenris come in later.

So, my suggestion is we stay with the laid back storylines going on currently (and the other two players are more than welcome to jump in, or pick up a new storyline based on the conversations at the beginning of the Playing the Game thread) until I come back - as I should be able to post every couple of days at least. And we decide where to go from there.

 

[Binder Fred]

While I won't be your 'adversary', my goal is to explore the region with you. I won't make the whole thing a 'meatgrinder', but there may be places within it that are. Characters may (most likely, will) die, but my hope is that uncovering the secrets, and building a shared history of the region will counteract any such occurrences.

To expand a bit on my previous comment (though I guess I *could* try to make it shorter and more to the point ), I fully agree with this. The thrill of death/serious bodily harm is something that has been sorely lacking from some of the PbP games I've been in, and I welcome its return in this one.

Conversely though, we do invest a lot of time and effort into the characterization of our heroes, so we can only fervently hope that their possible/eventual death will be meaningful and/or plot advancing in some way and not completely random. To that end the Hero Point system helps alliviate some of the Death-by-Bad-Rolls that are the bane of low level characters. I'd also suggest we ditch the Die-at-minus-Level-HP rule in favor of either a fixed number (-5 or -10 were used in our games), or a fixed number modified by CON.

Also - and whatever PCs might think -, killing the wounded is not necessarely the best or only thing to do when you're a clever NPC: at least the chance of Ransom or Slavery if the PCs loose, (temporary/permanent) Maiming-instead-of-Death for the "dead" PC if they win, are all interresting roleplaying options IMHO. I remember one memorable game where the entire party was fireballed into unsconsciousness (our mage and my twin pet wolves bought it right there though) after falling into a clever ambush (*). The DM gave us - I think it was 30% chance - that the gnomes (long story) would take us as slave instead of killing us. That was one hell of a roll let me tell you... and we made it!


* = That battle also features our mage getting the same ini as the oppossing mage, casting a Magic Missile at him while the other's fireball was streaking right at us, FAILLING his resulting concentration check and getting a "spell becomes a fireball centered on spell's target" result on the wild magic table! Double incineration!

Ahhh, good times.