New Discussion Thread

[Lord Sessadore]

I've been thinking with so many more players than adventures, it might be good to arrange more self-directed roleplaying - maybe some nightly entertainment at the tavern that players can take part in (do they have pub trivia in this setting?) or athletic matches. Or a training hall where we can spar.

People seem to be pretty involved in RP right now, but if we start getting bored we could start something else up. Any other ideas?

Mmmm, sparring matches That would be ... delicious. Of course, there's no guarantee that it would be fair unless we drew up a whole set of rules for it - a fighter vs. a wizard likely wouldn't go very well (ranged attacks in melee or immediate interrupt for moving away = lose for the wizard). Perhaps teams? Or only sparring within your role?

I just love the idea of sparring matches. As it stands, with the tavern thread we can RP to our heart's content, but all of those wonderful battle stats we've drawn up are just collecting cobwebs

Athletic/trivia matches would be interesting too, but hard to keep from boiling down to "I roll Athletics, you roll Athletics; I rolled higher, I win!"

 

[Dawn Raven]

So we have the Hanged Man for gathering around a table, drinking, RPing and looking for work. Perhaps the city now needs a second option for when no work is to be found imminent. How about a location that has various arena-type rooms. For example, it would have sandy areas for sparring, perhaps stone and magic protected rooms for spell duels, obstacle courses for physical competitions and rooms for battling intellects against one another at games of chess. It could also have workout areas and the such. It could be a type of Adventurer utopia where you can practice your skills so you don't get rusty between adventures.

Sessadore! You're forgetting one of the important aspects of 4e: Skill challenges. An obstacle course would consist of say a sprint (endurance), followed by swinging across a ravine (acrobatics) followed by climbing a wall (athletics) and maybe a swim (endurance) and other types of acrobatics and athletics checks. It wouldn't be :21 v. 15, you win, but rather who gets to the success requirement first. Say, 6 successes and you win, 3 and you lose. Whoever gets to 6 first wins or if someone gets 3 losses, they lose. This same pattern could be used to play "chess" or some such.

Skills for games: perception to detect the opponent's moves (or insight rather), history of past wars [actual knowledge of warfare helps win the game?], Endurance checks [who can stand the ennui of sitting at a table forever], and uhm...idk.. I'm sure someone else can think of better examples.

EDIT: And I'm sure the rules of sparring could be decided by the two who are taking part in it. Perhaps a third character could be a judge. I know Les wouldn't want to go toe to toe with anyone. She doesn't believe in fair fights because they don't exist in reality. Also, warlord's aren't all that effective alone..

 

[Dawn Raven]

Also, on another note. I have a proposal/question to the community here. But first let me put down the background.

One of the ways I keep interest in a character and get used to playing them is through the use of stories about that character. I tend to try to make both general stories I can use if I want to play the character in another setting and those that help to tie that character to the current setting she is in.

That said, I'm working on a short bit on Les while she was working in Notrim's Gambling Den on the Isles. I was wondering if any players had characters from The Nest that would be interested in a cameo or if any DM's have any NPC's that I could toss in. This would mainly just be a way to draw the world a little bit closer together. I like the idea of there being a name and a story to that "other face in the crowd."

 

[Dawn Raven]

I would like to thank everyone in this community for the thorough responses to questions, kind replies, comments and general communication. I have been trying to get into and play games on other D&D PbP sites and have yet to receive the kind of quality comments and responses found here. Simply the number of times I've been ignored in threads is simply astounding.

Perhaps my posts are too extensive?

 

[Atanatotatos]

I would like to thank everyone in this community for the thorough responses to questions, kind replies, comments and general communication. I have been trying to get into and play games on other D&D PbP sites and have yet to receive the kind of quality comments and responses found here. Simply the number of times I've been ignored in threads is simply astounding.

Perhaps my posts are too extensive?

Enworld is a nice, peaceful heaven in the storming seas of the net...

 

[covaithe]

I think there's something about the living world format, as it's evolved here on ENWorld at least, that encourages newcomers more than most PbP venues I've run across. Probably a combination of a number of small factors. Off the top of my head:

* we have a group of people, the judges, who have explicitly volunteered to help keep things running smoothly, which includes answering questions and welcoming new people.
* It's explicitly a community driven thing; newcomers are welcome to make changes to the setting and even the rules
* instant gratification: we have a very easy mechanism for getting started in character. I suppose technically you don't even need to submit a character just to roleplay in the tavern, though I imagine such a poster would be strongly encouraged to put up a character.
* here, more players means more friends and more growth to the world. Elsewhere in PbP land, more players can mean more competition for DMs' attention. That's true here too, but to a much more limited extent IMO. Once you get into the tavern, you know that sooner or later you will get into a game. It might not be the first game that comes along, but you'll never have that horrible situation where you put time and effort into a character and the DM picks someone else and that's it, game over.


In other news, I'm trying to work on some things to try to increase the supply of DMs here. My goals are long-term, but it hopefully should have the short term effect of emptying out the tavern a bit, too.

 

[Lord Sessadore]

More DMs would be fantastic. To be honest, I'd offer to try my hand at DMing, but my face-to-face game is about all I can manage around school. Maybe in the future ... I plan to stick around here for the long run, so we'll see if I can find the time later on.

 

[Dunamin]

I should get time in January for DMing.

Got plenty of half-finished ideas and side-projects for L4W cooking - especially something that will cater to dwarf and gith players - but currently my studies just demand too much attention.

 

[Lord Sessadore]

I'm curious, is it time for final exams over there in Denmark too? That's what is keeping me busy at the moment. That, and I probably won't be on the boards for a good couple weeks over Christmas, so it doesn't make sense for me to start anything at the moment, even if I had the time.

 

[Dunamin]

I'm curious, is it time for final exams over there in Denmark too?

Depends very much which education you're asking about. In my case: yep, exams for my current course coming in January so I'm busy trying to catch up.

That's another great aspect of PBP gaming. You may find yourself in busy periods of your life where you can't game locally, but with online D&D there's no schedule so its easier to manage when and how much time you devote to your hobby.
In theory, at least.