Now that we’re ready to begin (I think), let’s reintroduce the Puppy-Kicking PCs (in alphabetical order):
Accalon Darcanda, Male Human Unholy Warrior (CE), played by Brother Shatterstone
Alicia Gildenzee, Female Half-Ogre Fighter (CE), played by Serpenteye
Gwyn ap Fomor, Male Half-Fiend Ranger (CE), played by Praxus Asclepius
Lydia Shardweaver, Female Human Cleric of Wee Jas (LE), played by Isida Kep’Tukari
Rhesa/Aeweth, Female Aasimar Cleric of Olidammara (CN), played by Thomas Hobbes
T’aria, Female Half-Fiend Rogue (No alignment?, probably CE), played by Goddess FallenAngel
Being introduced very shortly:
Aligor Thunderaxe, Male Dwarf Fighter/Barbarian (CE), played by Fangor the Fierce
Playing guidelines:
The following guidelines are just the way this DM would like to run things, but everything is open to debate. Comments and opinions are very welcome.
The DM will make all die rolls, and will hopefully remember to always show those die rolls in OOC comments. Feel free to keep track of all the rolls and tell me if my dice are loaded.
I would like players to start their in-character posts with their character’s name, gender, race, and class on the first line, so no one has trouble remembering who is playing who.
Spoken words should be in quotes, thoughts in italics, and Out-Of-Character info in brackets. Any modifiers to rolls you want me to be sure to use should be put in OOC comments.
I’ll generally be writing in third person, present tense (“Accalon sees...”, instead of “you saw” ), and if everyone did the same, it would probably help with the story.
If I need a character to respond to something in order to advance the story, I’ll wait 72 hours from the time he/she needed to respond, and then I’ll NPC the character as simply as possible to keep things moving. If anyone knows they can’t be available for more than 3 days, telling us in advance will help, and we’ll figure out how to work around it.
Character Death:
I consider role-playing games as story-telling (and this seems especially true in PBP games). Characters in stories never perish unless their authors think it helps with the story, and I’d like to do the same here. This means that no player character will die unless his/her player feels the death makes sense, and that it will advance the story. Of course, the characters don’t know this, and should be role-played with a healthy fear of their own demise. To help encourage this role-playing, any time you would die by the rules (from taking HP damage, taking Con damage, death spells, etc.) you are instead “dying”, and take a permanent loss of –2 to one randomly selected ability. This loss can’t be recovered by any means.
This rule can also apply to important NPCs, but since the players are part-writers of the story, if their characters were trying to kill the NPC, then the NPC will be probably be dead.
Death and Dying:
I’ll use a slightly modified version of the Death and Dying rules from Unearthed Arcana. Basically, these rules state that your hit points never drop below 0. When you take damage that brings you to 0 HPs, you make a Fortitude save to determine if you are disabled and conscious, dying and unconscious, or “dead” (which with the above rule will actually be a permanent –2 ability loss, and dying and unconscious). While dying, more Fortitude saves are made to either get worse (ability loss), stay the same, or become stable, and while stable still more saves are made to get worse (be dying again), stay stable, or wake up. I can post the full details of what DCs these Fortitude checks are made at if anyone wants. Unlike the Unearthed Arcana rules, any strenuous activity or standard action made while being disabled causes you to be dying (no Fortitude save to avoid).
Experience:
I have no idea how to do this in a PBP game. In my table top games, I give a flat 150 XP x Party level per gaming session to all characters, which means they advance a level every 6.6667 games. But I’m not sure how much PBPing would be considered “a session”. We might just do this very informally… when the majority feel it’s time to advance (through OOC discussion), then it will happen. Preferrably only after characters have fully utilized the abilities they have at their current level.
OK, that’s about it. As I said, I’d like to hear comments on any of this if you have any problems with it.
Tomorrow I’ll resume the IC thread, and you can start jumping in. I probably won’t respond to it again, though, until everyone’s had a chance to speak up, but continuous roleplaying between characters will be fine. Except for poor T’aria... she’s outside and can’t really roleplay unless she comes inside or waits for everyone to leave again. So, I probably will respond to T’aria’s actions until she gets with the party.
), notice Gwyn, and follow him out of curiosity. She would probably head in after the other PCs, just to head off (or at least watch) any potental confrontation between Accalon and Gwyn & crew. ![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
