Question about PbP

[ElfGunner]

No clue really where to put this, but as you can see by post count, I am new here. I have been reading some of the PbP's and story hours as of late, and was wondering, how effectively could I play a PbP without resources?

For the next few weeks I am without resources, at home I have quite a few in PDF format, so I would be comfortable playing there, but from here it would seem to be a bit difficult. So I guess I am asking for advice on whether or not to try to get in a game, or to just wait the few weeks and get my kicks by reading others adventures and being the fly on the wall?

 

[Jdvn1]

Resources, like the books/rules? This should have all the rules you absolutely need for a random D&D game:
http://d20srd.org/

With that handy site, you should be good to post rules from where ever you are.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Of note, Living ENWorld specifically does not require anything beyond the SRD and reading the threads for specific Living ENWorld material (all written out in the threads).

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Of note, Living ENWorld specifically does not require anything beyond the SRD and reading the threads for specific Living ENWorld material (all written out in the threads).

Which is not a small amount of material.

I wouldn't be surprised if the word count of the LEW material was getting close to the size of the SRD at this point.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Which is not a small amount of material.

I wouldn't be surprised if the word count of the LEW material was getting close to the size of the SRD at this point.

If you ignored the fluff (which you certainly can, as I mostly did for over a year), there is actually very little in terms of crunch in LEW. Certainly not even close to the SRD.

 

[Jdvn1]

Which is not a small amount of material.

I wouldn't be surprised if the word count of the LEW material was getting close to the size of the SRD at this point.

Though, reading through that material certainly isn't necessary, especially for a player. An enterprising GM, though, might want to add flavor to his game using LEW-specific information.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Isn't the LEW fluff more or less required reading to fitting anything into that world? There's a specific list of gods, geographical information, etc. It seems like one would ignore it at one's peril. I've personally been too intimidated to jump in over there because of it.

 

[Jdvn1]

Isn't the LEW fluff more or less required reading to fitting anything into that world?

...Nah.

First of all, you don't have to follow a god. Secondly, going through the list of gods to know who they are is pretty simple (what, it takes two minutes to read the brief descriptions?). Thirdly, if you want to follow a type of god that doesn't exist, you can choose to follow a philosophy or make your own god.

There are lots of players, I'm sure, who know nothing about the world. I, personally, know only very, very little about the world. My characters come from areas that aren't defined, but have flavors... they just come from some distance away or a generic sort of area. And a GM will tend to give you whatever relevant world-information that everyone would know, because PbP GMing requires description anyway.

There's a specific list of gods, geographical information, etc. It seems like one would ignore it at one's peril. I've personally been too intimidated to jump in over there because of it.

It's also worth noting that I've never heard of a character turned down because of a bad (or improper) background, and I likely never will. If you really want to make sure you have your locales and names straight, you can post to the discussion thread there with your ideas and for people to help you through that part of character creation. "Hey, I want my character to be from a forest/rocky area populated by elves, under attack from goblins..."

Also, the rules/mechanics/cruch added in LEW is small enough to not be really significant. If you don't use it, you're not at a disadvantage (like you might be in Forgotten Realms or some other setting that has a variety of feats or spells that you'd really want to use).

 

[Rystil Arden]

Isn't the LEW fluff more or less required reading to fitting anything into that world? There's a specific list of gods, geographical information, etc. It seems like one would ignore it at one's peril. I've personally been too intimidated to jump in over there because of it.

Nah--although when I finally got sad for the people waiting in the tavern and GMed, I will admit that I did feel super-intimidated about saying anything at all about the main city of Orussus, which I knew had plenty of material. But my characters both come from a specific place that I made up. Most people's do. If you want to play a Wizard, though, I do recommend using the Academy of the Chromatic Order because it's cool and I'm working on giving it more flavour.

 

[Bobitron]

Welcome to ENW, ElfGunner!

Unless you want to play in a non-d20 game or a setting with lots of changes to the core rules, I expect you will be in great shape. People are usually very willing to help if you need clarification on something.