The Dungeon Masters' Foundation

[ChaosEvoker]

@CE A few things...
1. What should be alignment spectrum? Good, Neautral, or Evil? Or does it not matter?
2. How are we doing campaign world?
3. As I said before, if we have too many people, we can have more than one campaign, since nobody should be excluded. The two groups could effect each other, maybe as rivals.
4. If I'm in, I'll be whatever the party needs. I could be a tank or a caster, whatever. If I end up as a tank, I'll be barbarian; spellcaster as a warmage (CA); or a rogue. If we need a cleric, whatever. I'm not picky.
5. What if we use those Ultimate variants I showed you all before?

1) Anything and everything, I want the group to be the same alignment however.

2) I was thinking Forgotten Realms, or an unspecified world. I like FR better , but its alot up to you guys.

3) That is a godo idea. What I want to avoid by being seletive is having a gorup of 10 characters adventuring to gether it kidn of runins the atmosphere for me. Two groups racing for the same item, for instance, could be very fun.

4) ok

5) Like I said non-official WotC stuff goes throught eh DM first. (Who is currently me) That Sorceror variant is good to go if anyone wants to use that.

 

[Xen155]

Arg this place runs to fast!

Ok must sprint to catch up, Welcome Wiggin, Im sure Evoker will have the formal greeting soon

I like a group were there might be one lawful evil and one LG char, it adds spice to the Group.

 

[ChaosEvoker]

Character gold should be determined by ECL, not character level. That is, if everyone starts off at the same ECL (which it seems like, by the way you put it). It doesn't seem fair that a character gets less gold than everyone else because they decided to choose a race with a LA, especially when LA's can already be brutal.

The party will all be at the same ECL, if we start out higher than one then I will adjust party gold, I guess we coudl hold off equipment until the party is decided.

I don't think that anyone should be excluded. If we're going along and someone else wants to join in, *bam* they're in. There are plenty of ways to work their character in. If someone wants to start up another campaign while this one is already going on, then they are welcome and able to.

Hmm idk about this one. Those kind of PC's are hard enough to do IRL< on the boards it coudl be....(*laughs evily*) chaos. I dont' want 20 something PCs either. I have limits you know...

 

[ChaosEvoker]

I think I might as well join. It couldn't hurt right?

My gaming history:
I'm pretty young; only 16, senior in high school. I started playing a while ago in middle school with one group, but they eventually became druggies and I stopped hanging around with them. For about a year I stopped gaming, and then got back into it with another group; unfortunately, they were all roll-players, and then last year they all went to college, so I was back to square one. I started DMing pbp last summer - the experiences haven't been bad, per se, and I'm a better DM than I thought I would be, but the smaller sites I've DMed on have this curious trend of dying. Why not on Enworld then? Because with 1000+ users online simultaneously, Enworld runs pretty slow on my computer. I thought a smaller site would be better initially, but I guess not. I hear we're getting a faster server soon. Good thing....
I guess that was pretty boring, but if you read it you have a good idea of where I'm at.


Now my first question:
I heard many good DMs tell me that you shouldn't buy too much into your story arc. But in addition to playing Dnd, I write stories. So I'm a narrationist. And there's this plot arc that I've come up with, not in one or two months, but over the course of several years, that I am very very proud of. I guess my life goal as a DM is to see the plot arc played through. Now tell me, how bad is this? (I'll even give you the plot arc; in my opinion it is very good, but you won't be able to play in any of my games...)

Welcome to the DMF!

New Member
ender_wiggin

Whoever told you that ender_wiggin, should never DM...ever. Seriously though, ignore that advise. Storylien is very important and is an integral part of keeping PC interest.

 

[Blade of Desecration]

Hey, Wiggin, where's Bean?
Before we do our characters, everyone should post what they want to be so that no one ends up having to redo their level.

As to my character, I'll be Worky (Wor-kee), the slightly insane orcish warmage, and will be true neurtral in alignment. He will be a devout worshipper of Yondalla (don't ask). He likes rabbits and chipmunks, as well as hamsters (basically anything small and fuzzy).

@CE If no one disagrees, I do prefer FR to other campaign settings. Also, I think that if we do two groups, they should at least know of each other, and maybe start out near each other. Then we can bring any rivalry into play early. Also, perhaps all evil people should be in one group, with good people in the other, and neutrals mixed evenly between. Then a rivalry will make a lot of sense, and allow an easier way of sorting groups.

@Xen We shall rule this miserable world with our armies of feril gerbils! Mwahahahaha!

 

[ender_wiggin]

Bean is dead. He died early, three thousand years ago. I always wonder what happened to his "children" though.

 

[Blade of Desecration]

Bean is dead. He died early, three thousand years ago. I always wonder what happened to his "children" though.

They created Foundation .

 

[Nightcloak]

I think I might as well join. It couldn't hurt right?

My gaming history:
I'm pretty young; only 16, senior in high school. I started playing a while ago in middle school with one group, but they eventually became druggies and I stopped hanging around with them. For about a year I stopped gaming, and then got back into it with another group; unfortunately, they were all roll-players, and then last year they all went to college, so I was back to square one. I started DMing pbp last summer - the experiences haven't been bad, per se, and I'm a better DM than I thought I would be, but the smaller sites I've DMed on have this curious trend of dying. Why not on Enworld then? Because with 1000+ users online simultaneously, Enworld runs pretty slow on my computer. I thought a smaller site would be better initially, but I guess not. I hear we're getting a faster server soon. Good thing....

Welcome Ender_Wiggin!

And your right, a faster surver is on the way. We had a community drive recently and blew the server goals out of the water. I'm not much into the full technical stuff of servers (when I was in school, 5 inch floppys were new ) but those who are around here are falling over themselves with excitement so that bodes well

Now my first question:
I heard many good DMs tell me that you shouldn't buy too much into your story arc. But in addition to playing Dnd, I write stories. So I'm a narrationist. And there's this plot arc that I've come up with, not in one or two months, but over the course of several years, that I am very very proud of. I guess my life goal as a DM is to see the plot arc played through. Now tell me, how bad is this? (I'll even give you the plot arc; in my opinion it is very good, but you won't be able to play in any of my games...)

Plot arcs are good! Players love a good story that ties everything together. The only campaigns I remember are the ones were the DM told a story worthy of remembering. The problem is you can't railroad the PCs into the story. If you could provide a few specifics it might help, but in general I'd say:

1. Create a story arc but make sure you are prepared for multiple endings as the PCs could very well push things in a completely different direction. You will need to adjust the adventure as you go at specific times.

2. Let the arc evolve naturally. Let the PCs actions stand (and the consequences!) and the campaign world's (BBEG, NPCs, XP fodder) reactions happen intelligently. In other words. If your campaign is a round peg and the story arc is a round hole, be prepared for the PCs to change things into a square hole and the story to adjust. Don't push the campaign, you'll just frustrate the players and yourself.

3. If the continuity of the story arc can't be adjusted much, then I suggest you hold off and wait till you have DM'd a group for a while and get to know them well enough to predict most of their actions and reactions.

4. If you are still not comfortable with any changes and have weaved a complext tale whose integrity is not to be tampered with, then you may first just want to actually write it out as a story! Because that is what it really is. Don't frustrate yourself when things change.

But really... who wants that. GREAT STORIES SHOULD BE PLAYED, NOT TOLD

 

[ChaosEvoker]

Hey, Wiggin, where's Bean?
Before we do our characters, everyone should post what they want to be so that no one ends up having to redo their level.

As to my character, I'll be Worky (Wor-kee), the slightly insane orcish warmage, and will be true neurtral in alignment. He will be a devout worshipper of Yondalla (don't ask). He likes rabbits and chipmunks, as well as hamsters (basically anything small and fuzzy).

@CE If no one disagrees, I do prefer FR to other campaign settings. Also, I think that if we do two groups, they should at least know of each other, and maybe start out near each other. Then we can bring any rivalry into play early. Also, perhaps all evil people should be in one group, with good people in the other, and neutrals mixed evenly between. Then a rivalry will make a lot of sense, and allow an easier way of sorting groups.

@Xen We shall rule this miserable world with our armies of feril gerbils! Mwahahahaha!

Lol, this is already becomign interesting....

Um, in the off hand chance that we get like 20 peope wnating to play, I'd liek to have the characters already made. But I see your point, people might take time to make this char and then not get to play so here's the deal (a compromise)

Post your intended class, race, alignment, deity, and background. Then create your char if you are chosen to play. I want no more than 2 groups of 4-5 PCs.

 

[ender_wiggin]

But really... who wants that. GREAT STORIES SHOULD BE PLAYED, NOT TOLD

Whenever I think to just write as a story, that's what comes to mind. I'm not worried about tampering; I left much of the middle open to whatever the player's want. However, the grand scene is what I'm after. I have a movie clip of the end that plays in my mind - I'm just afraid that if the middle is warped to much it'll spin out of control.

You have an email address? I could give you a plot summary.