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Message: <blockquote data-quote="haakon1" data-source="post: 9085933" data-attributes="member: 25619">General:I use Word for the text of each “chapter”.  They email me & each other with dialogue and actions, and I make sense out of it - e.g., if they talking in multiple threads, I’ll reorder in Word to make it make sense, as a flowing conversation or separate ones.I use Excel for combat maps. The characters are represented by an object - a box the same size as the squares - with a color and initial.  Generally, Blue or close is PC, Green is an ally, Red is an enemy.  For the dragons, I put the dragon icon over their red box.  The background in this case is a scan (JPG) of the original AD&D TOEE Air Node, blown up to 5 ft. grid from 50 ft. original, with a grid superimposed (bring to front) and the boxes for PC’s, the dragons, and icons for their treasure pile on the top lair.For combat, I have everyone roll their initiative.  Then I put it in a table in order in the Word chapter, with columns for Order, Character, Initiative in a format of “Rolled 10+1 = 11”, In Hand saying things like “Shield and Mace”, and then a copy and paste of the action they want to take.  Monster initiative and plans aren’t listed until the monsters take their actions.Actions could be as simple as “fire bow at wounded dragon” or they could include their roll results, to attack, threat check if applicable, and damage.  And they can include contingencpies.Then I run it, determining the results and rolling any dice they didn’t.  If they weren‘t clear or didn’t give me contingencies and their action is no longer logical, most likely I will continue with their intent (e.g., if the wounded dragon is now unconscious, shoot at the other one) or I’ll ask for clarification (e.g., “are you using your +1 arrows or regular arrows?” or “the dragon is out of range for that spell - do you still want to cast it or do something else?”)I’ll run as far as I can until I need clarification.Hopefully that’s clear.  It’s by no means quick, but it’s accurate to 3.5e rules.  The slowness works for me and my players, since we’ve all been doing it for years now.  As you can imagine, it’s not for everyone.I think for my most ardent players, the glory of this campaign is in the non-combat stuff.  “Downton and Dragons” like a character getting married, going to Warmaster College during a long downtime interlude, wrestling with their allegiance to their old country or new, and managing fiefs.  But the combat gets a lot emails flying closer together.Because the email campaign started in 1998 with AD&D rules.  We were “long into the game” when we converted to 3e in 2001, and converted again to 3.5e when it came out.  (2003?) I wasn’t going to add subtract from their stuff because of those rules: “more of a guideline”.For the most recently added characters, here’s what I did:late 2020: 2 new player characters, with players I met in GenCon Online.  They created a 5th level barbarian and Druid.  I let them chose any nonmagical gear they wanted, and gave them each a magic item or some masterwork gear consistent with their character stories.  One of the PC’s had an extra weapon they had crafted that they let the barbarian use until he found his own magic weapon.  They also shared potions and magic arrows. early 2021: Former player (wife of a player in since 1998) decided to rejoin with a Halfling 5th level Rogue bartender/spy for the Kron Hill gnomes.  Introduced as captured with two NPC’s, her gear nearby, as chosen by the player.  She was with 2 NPC’s, but the party sent one of their NPC’s (Spugnoir!) and the PC of a player who joined in 2020 but never got into back to their base (the Tower of Hommlet, as they are working with Burne &  Rufus.2022: Two real world friends who’d never played D&D joined the game by taking over NPC’s met in the Earth Node - survivors of an adventuring party captured by the TOEE and sent into the Nodes with just light armor, one weapon, and a waterskin.  They had scrounged some additional stuff, But certainly not aligned to Wealth by Level.</blockquote>

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