A Dungeons & Dragons game?
I was just wondering if anyone would be interested. We'd be doing 3.5 most likely, possibly with a handful of things from Pathfinder and/or original stuff mixed in.
I should point out that if we do decide to do this I have close to no idea of what I'm doing. I mean I've got (or can easily get) all the essential PDFs required to run a game, but this is literally my first time DMing a D&D game and only my second time playing, so you guys would have to be really cooperative and probably a bit patient too. But if you can work with me on that, I can promise you I'll try to make it as fun and interesting as possible.
As for the setting, we'd be using something inspired by that Flip! webcomic I wanted to write but never got around to. I figure it's a good way to reuse the concept (think a bit steampunkish, mixed with some traditional fantasy, and a few weird things).
I'm open to suggestions with all of the above, though, so shoot away.
The Interested Persons List
Me (durr)
Deathonabun
FutureSpacey?
Cynicalclock (I think?)
Professor Gator
The Setting:
The Setting for this particular campaign is the world of Flipside, you of course, will not be calling it that. Depending on your lineage you might call it a number of things, but it's rare that you'll have to--in-character--refer to the world.
There are a few differences between this setting and your standard D&D setting.
- You can't really trust a given race to Always Be Alignment X, Y, or Z. There are cases when you can trust that they'll usually be that (it's rare to find a benevolent vampire), but it's never a certainty.
- Necromancy is not inherently evil here, this is probably the biggest one. While it is frowned upon (why wouldn't it be? You're messing with dead people) socially, you're not risking THE INTEGRITY OF YOUR SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUL by being a necromancer, and playing a good one is certainly possible (though I'm not sure if you'd really want to, but hey why not.) And they do exist in the setting.
- There is quite a lot of magic here. Magic items are not rare, and are almost as common as their mundane counterparts. Niche magicians do everything from the magical equivalent of programming (more on that when the time comes) to making candles.
- A few racial differences
- 1: Elves are rather rare here. You can still play one (or a half-elf) if you really, really want to. But you're not going to be routinely encountering them as NPCs. Most of their roles are filled by Witches, which are actually quite similar to elves in several ways (long lifespan, affinity to magic, and so on)
- 2: Likewise half-Orcs. They're not as rare, but in several places you may end up, their ecological and sociological niches are filled by Oni.
- 3: I really do not intend to have you fighting rats. I might appropriate rats for some other creature that is combat-identical to a rat, but looks different. This is just because I kind of hate how a lot of "fantasy" games have you killing rats, wolves, bears, whatever. I just think people should endeavor to be more original than that.
- 4: You may not play as Sakuna or Spirits. Sakuna are cyclopid plants that have massive mastery over innate spellcasting, they are also immobile and generally only move via teleportation. Spirits are jellyfish people with psychic powers that can turn intangible at will. Spirits I would be more comfortable with if I were more experienced a DM, since I don't think statting them would be too hard, but they have no easy D&D analogues, so I'm not going to bother. I'm not sure how often you'll run into them anyway.
The Races The PC races in The Flipside are the same as your standard D&D setting with the following additions:
Oni: Oni are tall humanoids with small, blunted horns on their foreheads. Oni skin runs the chromatic spectrum and can be nearly any color, their horns are usually black or yellow. Female Oni have larger and sharper horns than the male. Oni are functionally identical to Half-Orcs, with the following differences:
- They lack the Orc Blood ability
- They lack the (Orc) subtype.
- All Oni bonuses and penalties are flatly halved (instead of +2 Str. -2 Int. -2 Wis, it is +1 Str. -1 Int. -1 Wis)
- Their automatic languages are Common and Oni, rather than Common and Orc
- All Oni have an elemental trick. This is a very minute control over a single element of nature (always related to the color of their skin), elemental tricks are not generally useful for combat, but may have minor utility uses.
- Fire: a Fire Oni can spark a small flame on the tip of one of their fingers, s/he cannot generally control the water unless control is granted by other means, but it does not harm him/her.
- Water: a Water Oni can create a small amount of water at will, s/he cannot generally control the water unless control is granted by other means.
- Air: an Air Oni can create a small spark on the tip of one of their fingers, s/he cannot generally control the spark unless control is granted by other means, but it does not harm him/her.
- Earth: an Earth Oni can create a small quantity of dirt, s/he cannot generally control the dirt unless control is granted by other means.
- All colors on the chromatic spectrum fall into one of those four elements.
Witches: Witches are thin, lithe humanoids with an affinity for magic. They generally live much longer than humans. Witches look similar to humans, but their skin can also be completely black or completely white. Their hair color runs the chromatic spectrum. They are functionally identical to High Elves with the following differences.
- Witches' racial bonuses are +2 Dex -2 Str as opposed to +2 Dex -2 Cons.
- Witches' automatic languages are Common and Magi, as opposed to Common and Elven
- They lack the (Elf) subtype
Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Comments
How mildly?
Like on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being "as interested as I am in pea soup" and 10 being "as interested as I am in [thingyoureallylike]"
okay.
Basically what I'mma do here is give everyone til Wednesday to say that they're interested, and then on Wednesday I'll decide on a deadline for character concepts (you can post those now if you're so inclined, when I say concepts I just mean things like Gender, Age, Race and some backstory, the statting is a ways off yet).
I might make myself a PC but I'm not sure if I really should. It'll depend on other factors.
Until then, general suggestions and input is also welcome.
Yar!
also I should point out that being this setting is inspired by something I made, there is a fuckton of magic.
Just magic everywhere. Magic out the ass, if you will.
Oi, you remember stuff but not in the right order. XD
Those were Sekuna, they'll be showing up possibly as NPCs, but considering that they're immobile, I'm going to have to prohibit you from playing as them.
I may let you play as Witches and Oni, since they have close D&D analogues, but not the Sekuna, sorry. Consider any 3.5 or Pathfinder playable race you find a character you can play as.
And planning help is fine, even if you do play. In fact, I encourage it (though on the same token I am trusting you all not to take advantage of my badness with mechanics. The point here is not to pwnzers everything).
Also I'm a bit surprised you don't want to be a lizardfolk or a dracotaur. :p
Also, help on the mechanical side of things is greatly appreciated.
Because....fucking numbers, man.
I don't, though an eccentricly curious magic researcher is also going to be an important NPC (early on, anyway, I don't know about later). Not that you can't have one, or even that I'm discouraging you, just something to keep in mind.
As a rule of thumb I'm just going to need you guys to work with me, this is my first time doing this and I'm sure something is going to go wrong, but it doesn't have to break the game by doing so.
Added the two "new" player races. If they seem unbalanced let me know.
oh, also please avoid Psionic races. Psionics don't factor in here at all.
Yay, quadruple posting!
Alright, so I'm going to shortly update the OP with a short spiel about the assorted races of D&D and how they factor into the setting you're playing in, you can again play as any non-psionic D&D character race, you'll just have to have an explanation as to why they are where they are.
If you're interested, I'm going to want the following from you (no deadline yet, but do consider all of this):
Name: Horatio
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Age: 22Class: Bard
Backstory: He's a wandering minstrel who decided to adventure thing because reasons.
Okay, so apparently OP is too long. So I'm going to put the race thing right here.
In general, any D&D race can be found in some area of Sareth/The Flipside. These are the more common PC (and a few non-PC) races, and how they got to where they are.
all of the above is subject to change, based both on my own ideas and player input.
erm...well it's a start I guess.
You've got time to think on it.
hmm.
I'm okay with most of it, but are you sure that backstory works for an Oni? Oni live mostly in tribal societies. They do live in Andar but it'd be weird for Zuo to be at all upper crust. Especially considering that's barely a thing in Andar yet.
Unless he's adopted, I suppose?
Just something to consider.
Also I totally forgot about alignment, yay me.
Give me an alignment if you don't mind. You can't be evil, but any nonevil alignment is open to you. And you can change it later if you decide to. We're not starting the game right away.
Actually, nevermind. I'm stupid.
Forget everything in the prior post sans the alignment thing.
IGNORE MEEEEEEEEEEEEE
That works too, but see my most recent post.
It occurs to me it doesn't make sense for their to not be an Oni upper class if the city's ruler is an Oni.
Also I have to figure out how to stat Sekuna. This should be fun.
There could be more than one bard, but I'd prefer there not be.
As for time, since this is a forum, we don't have to have proper sessions (though I will expect people to go as soon as they can that does not necessarily mean right away)
I'm still working out how all of this is gonna go down. So, I wouldn't worry about not having enough time, to be honest.
But it is ultimately up to you.
edit: actually, nah.
edit 2: okay, what I'll do is, if we don't have enough players, I'll make a DMPC. But not otherwise.
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
um?
If that's a joke, I'm not getting it. If you're expressing disapproval at one or both of those things, please leave. I don't care for the Psionic supplements, it's just off-brand magic.
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
oh.
well like I just said, I don't care for Psionics. It's basically off-brand magic and it generally feels really out of place unless you're running a campaign built around it.
Also it gives Psionic characters an unfair advantage in a nonpsionic campaign, since most monsters don't have resistances to powers in the same way many do spells.
Alright.
You'll need to do some stuff with domains then, but we can put that off for now if you're not quite sure what you want to do there yet.
Also your character will probably have a copy of that holy book on him. At this point I'd suggest opening up a true character sheet, for now just filling out the stuff we know (which'd be Name, Race, Gender, Age, Alignment, and one Possession). Also if you have an appearance in mind, mark that down too.
Also just based on what little I remember about it, you may want to consider taking the Loremaster prestige class at some point. I think that's what it's called anyway.
Regarding domains, you could normally pick from Knowledge, History, and Self-Perfection. Unfortunately, those latter two domains don't seem to exist, or at least I can't find any info about them.
So, unless you can dig some up, I'll let you choose a second domain that could reasonably extrapolated from the deity's profile. Or you could just pick the Law domain.
edit: I suppose Rune works.
That is correct, yes.
As for Violet, I actually haven't accounted for that. Since it's a mix of red and blue.
I guess that'd make Zuo a water oni?
Also I'm considering adding a small bonus against elemental attacks of an Oni's particular element, do you guys think that'd make them overpowered? (It'd just be like +1 against element yadda yadda, but still)
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Age: 22Class: Bard
Backstory: When asked about his past, Horatio seems surprised that you are not already acquainted with the tales of his daring exploits. You're not really sure if anyone is, though. He seems to be a wandering bard of some repute, and has joined the party so he can write tales of the exploits of a real group of adventurers.
That's still a bit vague, but it works.
Can I get an alignment and what he looks like, plox?
Currently, I'm having it that you met the day before the game starts. I'll let you decide the exact circumstances of that meeting amongst yourselves, but you will begin the game in an inn.Air would be any shade of Green, grey, or white.
Yellow would be fire.
But green works.
okay, I'm a freaking idiot.
I read Irori's portfolio instead of his domains.
Also fuck you vanilla, eatin' my post.
huh. So there are standardized "desert" variants for a lot of the typical D&D races.
Didn't know that, I might use some of these for NPCs or foes.
Chaotic Good. Also he looks like this guy, whose picture i totally did not steal from baldur's gate 2.
I believe you spacey, I believe you.
Noted.
I know I posted on IJBM saying that I intend to decline, I want to leave open the possibility I might join. That said, my unused characters have been rogues and one ranger, FWIW though.