Orryn looks quizzically at the Elf, even to the untrained there is a palpable aura of the arcane. With his jovial, youthful voice he says: "Excuse me elf, please tell me your entire life story, especially the deep dark hidden secrets."
First off, thanks to everyone playing for submitting their character sheets so early! Nearly all of them was submitted before the Monday deadline (with the last being 20 minutes late), and for that, all of the players will begin with an Inspiration they can use or give away.
It really does help on this end because now I'll have a ton of time to write up character hooks and ties to the backstory.
Thanks for being so punctual guys!
Variant: Inspiration Typically, if you want to expend inspiration, you need to declare it before you roll. With this variant, inspiration works more like a reroll instead, making it far more powerful. Your inspiration can also work on allies on the fly.
Whenever you or an ally that you can see makes an attack roll, saving throw, or ability check, you can spend your inspiration to roll an additional d20. You can choose to spend your inspiration after you roll the die, but before the outcome is determined. The player rolling chooses which of the d20s is used for the attack roll, ability check, or saving throw.
You can give up your inspiration to give that character inspiration without immediately rolling as normal.
NOTE: Due to the nature of play-by-post, the rule that inspiration has to be declared "before the outcome is determined" will be forgone. If the DM determines an outcome for a result, you may still expend your inspiration and change that outcome.
I will now be working with you all privately on your character's backstory in-relation to the world.
Instead of a typical adventure where your character has a loose relationship to the plot, such as working for coin or for saving the world, I plan to tie in your character's history, aspiration, and bonds and pull them to the forefront. This will hopefully create a deep, immersive world for you and your party members, and give you a greater level of attachment and connection to your character.
Ideally we'd be given a chance to see your character's backstories, visit their homes and meet the people closest to them in their lives. Many of these people will be interwoven into the grander campaign and scheme of things, with some of them playing bigger parts in the plot than others.
Of course, not all the players' aspirations will be aligned. There will be some circumstances where a character's goal might conflict with another's, or sometimes the entire party's. This has the possibility to bring out some of the greatest roleplay out of the campaign, but do remember to keep the conflict IN-CHARACTER and avoid allowing it spill to out-of-character drama.
Each character will be PMed with the following to work with:
Backstory. Each character will learn what has happened to the places or the people they care about, starting from the events of your written backstory that you gave the DM.
Adventure Hook. Each character will be given an adventure hook that they will have the opportunity to follow sometime during the campaign. Some may not be pursued immediately to avoid overwhelming the party with quests. However, pursuing any of them will ideally progress the main plot as well as give the character's backstory the spotlight.
Special Item. Each character will be given an item (typically mundane) with special properties, similar to how a magic item would. This mundane item is based off your backstory and can be worked with the DM to fine-tune.
I'll be making the rounds today and hopefully be able to reach everyone before Wednesday.
Just a quick update on Calben's Magnifying Glass. I changed a couple words so that only Orryn can benefit from some of the special effects, since it's his item.
Calben's Magnifying Glass Adventuring gear (magnifying glass), mundane Orryn can spend 1 minute with this magnifying glass to learn the true value of a gem without making an ability check. In addition, this magnifying glass is incredibly lucky. While Orryn is carrying this magnifying glass, whenever Orryn rolls a natural 1 on an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, Orryn can reroll it.
Once Orryn uses this secondary feature, Orryn can't use it again until the next dawn.
I mean, sure the default assumption of the game is to have a specific party makeup, but a sign of a good DM is the ability to tailor things to the players. One of my favorite campaigns I've run during 3E had a party of four Wizards. ^_^
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
POSTING FORMAT
Hey guys!
We're almost there to gametime! Thank you guys so much for being so cooperative and for sticking through this far. I am confident that we're going to have an amazing game here.
The main IC thread will be posted within the next couple of hours.
POST GUIDELINES
In order for the game to run fast, smoothly, and fun, here are a few of the guidelines that we will be following.
NOTE: If you are on MOBILE, the formatting guidelines can be forgone since it's too hard to do on that.
0. Do your best to post at least ONCE a day. If you know in-advance that you will be away and will be unable to fulfill this, please let the DM know so accommodations can be made.
In addition, you are encouraged to post as much as you'd like! You are NOT required to wait on other people, nor should you feel bad about posting too much! Activity and passion is what keeps this game going.
If no one sees other people are posting (perhaps because they're waiting on others to post), then they're less incentivized to post at all. In addition, the people waiting to post would grow tired of waiting, and interest and passion would wean there as well.
1. All rolls, ability definitions, explanations, and out-of-character text will be posted in a SPOILER at the end of your post. By separating the in-character and the meta text, the game can have a detailed, cohesive narrative while also insure everyone understands what's going on.
2. Players can use any feature or make any attack roll, ability check, or saving throw whenever they like. You do not need to ask the DM for permission to use any abilities or make any rolls. If your character would like to survey an area, you may make a Wisdom (Perception) check without being prompted. If you are unsure of what to roll, you may tell the DM in your spoiler and the DM will choose the appropriate roll and make it for you.
In addition, you may incorporate rolls when roleplaying with other players. For instance, if you attempt to conceal something from another player, you are free to make a Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) check. If you attempt to conceal a blatant lie to another player, you may make a Charisma (Deception) check.
3. Some player rolls (such as initiative and saving throws) will be made by the DM. Instead of telling players to make a saving throw and waiting hours for you to make your save, then announce the results, the roll will be made for you. To adjust for this rule, you can ignore all ability texts that have the line "... before the DM determines whether the roll succeeds or fails..." and roll after the fact.
For instance, if the DM has a player make a Wisdom saving throw against hold person and the player fails, the DM will make the player's saving throw and announce that the player is now paralyzed. However, if another player has the ability Bend Luck, they can use that ability after the fact and attempt to assist the player's Wisdom saving throw.
4. Do your best to write detailed, thoughtful posts. Play-by-post allows you to put in a great amount of time in your actions, thoughts, and dialogue. It is POORLY utilized when players simply use one or two sentence posts akin to more face-to-face or chatroom-style games.
Do TAKE your time when writing these things. Describe your character's actions, potentially give insight into their thoughts as they progress through the campaign, flesh out the world and how he or she is interacting within it. You do NOT need to write long, lengthy posts, but you are GREATLY encouraged to write high quality ones.
5. [OPTIONAL] You can bold and/or change the color of your dialogue to make it easier to read. Some players format their dialogue to look different than the rest of their text. It is up to you whether or not you wish to do this.
6. [OPTIONAL] You can use tooltips to add additional detail to your posts. There are many examples of tooltips used throughout this post and the front page. It is optional whether or not you want to use them, but they are indeed quite simple, and quite useful to have.
EXAMPLE OF POST
This post is taken from one of my play-by-post games, The Eagle's Eye. It's an excellent example of all the above points, as well as showing that you can be detailed while not writing super long. Here it is:
"That... is a good question," Ashley says, then looks back toward the sewers. "The supervisor didn't quite tell me exactly what he wanted; he merely said to 'clean the sewers'."
Ashley approaches the sewer entrance. Her nose turns up at the harsh stench of the human waste, but fights through it as she reaches the opening. She tilts her head and peers on inside, seeing what was in there. Her human eyes didn't allow her to see too far into the darkness, but she could hear quite well at least.
Ashley makes a Wisdom (Perception) check to attempt to see and hear inside the entrance. She has a +2 to Perception checks. As a Human, she lacks darkvision, and it's likely dim light leading into darkness inside the tunnel. Dim light imposes disadvantage on all Wisdom (Perception) checks to see inside. She cannot see into any darkness.
The first roll is for her hearing. The lower of the two rolls is for her sight, if there is dim light.
Ashley Alden makes a Wisdom (Perception) check! 5 | 11
OH, right. If you're on mobile, just forgo it then. You CAN go to Desktop Mode and finick with that, but personally it's too much work for little gain.
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
You can roll by clicking the little die icon to the far right on desktop, or by surrounding dice notation with [roll]1d20+2[\roll] with the \ being a /.
Orryn looks quizzically at the Elf, even to the untrained there is a palpable aura of the arcane. With his jovial, youthful voice he says: "Excuse me elf, please tell me your entire life story, especially the deep dark hidden secrets."
Haha, jk.
Excited to learn more about your character.
||PbP: Tarvyn's World... DM||
Sorcerer Starting gold roll: 8
I totally have a character don't mind me. >.>
Uh, who are you, and why are you posting in this thread?
Roll looks good, 50 gp
Verified.
Everything looks good on my end, nice job! You're all set for the game tomorrow!
You're so mean, Tooth. >.>
Bah! It didn't give any context to that, even after I deleted the old post and replied directly, so I had to edit it in. :(
Hiya everyone!
First off, thanks to everyone playing for submitting their character sheets so early! Nearly all of them was submitted before the Monday deadline (with the last being 20 minutes late), and for that, all of the players will begin with an Inspiration they can use or give away.
It really does help on this end because now I'll have a ton of time to write up character hooks and ties to the backstory.
Thanks for being so punctual guys!
Typically, if you want to expend inspiration, you need to declare it before you roll. With this variant, inspiration works more like a reroll instead, making it far more powerful. Your inspiration can also work on allies on the fly.
Whenever you or an ally that you can see makes an attack roll, saving throw, or ability check, you can spend your inspiration to roll an additional d20. You can choose to spend your inspiration after you roll the die, but before the outcome is determined. The player rolling chooses which of the d20s is used for the attack roll, ability check, or saving throw.
You can give up your inspiration to give that character inspiration without immediately rolling as normal.
NOTE: Due to the nature of play-by-post, the rule that inspiration has to be declared "before the outcome is determined" will be forgone. If the DM determines an outcome for a result, you may still expend your inspiration and change that outcome.
PLAYER HOOKS
I will now be working with you all privately on your character's backstory in-relation to the world.
Instead of a typical adventure where your character has a loose relationship to the plot, such as working for coin or for saving the world, I plan to tie in your character's history, aspiration, and bonds and pull them to the forefront. This will hopefully create a deep, immersive world for you and your party members, and give you a greater level of attachment and connection to your character.
Ideally we'd be given a chance to see your character's backstories, visit their homes and meet the people closest to them in their lives. Many of these people will be interwoven into the grander campaign and scheme of things, with some of them playing bigger parts in the plot than others.
Of course, not all the players' aspirations will be aligned. There will be some circumstances where a character's goal might conflict with another's, or sometimes the entire party's. This has the possibility to bring out some of the greatest roleplay out of the campaign, but do remember to keep the conflict IN-CHARACTER and avoid allowing it spill to out-of-character drama.
Each character will be PMed with the following to work with:
Backstory. Each character will learn what has happened to the places or the people they care about, starting from the events of your written backstory that you gave the DM.
Adventure Hook. Each character will be given an adventure hook that they will have the opportunity to follow sometime during the campaign. Some may not be pursued immediately to avoid overwhelming the party with quests. However, pursuing any of them will ideally progress the main plot as well as give the character's backstory the spotlight.
Special Item. Each character will be given an item (typically mundane) with special properties, similar to how a magic item would. This mundane item is based off your backstory and can be worked with the DM to fine-tune.
I'll be making the rounds today and hopefully be able to reach everyone before Wednesday.
Thanks everyone!
Hey Chai!
Just a quick update on Calben's Magnifying Glass. I changed a couple words so that only Orryn can benefit from some of the special effects, since it's his item.
Calben's Magnifying Glass
Once Orryn uses this secondary feature, Orryn can't use it again until the next dawn.Adventuring gear (magnifying glass), mundane
Orryn can spend 1 minute with this magnifying glass to learn the true value of a gem without making an ability check. In addition, this magnifying glass is incredibly lucky. While Orryn is carrying this magnifying glass, whenever Orryn rolls a natural 1 on an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, Orryn can reroll it.
Thanks Thoothless, looks good to me!
Not to Meta too hard here, but I just realized that we are; a paladin, two rogues, and three casters. I think things are going to get crazy. haha.
||PbP: Tarvyn's World... DM||
Don't worry Komoi is a melee caster. ^-^ He has a 19 AC at 1st level.
Mother Mary. That's crazy. How exciting!
||PbP: Tarvyn's World... DM||
I mean, sure the default assumption of the game is to have a specific party makeup, but a sign of a good DM is the ability to tailor things to the players. One of my favorite campaigns I've run during 3E had a party of four Wizards. ^_^
Hey guys!
We're almost there to gametime! Thank you guys so much for being so cooperative and for sticking through this far. I am confident that we're going to have an amazing game here.
The main IC thread will be posted within the next couple of hours.
POST GUIDELINES
In order for the game to run fast, smoothly, and fun, here are a few of the guidelines that we will be following.
NOTE: If you are on MOBILE, the formatting guidelines can be forgone since it's too hard to do on that.
If you know in-advance that you will be away and will be unable to fulfill this, please let the DM know so accommodations can be made.
In addition, you are encouraged to post as much as you'd like! You are NOT required to wait on other people, nor should you feel bad about posting too much! Activity and passion is what keeps this game going.
If no one sees other people are posting (perhaps because they're waiting on others to post), then they're less incentivized to post at all. In addition, the people waiting to post would grow tired of waiting, and interest and passion would wean there as well.
1. All rolls, ability definitions, explanations, and out-of-character text will be posted in a SPOILER at the end of your post.
By separating the in-character and the meta text, the game can have a detailed, cohesive narrative while also insure everyone understands what's going on.
2. Players can use any feature or make any attack roll, ability check, or saving throw whenever they like.
You do not need to ask the DM for permission to use any abilities or make any rolls. If your character would like to survey an area, you may make a Wisdom (Perception) check without being prompted. If you are unsure of what to roll, you may tell the DM in your spoiler and the DM will choose the appropriate roll and make it for you.
In addition, you may incorporate rolls when roleplaying with other players. For instance, if you attempt to conceal something from another player, you are free to make a Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) check. If you attempt to conceal a blatant lie to another player, you may make a Charisma (Deception) check.
3. Some player rolls (such as initiative and saving throws) will be made by the DM.
Instead of telling players to make a saving throw and waiting hours for you to make your save, then announce the results, the roll will be made for you. To adjust for this rule, you can ignore all ability texts that have the line "... before the DM determines whether the roll succeeds or fails..." and roll after the fact.
For instance, if the DM has a player make a Wisdom saving throw against hold person and the player fails, the DM will make the player's saving throw and announce that the player is now paralyzed. However, if another player has the ability Bend Luck, they can use that ability after the fact and attempt to assist the player's Wisdom saving throw.
4. Do your best to write detailed, thoughtful posts.
Play-by-post allows you to put in a great amount of time in your actions, thoughts, and dialogue. It is POORLY utilized when players simply use one or two sentence posts akin to more face-to-face or chatroom-style games.
Do TAKE your time when writing these things. Describe your character's actions, potentially give insight into their thoughts as they progress through the campaign, flesh out the world and how he or she is interacting within it. You do NOT need to write long, lengthy posts, but you are GREATLY encouraged to write high quality ones.
5. [OPTIONAL] You can bold and/or change the color of your dialogue to make it easier to read.
Some players format their dialogue to look different than the rest of their text. It is up to you whether or not you wish to do this.
6. [OPTIONAL] You can use tooltips to add additional detail to your posts.
There are many examples of tooltips used throughout this post and the front page. It is optional whether or not you want to use them, but they are indeed quite simple, and quite useful to have.
EXAMPLE OF POST
This post is taken from one of my play-by-post games, The Eagle's Eye. It's an excellent example of all the above points, as well as showing that you can be detailed while not writing super long. Here it is:
"That... is a good question," Ashley says, then looks back toward the sewers. "The supervisor didn't quite tell me exactly what he wanted; he merely said to 'clean the sewers'."
Ashley approaches the sewer entrance. Her nose turns up at the harsh stench of the human waste, but fights through it as she reaches the opening. She tilts her head and peers on inside, seeing what was in there. Her human eyes didn't allow her to see too far into the darkness, but she could hear quite well at least.
Ashley makes a Wisdom (Perception) check to attempt to see and hear inside the entrance. She has a +2 to Perception checks. As a Human, she lacks darkvision, and it's likely dim light leading into darkness inside the tunnel. Dim light imposes disadvantage on all Wisdom (Perception) checks to see inside. She cannot see into any darkness.
Ashley Alden makes a Wisdom (Perception) check!The first roll is for her hearing. The lower of the two rolls is for her sight, if there is dim light.
5 | 11
But how do we do this stuff from mobile?
OH, right. If you're on mobile, just forgo it then. You CAN go to Desktop Mode and finick with that, but personally it's too much work for little gain.
I'll add an amendment to the post.
17
I'll deal.
Are the roles on the honor system? Or is there a way to do it through the forum?
||PbP: Tarvyn's World... DM||
You can roll by clicking the little die icon to the far right on desktop, or by surrounding dice notation with [roll]1d20+2[\roll] with the \ being a /.
(If on mobile):Three horizontal bars (Menu)->Desktop mode -> Dice button at the bottom or top of your reply.
For spoilers, Exclamation point button.