Game info:

This is an LGBTQIA+ friendly game. However, you need not be part of the community to sign up for this game.
I will be running the Waterdeep: Dragon Heist module and then turn it into a "Descent into Avernus" game at the module's conclusion.

I am looking for role-play-focused players who know the basis of 5e rules and who are interested in making rich, interesting characters.

We will start the Waterdeep: Dragon Heist game next week on August 27th, Saturday at 3:00 PM GMT+3; all further sessions will take place at the same time. We are a bit of a mature group, so please don't apply if you are younger than 20; I need more mature (emotionally if not chronologically) players preferred. We will be using Foundry VTT and discord to play. New players are welcome; there is no need to worry if you don't have the books since I can share them with you on D&DBeyond.

P.S. I do try to make this game RP heavy since I do enjoy players RP'ing more obviously, there will be combat, but I do usually make it so you could go down more than one path to avoid combat where it is avoidable.

Payment disclaimer:  "This game will require payment to the Game Master at a rate of €12 per session via Paypal. D&DB is not responsible for any payment transactions and cannot enforce any private arrangements."

About myself:

I have been GM'ing for seven years on and off, and I have 9000+ hours in roll 20 and 2000+ hours in Foundry VTT, and nearly all of my hours spent have been spent GM'ing. I'm also extremely punctual, so games won't be cancelled unless a crisis has occurred. I will run this game myself, and I will control all aspects myself.

Something that I pride myself on is that I run the games myself and tailor everything myself so that no matter what happens, the players playing this campaign will always have a new and unique experience than any they have had before, rather than a template made by one G.M. and then given to other G.M.s that have minimal access and are told to follow the template to the letter rather than provide the players with a unique experience. That is one main difference between this pay-to-play versus others. Think of it like buying mead off the shelf versus home brewing your own.

My Roll20 profile link: https://app.roll20.net/users/1568476/ace

The Roll20 lfg link: https://app.roll20.net/lfg/listing/342395/waterdeep-dragon-heist

About the game:

Background:

Thus begins a mad romp through the wards of Waterdeep as you uncover a villainous plot involving some of the city's most influential figures. A grand urban caper awaits you. Pit your skill and bravado against villains the likes of which you've never faced before, and let the dragon hunt begin!

The feel of the game:

You are adventurers first and foremost. As such, you will be treated in that way. Adventuring is not just any line of work, people who are adventurers are certainly going in for a very important reason, or they are just simply insane. As an adventurer, you are treated as expendable by most, a thug for hire in a way no one cares if you die or live (it was your choice, after all), you are here to do the work no one wants or cares to do. When all the important people are busy, and something needs to be taken care of, you are the one sent in. When too many casualties would be incurred by the city watch going in, you are given a decent offer of money and sent in. At least they won’t have to pay your wife and children or any of your medical bills. Adventuring certainly pays well, but it is extremely dangerous. The best you could hope for is to complete your task while avoiding combat. After all, most of your enemies can take you out in two to three hits, and most fights last less than a minute. Whoever manages to break the other's defence and lands a hit on the first is most probably the victor. Such is an adventuring life, a good day is a day when you are not lying on the ground in a pool of your own blood seconds away from dying, just to be brought back to take another axe to the side. You will come to realise that the only way you are going to live is with the aid of others, who certainly have just as many screws loose as you do. You, of course, have your own motivations. As long as you are getting paid and growing in power, earning a favour here or there, you know that you will become powerful enough to a point where you can become the change that you seek for better or worse. Until then, you will have to put up with a world full of wonder, mystery, beauty and cruelness; as an adventure, you are forced to dive deeper than your average Joe in all these aspects; they do say life experience is the best teacher, and this world is ready to tear you a new one. Pack your shit, adventurer and hold on tight cause this ride is a one-way ticket to hell (Literally).
Oh, wait, you became an adventurer cause you always looked up to a hero that you have a poster of in your bedroom as a child. Well, I have some bad news you will either quit or die. Also, if you ever live long enough to meet your hero, you will soon discover why they say, "you should never try to meet your heroes".

• Character development is essential, and character motives should drive the game.
• Characters should be the kind of people you can imagine being and who you wouldn't loath being around.
• What PCs do in the game matters and can shape how the NPCs behave towards each other and towards the PCs.
• Rule of Fun wins over Rules as Intended most of the time.

P.S. This is (If you haven't guessed already) a heavy RP campaign, so if you like combat more, this might not be for you, though be warned the times you have to do combat will make you feel why getting stabbed is not a fun full-time job.

Social rules:

• Any arguments will be solved after the game session; I will not have disruptive players. (New players are welcome, you guys&gals are not disruptive)
• Being a lone wolf will not work.
• This is an imaginary world with imaginary things, don’t take everything seriously, but don’t take it too chill either; all things are good in moderation.

The City Game

• Politics: Medium
• Roleplaying: High
• Tactics: High
• If this game were a movie, its movie rating would be: NC-17
• Player Buy-in: ​You have to be interested in adventuring and taking on dangers for fame, loot and glory.

Why pay to play?

Practically everyone is clamouring to get into a free game online, but there aren't nearly enough experienced DMs to satisfy the demand. Most people endure disappointing experiences like this: After spending your valuable time laboriously filling out applications, you get rejected more often than not due to the scores of people applying to play each free game. When you do get accepted, players don't show up or are unprepared. Sometimes the D.M. doesn't show up or is unprepared. It's a frustrating grind to go through time after time, especially when all you want to do is relax and have fun playing.

Here are some of the reasons why professionally-run paid games provide a superior experience:

• Charging a modest per-person fee virtually eliminates player no-shows.
• The small fee also ensures that everyone in the group is committed to the session.
• The maturity level is exponentially higher in paid games.
• People don't abandon the group and quit the campaign when something doesn't go their way.
• Material costs associated with running a top-shelf game are covered. D&DBeyond and its superior character builder and all the books are shared with the players with the Master tier.
• I will be using Foundry VTT on the Forge VTT with a World Builder tier of subscription. This means you get privet hosting and even better API scripts than on Roll20. (Also, a lot more stuff than the Roll20 Pro subscription)
• Extra help for beginners at no charge.
• A customised and unique campaign experience.
• I specially created supplements for this game.
• Animated spells.
• Dynamic Maps.
• Tweaked enemies with impactful combat.
• I have run this campaign three times so far, so you would be getting play-tested material that has gone through multiple paid games and impressed.

The difference between this paid-to-play game versus certain ones:

As mentioned in the about me section, I am the one running this game; I am not part of any organisation or such. Why is that important? (You ask yourself). Well, like you are about to, I paid for a game and here is what I found. Paid games under an organisation are under one account with many DMs. That means they all share the bought tokens, books, and maps. It isn't like one person running games with custom-made or even solo-bought packs. You get pulled mid-game and are introduced in a pretty lazy way. Now understandably everyone spent money and therefore, time is money; however, the lack of roleplaying or fitting you into the story somewhere will make you feel like a third wheel. An even worse case is that you might join a game where you are level 4 vs some other party members that are level 13. This makes for a rather sad time as you deal hardly any damage and sit there with some weak spells while others cast a dozen fireballs. Talking from personal experience, the game itself had back-to-back battles, no NPCs, no towns, no new area. We fought three battles in the same area that took up to 4 hours.

I hope this gives people an idea of what you are paying for in this game vs some others. Now I will mention this as another difference the other form of pay to play has some excellent voice acting by professionals. I do voice act myself, but I must confess that they are certainly on another tier from me. So if you can't stand to have a game with a subpar voice actor, then this game is probably not for you.

How I’m running this:

• You will start at lvl 1
• The party will be five or six people, depending
• We will use discord for V.C.
• Sessions last 4 hours.
• Decent microphone is required, with hardly any background noise.
• I allow all officially released content. (yes, you can play an Aarakocra or a winged Tiefling)
• You can multi-class later on without having your backstory explain why.
• I will be running a fully customised version of this adventure.
• We are using point-buy for stats.
• I allow all officially released WotC content with some exceptions. Note: I am no longer using legacy content.
• I don't allow (monstrous races and legacy content)
• I allow Arcadia subclasses and the Illriger and Beastheart classes.
• I personally like the drow, but due to the neglect from WOTC, they feel lacking; as such, I have homebrew subraces of drow and subclasses.

Application Process:

For the sake of privacy, you will fill out your application form through google, which means I will be the only one able to view it. I will also require you to leave a post here saying that you applied.

Roleplaying games (RPGs) allow you to explore and experience things that you'd never want to deal with in real life or approach topics from the perspective of characters who may be very different from your actual self. Playing RPGs is a shared experience that is supposed to be fun for everyone involved, and part of that is making sure that everyone in the game has consented to the premise and expectations of the campaign and game genre. Many RPGs put characters in life-or-death situations, emotional conflict and intensity with other people, or traumatic or unhealthy environments—things you might avoid or deflect if it were directed at you personally. Playing a character instead of yourself gives you a safe emotional distance to think about and deal with those situations. You might be horrified at the thought of encountering a horse-sized spider, but you could enjoy playing an arachnophobic adventurer who has to fight a giant spider to rescue their friends. You may not be interested in an actual relationship in your personal life, but you might enjoy roleplaying a flirty or even romantic partnership between your character and a PC or an NPC. You probably wouldn't want to deal with the dangers of an actual zombie apocalypse, but you might have fun with a game scenario where you face off against the walking dead. The core of this idea is consent: whether or not you agree to participate in some aspect of the story. And all of that is entirely fair. As such I require people to fill in a consent checklist to make sure that the people I invite will jam we well together and be respectful to one another. There will be an added step after everyone joins which will be signing a none legally binding social contract to make sure that everyone is on common ground.

Application link: https://forms.gle/r4pLN4z1oGzPJQhWA

RPG Consent Checklist link: https://forms.gle/BUV2Jtb7kcDoykSj8

This is a document with the house rules that I use: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Gs-K7uvNeui-Gdphxat-wrjnrYnVs5f6kojuElFyqTI/edit?usp=sharing

These house rules will be on the discord server for quick access.

Good luck with your applications, everyone.

I will be adding you on discord to interview you as well.

{You can reach me on discord: Michael Masovich#6584}

+1. (This is an example of someone telling me that they applied.)