Apolyton D&D: SF's PBEM.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Wraith
Kind of moot point for me right now, though. I can't believe it, but I seem to have lost my dice (which isn't quite as bad as loosing your marbles). I'll have to make a run down to Dragon's Lair sometime soon and get some new ones.

I can understand not having any of the more exotic dice just lying around, but how can you not have any 6-sided dice? They are included in practically every board game.

That said, there is a free Roller you can use for any sided dice, complete with modifiers. One drawback is that you have to fill in every field for it to work - even the "optional" one.

[Wraith]

--"They are included in practically every board game."

I've got two board games. I have several RPG systems, but I have two board games. All my dice tend to be in one place, since a couple of those systems (noteably Shadowrun; I have actually seen people attempt to roll over 20 d6 at once in this game) require a large number of d6.

In any case, I got my dice today. I don't like the idea of everyone just posting their stats (although the DM will need them), since you can't really look at someone and go "Hey, he's got a 17 strength". Since we are trying to role-play, I'd much rather see good character descriptions.

Which kind of leads in to something else. If everyone would be kind enough to archive their secret communications with both the DM and each other, I'd greatly appreciate it. I'd be interested in turning the campaign into a full blown story after the fact (assuming it turns out interesting, of course), and this kind of thing greatly helps. I'd put the story up here or on my own website, but of course, without all the back-room stuff it wouldn't come out nearly as well.

Edit:
Just found some character sheets online.

http://www.hallofhero.com/docs/charactersheets/index.cfm

SnowFire, you can ignore that last part of the last PM I sent now. Looks like a couple good ones on this page.

Wraith
Imagination is intelligence having fun

[SnowFire]

FP: Very well, you shall join the ever-growing lurker's list. I'm going to have to find some NPCing for you guys to do or something, since unfortunately unless there's a lot of drop-outs, I wouldn't get your hopes up too much for joining. One of my college roommates will also be semi-lurking, and I promised him he'd have first shot at replacing someone. In fact, it'll work out rather well... but you'll see what I have planned.

Shadowrun: Ah yes. I remember watching in horror as one NPC rolled something like 11d6 for initiative. He went off at 54 or so, while we languished in 10-20. This was 2nd edition SR too, so that means he functionally he had 3 turns before anyone else. Luckily, he was on our side. Sort of. That time.

Our old GM is running a parallel campaign to ours (as in, roughly same time frame, but Denver instead of Seattle), and apperantly two members of the new team managed to double-cross Sideways Bob, a member of the Suicide Squad (our team). This is slightly after our campaign has ended, and he now owns a nightclub and is involved with the yakuza... the point is, he's also the Porn King of Seattle. So these poor two members suddenly discover they're the new co-stars in Anal Plundering V: Deep Shaft, an X-rated hard core gay/troll porn flick, starring (as always) Rocky the Troll, and introducing his new sidekicks, the Wet Boys (e.g. Sebastian and Val Raven, the unlucky shadowrunners of the group). Digital dubbing, of course, but who other than their mothers would know that?

Needless to say, celebrity and face recognition is generally NOT something shadowrunners want, unless they want the people watching the security tapes to recognize you on sight. One of the more humiliating revenges I've seen happen... okay, end tangent.

Character stats: Well, Wraith does have a point. I won't stop you from sharing your stats if you want to, but more importantly, don't forget to provide a character description and background.

To get things going, I'm going to provide some examples. Here's Altaer Vergard, from the Border Guards campaign.

Altaer is from Glenidar. He comes from a poor family, and one that had no trade in particular. His attempts at jobs have all ended in failure, largely due his bad temper and inability to get along with anyone. This is the direct cause of his being a Border Guard. He was in debt, (largely inherited from poor parents), and was offered the choice of military service or deptor's prison, breaking rocks and scrubbing floors to pay off a debt of forty gold sovereigns at a rate of one pence per day. He was recognized as a good shot with a crossbow, and has been with the guard for a few years now, and has accumulated some possessions that are not military issue. He does not like being a soldier, but is seems better than a gravedigger (his former occupation). Especially since a sharpshooter does have some chance for advancement in the pay-scale. On the other hand, while the money comes in, it comes in pretty slowly.

Altaer also proved himself to have a pathological hatred of squirrels and woodland life in general, I might add. I'll give my character's description as another example. This is a more extended form that might be best to only send to the GM. Also note that the world of Border Guards is a bit different than my world, so obviously names & settings listed here can't be relied on.

If asked about his past, Arion will generally only turn toward you with a stupid grin on his face that he's clearly trying to make an evil grin yet failing at. He's rather young to be seen outside the pure-elven forestlands, weighing in at the not-quite ripe age of 68. Not that you could tell that easily, of course. He left a mere 2 years ago, impatient with the slow relatively unchanging life huddled away in the middle of the forest. What Arion was interested in was the humans told about in all the old stories (and seen about every 5 years or so, although only occasionally still capable of talking by the time they were found in the forest). And by "interested" what Arion means is "interested in humiliating them." Arion is quite, er, confident of his own abilities, and has decided to tour the human lands to let them bask in his munificent presence. He is quite proud of his pureblood heritage and will happily recite his ancestors for you, announcing that each is 100% elven with not a bit of human. In any case, he intends to sharpen his own abilities (not that there's much left to go; he's already near perfection anyway) while proving which race is so obviously superior. If you wish to pull Arion's chain, compare him to humans, note his ambition and impatience and his relatively young age, etc.
In any case, upon leaving Y'rtsim, Arion happened upon Bridgeport, where he became involved in the exploits of a band of thieves (they called themselves somewhat arrogantly the "Red Dragons") who were in fierce competition with of all things a band of dwarven thugs working out of Borrow. He learned his initial training with these men, although Arion became bored with learning just this and decided to move on. Without 2 weeks notice. Which was most unexpected for this band as Arion left after being assigned on a certain mission to distract the dwarves, so when the band of rouges came into raid the dwarven thugs' HQ in Borrow to take the money, instead of there being one drunken guardsmen, all 10 of the leaders of the band were there instead. There was a bit of explaining to do for the Red Dragons as they uncharacteristically decided to use the Red Dragon's famed groveling skill instead of charging into valorous combat. In any case, wanting to branch out, Arion has decided to learn the ways of the forest warrior, like many of his people. And what better place to do this with then the Border Guard? He can tour much of the land while watching and observing the other humans he would be assigned with in his company, all the while dazzling them with his incredible strength, skill, and charm. It's also an opportunity to learn perhaps how to take hits a little better, since Arion has never exactly had a terribly strong body. He probably wouldn't have been that sturdy as a human, but with an elfin form he's positively fragile. It's a good thing that he's reasonably dexterous, because when somebody gets a good hit off on him, you can just hear the ribs cracking. Ouch. And although he intends on learning the way of the woodsman warrior, most likely he will never master those silly spells they manage to do. Not because he couldn't cast them, of course, he just has better things to spend his time on, really. Yeah, that's it.

Note that I don't say "Arion has 10 Wisdom, and thus won't be able to cast even a Level 1 Ranger spell;" it just gets explained away by character flaws. "Fragile ribs" instead of 6 Con, and so on. I also give the DM some extra setting to play with: there's a bandit group called the Red Dragons out there, and if they ever come up again, likely they'd be very annoyed at Arion for causing one of their missions to drastically fail.

One thing neither of these characters have, but you should consider, is mentioning important contacts. For instance, "Well, my family is in Brega north of Serridan, and my best friend went off to become a merchant in Valkynborg, but I haven't heard from him in awhile. I'm sure he's doing well there." Knowing where your family is, and where a possible friend of your is lurking, helps missions be created a lot easier.

[Victor Galis]

Hmm, Metaliturtle has pointed out that Greater Meria bears an odd similiarity to China. I think this is what happens when you reverse the standard Northern Hemisphere Europe-clone: traditionally, there are mountains to the north, a great sea to the west, vast wastes to the east, and a desert to the south. Being all creative, I stuck my ocean in the east. And the vast steppes to the west. It didn't start out so Chinese, but then came the two rivers, and the marshy coastal lands to the south, and the outlying island... Oh well, culturally it's quite European.

My setting which sadly is not developped enough to play with yet gets around this by surrounding the entire landmass with high mountains, except for the big sea in the West, and a fairly large gap in the south east that hapless orcs pour out of to get slaughtered (yes, in my campaign settings orcs are so ridiculously incompetent that they routinely send half a million troops and get slaughtered by about 1/10th their numbers in elves, dark elves, or halflings. Sometimes, the winter just finishes them off.)

Shadowrun: Ah yes. I remember watching in horror as one NPC rolled something like 11d6 for initiative. He went off at 54 or so, while we languished in 10-20. This was 2nd edition SR too, so that means he functionally he had 3 turns before anyone else. Luckily, he was on our side. Sort of. That time

When my SR3 character who was built with less than the standard starting stuff fired (at character creation), this could involve 44 dice. (4 x 8 + 12 combat pool somewhere in there). By the end of the campaign, that was 12 dice each shot. On the not so overpowered side, those were pistol shots not fully assault weapons or cannons of some sort like most of the other people. Of course, that many dice guaranteed that whoever I was shooting at died (our GM started giving the NPC enemy grunts karma pools of 2-3 which we had to burn through to kill them (in addition to the really nice gear and such)). Combat generally lasted 1-2 turns regardless. (If it lasted longer than that, we were dying.)

[Skanky Burns]

A good character description (at least, an attempt at a good one) was to follow, but I wanted to make sure my rolls would have allowed the creation of a viable character. Ultimately, it didn't. Apologies, I am still trying to find my feet here.

I will be able to archive my communications with others, and will start doing so. Now to reroll.

[Wraith]

Just in case people were curious about the whole story-format thing, here's the kind of thing I'm talking about:

http://www.peldor.com/

His early write ups aren't in a very good format, but once he settles down into standard prose style and doesn't try to recreate the exact combat sequence it turns out pretty decent. Warning, though, as there is A LOT of material there...

--"don't forget to provide a character description and background."

I should be able to post mine tonight. I'm mostly through the character creation process, just a few things I need to look into more.

Wraith
That which does not kill me had better be able to run away damn fast.

[Wraith]

Okay, here's the first draft. Subject to DM's approval, of course ^_^

The first impression most people get upon meeting Menchi is that they've just been introduced to someone's favorite toy doll. Although this impression is strongest in the taller races, Menchi is on the short and slender side even for halflings, and even they tend to misjudge her age on the low side. The doll-like impression is heightened by her looks. Her long black and hair and seemingly large brown eyes set off an expressive face that even other races tend to sum up as "kinda cute". Her face is friendly and open and usually lit up with a smile, although this gives the disconcerting impression that the light is caused by the sun shining in through a hole in the back of her head. Despite this she is rarely indecisive, and almost never hesitates about taking her next action, although that action may be inspecting a particularly pretty flower near the field of battle.
She moves with a marked grace, and is (not unexpectely) very light-footed. She is known for startling people with her unexpected appearances. She also has a fondness for high places, and often calls out greetings to people she sees from rooftops, trees, and other odd locations.

People asking about Menchi's family are treated to some rather confused but teary comments about "dear departed mommy and daddy". Those who are persistent, and who don't mind a halfling blowing her nose on their clothes, will figure out that her parents died when she was very young. In fact, this happened so long ago that Menchi has no idea what her last name really is. When she joined the military a recruiter with a sense of humor put down "NLN"; that is, "No Last Name". Due to some later confusion -- not all on Menchi's part -- she has unofficially adopted the last name of "Nolan".
After that she was taken in by a group of wandering performers, where she learned to perform high-wire acts. Thanks to these travels, she's picked up a smattering of various languages. Their travelling also worked well to fuel the one thing that can bring her to a single-minded focus. Cooking. She is an avid collector of recipies and spices, and is willing to go to incredible lengths to get her hands on a new taste. The life of a travelling performer is hard, however, so she also learned how to make just about anything edible be, if not tasty, at least not downright disgusting.
As they wandered all over the land, Menchi saved up in hopes of fulfilling her goal: opening a restaurant. When the troup entered Meria a few months ago she decided she was ready, and left the performing life to open a small restaurant. It was fairly popular during it's short life, but went bankrupt within three weeks. Menchi only comments "all those numbers made my head hurt".
She subsequently joined the military somewhat by accident. She answered an advertisement for a cook and didn't realize until she was already enlisted that it was with the military. However, she was enlisted as a scout rather than a cook; the recruiter felt that anyone who could sneak up on him without trying had potential.
She is perfectly content with the military life for now, since all her basic needs are attended to and she can work off her debt, but she hasn't abandonded her dream. She plans to open another restaurant someday, only "with someone to do all the boring stuff". She's also managed to get full run of the kitchen and intends to "keep in practice". She keeps her collection of spices in her room, and would dearly love to have an herb garden. Unfortunatley, her experiments in that area have proven that she is about as far away from having a green thumb as is possible. Once, as a joke, her squadmates gave her some kudzu. Under her care it survived barely more than a month.
The recruiter did know what he was doing when he signed her up for scout work. Her size and agility serve her well here, and she actually does a pretty good job when she isn't being distracted (and she never seems to understand why people get upset with her for "stopping and smelling the roses").
Happiest running around the rooftops, she complains from time to time about "having to mess with those dirty little locks" and other things she's been learning to help out. Menchi doesn't like violence, and instead prefers to use (when necessary) Choo-Choo Bear. (Choo-Choo Bear is her cosh. She's modified it slightly, giving it cat ears, whiskers, and embroidered eyes.) If forced, however, she's good with knives (she wears a pair of daggers that rather resemble halfling sized butcher knives across the small of her back) and opponents who don't notice her athletic build can be in for rather a shock.
She has a habit of picking up anything even remotely shiny or interesting that happens to catch her eye. Her teammates (and sometimes people she just happen to be passing on the street) are constantly being presented with little bits and pieces she's picked up; from spoons to interesting rocks to little drops of glass. She's particularly fond of pale blue, and has an entire drawer full of glass driblets shaded that color she picked up outside a glazier's shop after he did a large run of stained glass windows.
Her clothing rarely manages to retain its original shape long. Almost everything she owns is immediately altered in some way. This includes her military uniforms, which have a lot more pockets than is typical. Her dress uniform has suffered particularly heavy alterations, from small touches like cat-shaped buttons to the addition of a rather large bow on the chest. When she's actually on duty she usually wears a set of leather armor that she's still trying to figure out how to alter without breaking her needle.

I want to add that I have never, ever played a character even remotely like this before. It should be fun.

Wraith
Cute rots the brain

[SnowFire]

Perfectly fine with me. Excellent stuff, Wraith... no problems here.

I've updated the website again. There are now religion and setting notes. As a side note, in case things weren't clear, this detatchment will be based out of Meria (the capital). It may not matter, but we'll see.

As a reminder again, don't worry about cash when making your character either. Most mundane items will be provided. That said, don't forget to write them down... things like food you can skip, but a grappling hook needs to actually be there. For backstories, don't forget that it's okay to withhold some information in your post here (like "I am a wanted criminal in the elven lands"), but be sure to send it to me.

[Skanky Burns]

I hope writing my history in the past-tense is ok. While not complete yet, I am proud of what I have written so far. I will edit this post to include the story once it is finished.

EDIT: Ok, finished, subject to SF's approval. I would like to introduce Dorlin Eikinskialdi.

Ironically, it was Dorlin's clumsiness that led to his joining the military.

At the ripe young age of 45 he had his whole future ahead of him. Dorlin had a promising job at the royal stables in Meria where his strong build came in handy when carrying the feed for the horses. In fact, Dorlin took great pride in his stalwartness, and could often be seen exercising while the animals otherwise under his care were taken for training. He was also friends with many of the people in Meria, and frequently sparred with the captain of the guards, Belphanior, as well as attending training with other soldiers from time to time.

Dorlin lived with his uncle, a craftsman at the royal forges, and his aunt in a prosperous sector of Meria. Their abode was well appointed and continuously clean, although Dorlin's lack of coordination did not make his aunt's job easy. Buckets of water, chair legs, things seemingly out of the way had a strange habit of catching his leg as he walked past. A sheepishly grinning Dorlin would rise and offer to help clean up, but that would only invite more of a mess. Dorlin had a room to himself at the back of the house - that in itself a sign of his uncle's affluence - but the house was a stranger to guests. His aunt and uncle mainly kept to themselves, with visitor to the house being few and far between. "Us dwarves keep to ourselves!" scolded his aunt on more than one occasion, to no avail.

The frequent contact he had with the many humans bustling through the busy empire's capital forced Dorlin to come out of his shell, so to speak, giving him many opportunities to experience the art of conversation. This exposure to the varied peoples from the farthest reaches of the land increased his Dorlin's confidence levels tremendously. His charm was in many cases above that of even his human peers, let alone his reclusive dwarven bretheren. Many a story was retold by Dorlin to a spellbound audience at the tavern as the bartender served another round of ale. Not even his clumsiness deterred him, as tripping over on his way back to his seat would draw a well-natured round of applause from his amused audience, and several cheers.

But as with all good things, Dorlin's tranquil way of life came to an end in the form of an influential lord's daughter. Sweet, sweet Gwyllyra. Long, firey red hair, sultry smile, the ultimate forbidden fruit. Her father had come into town on business from Adlehyde, and Dorlin could only stare as he first layed eyes on her.

"Har, har! Looks like we got a live one!" laughed one trainer, nudging his friend. "You be careful, young Dorlin." said the second. "That there is Lord Bafford. Word is 'es in town for quite some time, an' I doubt 'ed appreciate the likes 'a you near 'is precious daughter". Dorlin hardly heard, his attention focused on the disappearing Gwyllyra, vowing to persue her despite his better judgement.

And so it was that Dorlin found himself in a compromising position in Gwyllyra's room as Bafford knocked on his daughters door. "Quick, grab your clothes and hide!" whispered Gwyllyra urgently. They almost got away with it, too. Gwyllyra, appearing innocent after quickly thowing a gown on before giving her father permission to enter her room. Dorlin, hidden in the closet dressing quietly. Her father, satisfied his daughter was safe. That is, until Dorlin lost his balance trying to slip his boot on, knocking the cupboard door wide open and falling to the floor.

As rarely happened, Dorlin was the first to move, jumping to his feet and out the door before the Lord could react. It was not too long however before he heard the word "Guards!" being bellowed behind him. Thinking quickly, Dorlin knew to head away from his uncles house. "Where can I hide?" was the question on his mind. The perfect answer bloomed like a well-cared-for flower. "The very last place they would look for me - the Captain of the Guards' tent!"

Dorlin relayed the past hour's events to the Belphanior over an ale, then waited until his friend's laughter had subsided. "This is serious. I need to get out of this city, and stay out for quite a while!" he pressed. Belphanior frowned, replying "Well, I was asked to recommend someone for an special assignment". He frowned further. "I have seen your skill with a halberd. I could probably justify your inclusion with such a group. Leave it with me". The frowning ceased, and suddenly Belphanior was laughing again, and shaking his head in wonderment. "Of all the Lords to provoke!"

[SnowFire]

Okay, thanks, Skanky. 2 characters down, 2 to go. The first mission's pretty much all set; I just need 2 more characters.

2nd Edit: One more request for character creation. While I'm glad that we have several non-humans about, it probably wouldn't be good to have EVERYONE non-human. You don't want people thinking you're an escaped circus troupe. This is especially true considering Scattercat's semi-character is elven.

I looked through the 3.5 PHB today; some interesting changes, some eh stuff. Kind of as expected. I'll still probably buy the 3.5 DMG now, although they didn't have any at the bookstore... suppose there's always online. Since they've made such a fuss about it, I suppose we'll use the 3.5 Ranger; I might also be willing to port in some of the feats they have in the 3.5 book (I always liked Shield-bashing, and there are some feats there that make it half-way decent). I've added that to the website under House Rules; I've also slightly updated the setting information re: scrying, because I realized that kind of knowledge isn't useful to just mages, just as the "no ressurection" thing is.

Edit: And now I see that it's already downloadable from the Wizards site. Good. I also see they have the "city builders guide" up for download as a web enhancement- I guarentee that was intended to go in the DMG, but was cut (they mentioned about how various optional stuff was cut for space constraints). See, that's the interesting stuff, as far as I'm concerned. I don't want cookie-cutter 11th level Druids that I would never, ever, use. But designing cities? That's hard. Coming up with a zillion names? That too. Hopefully the 3.5 DMG will have some more of that kind of thing.

That said, they do have a far more complete list of changes. Perhaps I'll add to the current list of house rules of 3.5 revisions added in, but probably not too much, being that I want to still run this out of the 3.0 handbook. Getting rid of useless Innuendo is fine. Renaming the flavorful "Wilderness Lore" skill "Survival" seems silly, and only will confuse things.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/welcome if you want to check it out yourselves.
-end Edit-

2 more additional notes:
1) Because your DM is kind and beneficient, and also knows that this campaign probably won't go to ridiculously high levels, your characters will get their stat boosts every 3 levels instead of every 4 levels. So you may increase a stat by 1 at 3rd, 6th, 9th, & 12th levels.

Oh, who am I kidding? Because your DM is evil you're getting that bonus, plus because there's only 4 characters. You'll need it. Mwahaha. Maybe.

2) No hurry on this, but at some time contact me if you'd like... hmm, what's a good term... a scroll of chaos. It sucks when characters die, especially in a world like this, where coming back to the life isn't likely. So, there's the DM fudging things a wee bit in your favor when things go south. Being reduced to -8 HP instead of -11 by that lucky crit when you were low on health. Having the enemies ignore fallen party members instead of finishing them off. You get the idea. Now, I'm not saying I won't kill party members- that'd take all the responsibility away of playing well- but I'll only do it if the character did someting stupid, the character is intentionally martrying himself, or the plot/situation really left no other option. The point is, if you DO want to subject your character to the vagaries of chance and bad dice rolling, tell me. In that case, when the wizard sets off a fireball aimed at the party where your unconcious body is lying, he won't accidently aim a little high and conveniently miss finishing you off. You'll die, even if your character didn't do anything stupid- because sometimes that happens to people in battle. Consider carefully before asking that you want one. You can always change your mind, later, anyway.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
I only figured it out after reading Wraith's post. You roll 5d6, remove the two lowest scores. Repeat twice more (so you now have 3 numbers). Then repeat the whole exercise using only 4d6, and removing 1 low score per set.

Do you use one of the dice servers to do that? Or do you just do it by hand and hope SnowFire believes in your scores?

BTW, can you freely rearrange the scores in whatever order?

[Wraith]

--"Or do you just do it by hand and hope SnowFire believes in your scores?"

I just rolled by hand, but don't send him six 18s and expect him to believe you ^_^

--"BTW, can you freely rearrange the scores in whatever order?"

Yeah, any set of rolls can be applied to any score.

BTW, UR, are you playing in both campaigns? I noticed that Ellestar has a link up for a character for you in the Off-Topic Character Creation thread. Or is that just this one?

Wraith
I'm not God. I'm your GM. Consider me your angel of Murphy

[Skanky Burns]

I also rolled by hand. Honor system and all that.

[SnowFire]

UR: What Wraith said is correct.

In any case, for future lurkers stopping by... the game is on! Sort of. We still have some missing character issues to work out, but it just means that instead of having characters go on hiatus in the middle, they'll be gone for a bit at the beginning. This will hopefully be solved by the time for the second mission comes around.

Just post here, or send me an email, if you are interested in lurking.

[Jon Miller]

I am interested in lurking

Jon Miller