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[Aklyon]

You could ask in this thread. Pretty sure help is what its for

[Tawa]

By all means. As Remuthra once said, "there is always room for D&D."

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

So I've been trying to think of how my GR politics game should operate
The trade stuff will probably be pretty difficult to run and splitting the map up will take se time

Any body got suggestions for bonuses/minuses for nations in certain terrains

The areas are
Tundra
Hills
Mountains
Deserts
Forests
And plains

There are climate zones for all but tundra
Those climate zones are
Cold
Temperate
Tropical
Hot
The forests do not have hot zones and the deserts do not have tropical zones

The mountains only have temperate and cold
Hills and plains have all but tropical

[Nerjin]

By all means. As Remuthra once said, "there is always room for D&D."

Especially since only about... Two or three of the games I've been in have ever gotten past the first combat. Most run by Tawa.

My suggestion is that you just run the game as best you can and run with it. Start small. Don't do a sandbox. Look at other DnD games OPs. Look through the house-rules. Don't be afraid of failure. Just make it knownt aht you're a first time DM. People will be more than willing to help.

[Tawa]

Protips:

-Take Immaterial's stolen-from-Wrex houserules. The whole thing.
-Use a gimmick. A good gimmick. Make a weird backstory. Make all the players wizards and sorcerers. Abuse rules from Stormwrack, Frostburn, or Sandstorm. Pick a fantasy video game, play it for a few hours, and use it for inspiration. That kind of thing.
-If you write your own pantheon, for the love of said gods make it good. Cover every alignment. Make doubles for the neutral ones. Make the righteous dick god for paladins, and make the stoner hippy god for druids. Make your best gods patron deities of something--races, classes, ability scores. Include a pair of opposed gods. Make the Grim Reaper ripoff and the Judeo-Christian stand-in.
-Most Bay12ers who play these are experienced. Take advice, especially if the advice-giver has run a game or two.
-Don't buff wizards and sorcerers beyond unlimited cantrips; same for druids and clerics. If somebody wants to be a monk or a fighter, redirect them to the Tome of Battle.
-Don't include that character you wanted to play as a prominent tagalong NPC. It's the players' game, and with that character it'll feel like an escort quest.
-Don't be afraid to tell That Guy to shut the hell up.
-Roll for magic items unless it's plot-important. Don't be afraid to reroll for crap like Scrolls of Prestidigitation and always keep stuff like +2 keen holy bastard swords; it makes your players happy.
-Don't be afraid to ban stuff you don't understand fully. Not comfortable with psionics? Poof. Don't like Unearthed Arcana? Gone. Don't be afraid to drop templates and stuff, either. Dealing with forces beyond your comprehension ends badly.
-One word is your friend. That word is "no". One of your players wants to be a 280-year-old magic-blooded star elf sorcerer with max charisma? (Translation: 24 CHA at level 1?) You don't like that? Gone. It's your game. Remember that.

[kj1225]

Could you tell me what the first thing is? I'm making a list to go with my GM notes so it'll be useful.

[Tawa]

Go find the Filth of Kalenga or To Kill a Psion OOC threads and look at the OP.

[Nerjin]

. . .
-Use a gimmick. A good gimmick. Make a weird backstory. Make all the players wizards and sorcerers. Abuse rules from Stormwrack, Frostburn, or Sandstorm. Pick a fantasy video game, play it for a few hours, and use it for inspiration. That kind of thing.
. . .
-Roll for magic items unless it's plot-important. Don't be afraid to reroll for crap like Scrolls of Prestidigitation and always keep stuff like +2 keen holy bastard swords; it makes your players happy.
. . .

I agreed with everything else. However: Don't try to rely overly much on a 'gimmick'. If the gimmick fails, the game will fail. A gimmick should be the icing. Not the cake.

Also I prefer to design the drops by hand. But that's just me.

What you NEVER want to do is roll dungeon layouts. It starts seeming incohesive. Why is there a Troglodyte working with a Beholder? That's a strange pair... Is there a reason? No? Then why? If you do decide to do this sorta thing do NOT tell your players that you did that. It comes off as a bit lazy.

That's my thoughts anyways.

[Harbingerjm]

-Take Immaterial's stolen-from-Wrex houserules. The whole thing.

Don't do this. It was specifically designed for high-powered games, ie the kinds of games that need an experienced DM to run. Also, you won't likely understand why a lot of the changes were made, and that's a recipe for bad things.
Not to mention that there have been changes made to it by several people other than Wrex, in at least a couple of cases for "realism" by people who don't actually get what the rules were intending to simulate, or, indeed, the mechanical effects.

-If you write your own pantheon, for the love of said gods make it good. Cover every alignment. Make doubles for the neutral ones. Make the righteous dick god for paladins, and make the stoner hippy god for druids. Make your best gods patron deities of something--races, classes, ability scores. Include a pair of opposed gods. Make the Grim Reaper ripoff and the Judeo-Christian stand-in.

Don't feel tied to this. The first half is generally valid advice, but chaining your setting to existing stereotypes is not necessary. Remember, Clerics outside Forgotten Realms do not have to worship a given diety; a world with no gods, were Divine Magic is all drawn from concepts, or with just a couple of Gods who deal with a few particularly important things is totally valid.

-Most Bay12ers who play these are experienced. Take advice, especially if the advice-giver has run a game or two.

Most Bay12ers who play D&D here have little to no experience playing D&D anywhere other than Bay12, and games here are generally not particularly successful, for a number of reasons. I would suggest hopping on Bay12lb IRC and taking advice from a few of the people there; mostly Wrex, who is actually professionally involved in RPGs.

-Don't buff wizards and sorcerers beyond unlimited cantrips; same for druids and clerics. If somebody wants to be a monk or a fighter, redirect them to the Tome of Battle.

Expanding on this, be very cautious about buffing anyone at all, since you likely don't have the system mastery to understand what a seemingly-minor change can do to the game as a whole; D&D (particularly 3.5) is a very mechanics-heavy game, with a lot of extremely interlinked systems, and "fixing" one thing somewhere (often to make something more "realistic") can often horribly break a whole bunch of other things. Also, I wouldn't suggest unlimited cantrips.

-Don't include that character you wanted to play as a prominent tagalong NPC. It's the players' game, and with that character it'll feel like an escort quest.

Maximum agreement, for a whole bunch of reasons. That said, don't be afraid to add an NPC in to cover a character position that the group needs for the game but no-one wants to fill; a friendly Wizard (or even just a patron sending the group on errands) for a planehopping game where none of the PCs can actually hop planes, for instance.

-Don't be afraid to tell That Guy to shut the hell up.

Technically valid, but do also compare this to Tawa's advice to take advice, and remember that advice you don't like may still be valid, and a first time DM may not be the best judge of who is being That Guy, particularly if you fall into the trap of DMPCs, railroading, and otherwise trying to tell a story. Remember, you're playing a game, with other people, not getting actors to act out your book for you.

[flabort]

Arg... I really don't want to update my game because I don't really remember what's going on, but I really wanted to get to the big reveal.
Well, SWURB is probably dead.

Here's the major things I was going to do, that I never got the chance to do:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Actual spoilers! So using transparent text as well.
1) Derm was the Bard of Doom.
2) Players were going to enter the medium in reverse order; they would all be brought in through the medium EXCEPT the TWO that Derm were going to send in.
3) Derm was going to have a small puzzle where he needed to use two different kinds of cruxite to create two cruxite artifacts that fit together to enter.
4) Two time players, two space players. Two pages, one of each duplicated element. The remaining time player was a rogue, the remaining space player was a thief.
5) one player's planet would not have fit the LO_A_ scheme; guess who's? I kind of made the game with Derm at it's center. His planet's acronym would have been ROYAL. (Realm of Yesterday and Legend).
6) The seven denziens consisted of 3 canon denziens (Hephastus, Echidna, Yalbadaoth), and 4 that I made up (Aphrodites, Dain, Thor, Norn).
7) OF COURSE I was going to include a first guardian; I had already introduced it, as a minotaur. But I was actually going to include 6 of them! One for everyone except Derm.

[tntey]

A lost RP.

[kj1225]

Arg... I really don't want to update my game because I don't really remember what's going on, but I really wanted to get to the big reveal.
Well, SWURB is probably dead.

Here's the major things I was going to do, that I never got the chance to do:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Actual spoilers! So using transparent text as well.
1) Derm was the Bard of Doom.
2) Players were going to enter the medium in reverse order; they would all be brought in through the medium EXCEPT the TWO that Derm were going to send in.
3) Derm was going to have a small puzzle where he needed to use two different kinds of cruxite to create two cruxite artifacts that fit together to enter.
4) Two time players, two space players. Two pages, one of each duplicated element. The remaining time player was a rogue, the remaining space player was a thief.
5) one player's planet would not have fit the LO_A_ scheme; guess who's? I kind of made the game with Derm at it's center. His planet's acronym would have been ROYAL. (Realm of Yesterday and Legend).
6) The seven denziens consisted of 3 canon denziens (Hephastus, Echidna, Yalbadaoth), and 4 that I made up (Aphrodites, Dain, Thor, Norn).
7) OF COURSE I was going to include a first guardian; I had already introduced it, as a minotaur. But I was actually going to include 6 of them! One for everyone except Derm.

Well, the fact it failed just sticks to canon doesn't it?

[Tawa]

-Take Immaterial's stolen-from-Wrex houserules. The whole thing.

Don't do this. It was specifically designed for high-powered games, ie the kinds of games that need an experienced DM to run. Also, you won't likely understand why a lot of the changes were made, and that's a recipe for bad things.
Not to mention that there have been changes made to it by several people other than Wrex, in at least a couple of cases for "realism" by people who don't actually get what the rules were intending to simulate, or, indeed, the mechanical effects.

Yeah, he has a valid point. Avoid houserules beyond tier 1 banning and such until you're experienced.

-If you write your own pantheon, for the love of said gods make it good. Cover every alignment. Make doubles for the neutral ones. Make the righteous dick god for paladins, and make the stoner hippy god for druids. Make your best gods patron deities of something--races, classes, ability scores. Include a pair of opposed gods. Make the Grim Reaper ripoff and the Judeo-Christian stand-in.

Don't feel tied to this. The first half is generally valid advice, but chaining your setting to existing stereotypes is not necessary. Remember, Clerics outside Forgotten Realms do not have to worship a given diety; a world with no gods, were Divine Magic is all drawn from concepts, or with just a couple of Gods who deal with a few particularly important things is totally valid.

What, really? Hm. Alright, I guess you're fine then. I said that because of SRD stuff, which kinda implied that.

Anyway, good luck, kj!

[Harbingerjm]

Yeah, he has a valid point. Avoid houserules beyond tier 1 banning and such until you're experienced.

Honestly, I wouldn't even ban tier 1. Standard practice is to compare the tiers and level of optimisation of the PCs, and ask any that are dramatically higher or lower than the rest to try to fit in a little better (whether that be via intentionally sticking with a party support role, or looking for ways to bring their character up to "not a useless drain on party resources" level), though for a first-time DM I'd suggest asking anyone above tier... 3, say, to avoid anything too... active, at least until you get a better handle on how to build encounters and such to handle them. Social contract usually works better than flat bans!

What, really? Hm. Alright, I guess you're fine then. I said that because of SRD stuff, which kinda implied that.

If a cleric is not devoted to a particular deity, he still selects two domains to represent his spiritual inclinations and abilities. The restriction on alignment domains still applies.

But yes, using the SRD alone can be misleading, as it leaves a lot of flavour text out. Mind, as I mentioned this is somewhat setting-specific; in Forgotten Realms, Clerics must worship a given deity, and in Eberron, a lot of the alignment restrictions and such are loosened.

[Tawa]

Yeah, he has a valid point. Avoid houserules beyond tier 1 banning and such until you're experienced.

Honestly, I wouldn't even ban tier 1. Standard practice is to compare the tiers and level of optimisation of the PCs, and ask any that are dramatically higher or lower than the rest to try to fit in a little better (whether that be via intentionally sticking with a party support role, or looking for ways to bring their character up to "not a useless drain on party resources" level), though for a first-time DM I'd suggest asking anyone above tier... 3, say, to avoid anything too... active, at least until you get a better handle on how to build encounters and such to handle them. Social contract usually works better than flat bans!

I guess you're right. I have heard that clerics and druids are good for noobs to play, too--select crappy spells today? Pick better ones tomorrow. Taking "Weapon Focus: Scimitar" could've been a dumb move, but it doesn't matter when you can be a dinosaur that shoots lightning out their mouth. That kind of thing.