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[Armok]

So, I love roleplaying; it's like DF squared, no graphics at all but with the gargaluthean power of an entire human brain and the flexibility of general intelegence behind each action. There is really no other thing that measures up; static fiction has no interaction, real life is boring, computer games are lonely and limited, board games literary has no plot, etc.
As of lately, however, I have been getting less than my fix of roleplaying, due to several reasons, including:
* A severe lack of time, I'm stressed from a billion thing always happening, and almost never can set of time dedicated to mere recreation.
* I do play a few forum games, but those are on to slow a timescale, dies WAY to often for me to really put my heart into it, suffer from undedicated and unserius players, and are to public for some things.
* I suck at it, I need to do much more roleplaying of different kinds before I actually stop being a failing noob.
* I had a IRC DnD group, but they were way to infrequent, and also my complete lack of social skills managed to get me thrown out.
* etc.

Anyway, I was thinking of perhaps running my own game would give me a bit more control, and the things I want out of an RP probably would be equally or better realized by random NPCs anyway, and if it wasn't there's always the GMPC route.
SO, now for the purpose of this topic:
* To see if any players are interested in playing
* to organize the game
* for people to give me advice, on just about everything, (because I'm made of fail)

So, what will the game be like?
*If I manage to get an well experienced DnD player that is good at and can be trusted with keeping IC and OOC info separate, It'll probably be DnD (3.5, I think it is, also it is probably supposed to say ADnD there, but I'm not 100% on that)
* If I don't, it will be completly freeform Rp, running on the honour system and common sense.
* considering my slight lak of experience, it might turn out to be rather infromal, with the ocational moment of the player needing to help the GM out of some creativity obstacle or another
* Fantasy of some kind, but other than that I'll take some general player suggestions and extrapolate a world that I think they'd like
* The players should have no life; no holding of play because of "work" or going AFK for a month because of a vacation. You have to be online and willing to play 20 hours a day.
* I, on the other hand, might not have time to be very avible at all timewise. I'll probably be avible a good amount of time most days, but I'll probably be multitasking something. Generaly, this roleplay will be at the same times as I'm on these forums, multitasking with reading them, or webcomics. Generaly, the purpose of this whole thing is that I want a roleplaying game that I can from a time management standpoint treat like a singleplayer computer game along the lines of DF. It is stongly sugested any players don't explicitly wait for me, but simply does something that can be multi tasked as well.
* While the TIME dedicated to it is lacking due to a huge amount of competing comitments, I do tend towards quite an amount of emotional dedication, and I also tend to be overly commited to game universes. I REALLY hate it when a game dies, wich is large part of why I find forum games unfullfilling, I find that it takes a lot of time for the game universe to be explored deeply enought for the REALL fun to start, the part where it really starts to matter you are runing a game on turing-test beating, general intelegence wetware, rather than nitendos greates gizmo. Also, while it's not a complete promise you are likely to get very painstakingly crafted characters and settings.
* Again, I want long term dedication, more than short time; you migth be doing it for a 3 hours a week while multitaking stuff all the time, but you shuld be able to do that for months or depending on how things turn out years, and those 3 hours should be possible place fairly freely. And, even more importantly, do that with so much willingness so that if *I* ever forget you'll nag at me and send me PMs and Emails so that the whole thing dosn't just wither and die.

Look, I have manages to misuse every single * list to the point they make stuff more confusing rather than less, and I have also managed to forget the second half of the stuff I were to put here! Wooo!

[Akroma]

what kind of medium would this game run over ?

IRC ?


also, as a general note to all potential players: when armok sais that he often won't have much time, he means it. He is infrequent and not always reliable, and probably less dedicated to this game than you are about to be. In other words, when he sais 20 hours a day, he means 2 hours a week, and not all of it in one session.

[Akroma]

oh, and on the topic of actual advise, I would recommend the storyteller system. it is easy to learn, and perfectly combines dice-throws with freeform

all that you will need is an IRC-dicebot


for both the storyteller system and irc-dicebots, you might want to ask Istrian for further info

[Armok]

what kind of medium would this game run over ?

IRC ?


also, as a general note to all potential players: when armok sais that he often won't have much time, he means it. He is infrequent and not always reliable, and probably less dedicated to this game than you are about to be. In other words, when he sais 20 hours a day, he means 2 hours a week, and not all of it in one session.

Absolutely corect. I never said I were going to PLAY for 20 hours a day anyway, just that in case something significant chages it might happen, but more importantly that the only thing consistent with my shedules and sleep cycles are that they are ever-changing and rather unpredictable, so you shuld be AVIBLE 20 hours, but doing other stuff that you are able to uit on a few hours notice. Basically, as I said you should have no life, if you have a job ou shuld be able to sneak in a 5 second glance on the IRC every 5 minutes during it, and if you have a family they should be damn forgiving about you spending time online. THis is not a REQUIREMENT, it is just that it's a preference, because I hate having to NPC PCs, and I will NOT postpone a game more than a day because players didn't have time, so if you are not available it is likely that your PC will do something that you wouldn't have done (I'll try to avoid it, obviously, but completely avoiding it is impossible) and you will also be required to read through logs.
And if you have no problem with this happening, then you are not involved enough with your character and the world.
Also, the two hours statement is correct in some meaning; two hours might be the actual reading-and-typing time spent, but due to multitasking it'll be spread out over many times that with few no actual breaks, just slowness.

Also, yes it will be IRC, almost certainly virtually all the time, although it shouldn't be directly dependant on the

oh, and on the topic of actual advise, I would recommend the storyteller system. it is easy to learn, and perfectly combines dice-throws with freeform

all that you will need is an IRC-dicebot

for both the storyteller system and irc-dicebots, you might want to ask Istrian for further info

That does sound promising, if Istrian dosn't show up here I might PM him, for now can you give me a quick explanation or link? (the name is anoyingly made up of comon, generic words, so I don't trus Google to return the same system you are talking about.)

Also, while I would be delighted to have you in all this as you are a very good roleplayer and very dedicated as well, be warned that many of my policies WILL be things your OCD might disagree with, thou that very disagreement might also mean you would be a valuable pillar to help this from disintegrating to completely into insanity.

[Cheshire Cat]

ive been running the new dungeons and dragons 4th edition adventure "keep on the shadowfel" in real life with some friends for a few weeks now. its available free from the wizards of the coast website, and has everything you need to start the adventure packaged in. download here - http://www.wizards.com/DnD/TryDnD.aspx

there are some other advetures, quick start rules and a downloadable character builder on that same page. the character builder is free although if you want to make chars above lvl 3 you need to subscribe.

its an average to good adventure which works well for new players. theres a thread from something awful of someone running the module over a forum. they have jacked the levels up and tweaked everything, which is a pretty good idea as the module is pretty bland if played straight. not to mention the original irontooth encouter resulted in a total party kill for nearly everyone who played it, although the new free version from the wizards website has fixed that. link - http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3094044

4th edition dungeons and dragons has a very solid rulebase for combat, and is very satisfying in that regard. its more streamlined and easier then 3.5 and, i think, much easier for new people to grasp then ADnD. its weakness is that there are no real social roleplaying rules built into the game, and they have taken away the tradeskills from 3.5. its been described as an exceptional dungeon crawl simulator with roleplaying tacked on. social encouters are basically freeform with whatever the DM allows, with very simple things like bluff, knowledge and intimidate checks being the only dicerolls in social situations.

depending on your experience and what you want to acheive you may want to go for the storyteller thing that akroma suggests.

more useful links for getting started with DnD 4e -

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

blog where the author carefully analyzes the keep on the shadowfell adventure as it was originally printed. reading this gives you an excelent nuts and bolts idea of how to use the dnd 4th edition rules and how to run the printed modules. a lot of the problems he has with the keep on the shadowfell have been corrected for the downloadable version i linked earlier. also, dont let his constant analysis of the modules many faults to discourage you from it. it was good enough for him to run a modified version of it, and as i said, the free downloadable version fixes many of his gripes. link - http://elevenfootpole.blogspot.com/2009/01/why.html

the alexandrian. a rebuild of keep on the shadowfell, makes it far more involving and story driven, expands on the cardboard cutout npcs of the original. will be hard to follow unless you know dnd reasonably well or have read and understood the keep on the shadowfell pdf. link - http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/keep-shadowfell/kots-remix.html

also the dungeon masters guide 1 for 4e has a pretty good starting dungeon crawl called kobold hall. its all combat, and extremely good. there are also lots of additional little bits and peices in the dungeon and dragon magazines, if you have access to them.

i posted a wall of text. bleh. im probably not going to be easily available on a regular schedule for an irc game. if you get it going can you post logs or notes on it here or elsewhere? i would be very interested to see how it works out.

[Armok]

depending on your experience and what you want to acheive you may want to go for the storyteller thing that akroma suggests.

THat line is the only thing indicating this is not a spambot.
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate you are trying to help, but I'm really not interested in DnD4, the reason I considered DnD at all is because it's traditional and nerdy.
This game will probably not be combat centred at all, but character driven. Almost more of cooperative storytelling than a game.
Another idea I have, is that rather than having a party of players against NPCs, Both the main villian(s) and the main hero(es), and possibly other important more neutral characters as well, will be PCs, and more or less every character (not player, character, due to various issues with who knows what things. I might also log in with several user names on the same channel for different NPCs and stuff like that.) will be in a different channel, or at least every physically separate group will be.

[TheNewerMartianEmperor]

What about the world of darkeness? It's a personal favorite of mine.

[Armok]

Never heard of it.
Also, while I might consider using a pre-existing game *system*, the setting WILL be completely new, including revamping any magic system completely.

[TheNewerMartianEmperor]

It's one of the main gamelines that runs on the storytelling system. It is a world darker then our own, with supernatural creatures to which normal people are unawares everywhere, running things and dominating humanity. Most of the games in the line have the PC's as one of them

The more common supernaturals are the Vampires, the werecreatures, the fey and mages.

The others are rather odd: Prometheans, soulless constructs (think Frankensteins monster, the golem, Geletea) who wish to become human to gain a soul, as not having one has terrifying effects.

Geists: Humans who make a deal with a spirit to return from death. They have to share their body with it, and gain connections to the realms beyond life for it. Usually rather happy with their lot.

There are also hunters, humans who have caught onto the fact that the supernatural exists. They range from small cells who usually consist of a bunch of people who found out together, larger organizations spanning geographic regions and world-spanning conspiracies.

[Cheshire Cat]

.... spambot?

ive been accused of sounding like an encyclopedia, but never a spambot....

also, when i read your first post i assumed that you did not know anything about dnd at all, so i copy pasted and edited a post i did somewhere else for someone who was asking for starting dungeons and dragons resources. i assumed when you said "3.5 or maybe adnd" you did not know that version 4 was even out, which was obviously wrong of me. i noticed you posted bout characters you liked in the "dnd characters thread", so double wrong of me there to assume you werent up on dnd.

since most of my experience is with dungeons and dragons, particularly 4e with its very heavy emphasis on dungeon crawling and combat, im still interested in seeing what a more freeform roleplay looks like, so if you end up with posted logs or anything, it would be great if you could link them here.

[userpay]

Hmm I might be interested check out jack_breads post here
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=42535.msg790132#msg790132
for some related dnd stuff that I will be getting into. As a note for the next 3 weeks I wont beable to play on weekends (renisance faire) and fridays are generally at school from morning till around 6pm or so.

[Armok]

NME; that sounds awful, no serious game I make will ever be even remotely similar to that.

CC: Yea, I don't have to much knowledge of DnD, but it's still well above 0. I've read a fair bit abaut it on the net, I've played single player computer games based of it, and I've tried a single digit number of times to play over IRC only to fail miserably due to inexperience. My rejection of version 4 was based only of a vague sense of it being more combat centred than on actual experience with anything.

userpay: I saw that maptool, if I end up using a DnD like system or such we'll probably use that.
As for you playing... even if those specific things weren't a problem, they do indicate you have to much of a life to be ideal for this. Maybe I should be less picky in that regard thou.

[Armok]

Ok, I did some more research, tested out the maptool a bit, read up on the Stroyteller System, etc. I absolutely wont use that, it sounds horrifyingly constrained. If Akroma turns out to be a super DnD veteran, or Navi joins, or such, I might still be convinced to use DnD 3.5e still, but almost certainly I wont use a pre made system.

No, I'm not thinking of making my own RPG ruleset from scratch either, unless you count:
1) There are only 3 rules
2) The GM is always right
3) If you abuse any of the large and numerous loopholes in rule 1, or question rule 2 without good reason, you get kicked out.

The system is called "Armoks brain" and runs on things like intuitions, common sense, and a sapient understanding of physics and storytelling, rather than dice, numbers, and symbols.

As for how it will work in practice, I'll probably use map tool if it dosn't impair any players to do so, otherwise I'll use IRC,or even some other program. It shouldn't matter.
Many of the features of maptool will not be used however (including tiles, stats, and just about most things except chat, map, a few tokens to keep track of character positions, and the occasional 1d100). If there are any "stats" they will be measured in kilograms, newtons, and meters, or in % or species average, not in points and modifiers. If it DOES turn out simple natural language is insufficient for keeping track of some things, the systems will be copied from a) real science, b) a rough estimate of the DF v1. mechanics, or c) some mock xml/python/other computer based stuff. There won't be any hitpoints, instead get wounds that heal or get infected etc. according to my best understanding of real life medicine, and so on and so forth. In any case it hardly matter because as far as possible the system should be opaque, and I'm slightly confident in that "as far as possible"=="all the way".

As for setting, that will be determined after the players are decided and the software tested out, by brainstorming and player suggestions/wishlists until I get an idea to awesome to pass up, something wich usually happens every five minutes or so. Things that will be determined by player suggestion do not only include the physical setting, but also many aspects of general mood/attitude, possibly game mechanics, etc.

Also: EXACTLY WHO WANT TO JOIN THIS GAME AND THINK THEY FIT THE CRITERIA? If there are not enough players here I'll check some other places on the net, so if you think you want to join do so within a day or two.Akroma has vaguely expressed interest, but not explicitly stated a wish to join, a few others expressed interest but sounded like they had no time for it. Also, do you think there are people interest that have not noticed the thread and that I should PM, if so, which ones?

[TheNewerMartianEmperor]

I think I'd like to join.

[Akroma]

no way I would ever join a game where the only rules that exist are whatever armok makes up at the very moment it is required. that will not end well