Looking for 5e, starfinder, Exalted 3e, or pathfinder!

[Ixy]

So what kind of themes and characters would you like us to stay with?  We can get pretty crazy with it if we cut loose.

[TheHighwayHitman]

I need at least two more to verify interest before putting a whole lot of thought and effort into it. I don't host games for players that are here one week and gone the next, and I don't throw a whole massive plot and story together without interaction and feedback from prospective players.

Its far easier and more beneficial to cater the game design to the players than it is to railroad them along my desired path. I can just as easily inject my plans around them. :)

I take it you are interested though, so that makes two.

Uno mas!

[Muse]

SUre, I'm interested 

Just want to make sure there's a spot for Changing when he get this.  He tells me he's getting sick so I imagine he might have trouble getting on for a few days 

[Chulanowa]

I think I'm down; I honestly prefer straight-up pathfinder, but that's just familiarity; if character creation and options and such are pathfinder, that's fine for me  That is, of course, if you're still looking for uno mas.

[eBadger]

I've been waiting for something more solid to emerge regarding the adventure concept before piping in, but I'm  interested as well. 

[Muse]

  CHanging Saint--who put up this thread--is down with a stomach virus.  HE'll need a few more days most likely before he can come chime in. 

[TheHighwayHitman]

Alright. I've been absent the last few days with a fragie phone and a four year old's bronchitis. Add to it, my truck is in the shop and I've been miserable.

Anyway. It seems there is enough interest. So here is the deal. I've done this long enough to know these games don't last on the level 1-20 thing. It can take weeks to clear a single room in a ten room dungeon, and people always feel some type of way and bounce out. For those reasons, I move things along pretty quick. I truncate what I can. You'll never see a scene where everyone sits around in a tavern and argues about the best course of action for thirty posts. Newp! The best course of action is -always- beat some sense into it. In other words, lets all be cool and -not- waste time complicating things.

I'll host a game that comes in three major parts. The rescue, the investigation, and the final confrontation. It will be for characters of 9th level and go to level 12-14, maybe more. This way you're not committed for like six years. Each of the three arcs will have 2-5 scenes for the group. I also host a side board of solo scenes for individuals, if they want them. If you are in two scenes simultaneously, you can't use what you know, learn, or acquire in the other until the first is completed. But once the first is completed the second retroactively adapts. This is where I suspend disbelief and treat it like it was always there. Examples of this might be leveling up, getting a new sword, acquiring a henchman. Believe it or not, it works quite well.

I'll use a handful of regular NPCs that are significant in some way and a bunch of scrubby ones to use and abuse however they are needed.

Common Sense trumps the dice, every time. I don't care how many hit points you have and what the statistical odds of those four knights takiing you down before you unleash a fireball is. We're all smart enough to know if you try you're gonna die. In short, when it comes to IC, your character doesn't know they are doing a d8+6 for damage. Your character knows there are four bad asses with swords pointed at her. Make sense?

Like I already said, direct, decisive action is always better than sitting around and taking your sweet time. This is reflective on the story, too. If your group spends 10 posts going back and forth on whether or not to chase the vigilante, by the time they do decide to do it, he'll be long gone.

Some other things to consider and remember (whether you personally agree or not) diplomacy is ridiculously overrated. Bluffs can be thwarted with common sense. To be intimidating, you must actually be intimidating. What I am trying to say is, don't be the player who has a Fox for a pet, casts enlarge on it, and then expects it to intimidate the hardened ranger with a pair of pitbulls. The fox will get eaten and the ranger is going to laugh. By contrast, don't be the only dark elf in town and try to bluff the guards looking for a dark elf thief that it wasn't you. Whether or not it was, to them, you're the drow they're looking for.

If you come into this game expecting a lot of silliness, goofy humor, or zany over the top cartoonish behavior, you'll be very disappointed. I do my games dark and gritty. The villains win more times than not. I'm a big fan of Spartacus, 300, and Marvel's Punisher.

So with that in mind, I will post an ad in the next day or two looking for players. Specific game details and character creation rules will be found there.

I hope this works for everyone!

[Cataclysmic Archangel]

Still interested, and would appreciate if you could drop me a PM or shoot a link when it's put together, simply because of RL and sometimes forgetting to check the group boards.

I have an idea in mind if we're using 3/3.5 stuff, but I'm still a bit lost on pathfinder.

[Muse]

  I can help you wiht pathfinder, Cataclysmic.  Hitman's house rules you'll need to talk to him about.  :) 

[Muse]

  Would a dragon disciple be a good offering, Hitman? 

[Cataclysmic Archangel]

  I can help you wiht pathfinder, Cataclysmic.  Hitman's house rules you'll need to talk to him about.  :)

Cause I'm not bombarding you enough with Saga? :)

[Muse]

  *Girns*  It's the kind of thing I like to do. 

[TheHighwayHitman]

Dragon Disciple:

Not really, no.  It's one of those odd classes that I never use and don't particularly care for.  Dragons, at least with how I use them, are the namesake of the game.  They are mythic in power, nigh invulnerable, and have no use for a pesky mortal disciple. 

The classes I look for are Cleric, Fighter, Warmage (from Complete Arcane with a buff or two that makes them the ultimate blasting magic user as far as I am concerned), Rogue, Ninja, and Inquisitor.  I will be allowing a psionic character or two, but it will follow the 3.0 or 3.5 rules from the d20 srd.  Depending on the setting, Barbarians, Paladins (Anti too), Rangers, Slayers, Brawlers, and Samurais.  Two classes that never get any love from me are Bards and Sorcerers.  I don't particularly care for Monks.  As a general rule, I don't like Arcanists.  They very quickly unbalance things, and players forget that they are the weakest link.  Take out any party's primary spellcaster, and suddenly they forget how to act.  Everyone becomes the supporting cast member for the Arcanist, and I don't like that.  Other classes like an Alchemist and Magus or Duskblade are not things I approve.  It isn't such as I hate the class as it is unfamiliarity and lack of necessity.

Plus, Bards and Arcane casters fill up quick.  I have other setting reasons for it too.  You'll see when I post up more information.

The "game world" is going to be centered on a place in an empire loosely (and largely) modeled after Rome.  The major land features are arid mountains, arid grasslands, and a rocky coast.  Elves are generally viewed with mistrust since they started the War of Minds; a long, 60 year war that started quickly and ended with attrition of the elven community and the subsequent rise of the empire.  Elves do not have the ability to use Psionics.  Humans do.  Humans can study magic and learn it, but they are not born with it like sorcerers are.  Elves can be sorcerers.  The Humans won.  Up in the far north, across the sea, where things are more primal and barbaric (think Vikings), are winter lands where many elves retreated.  Like the 'savage' Northlanders, the Imperials look down on them.  They started a genocidal war, lost it, ran away, and then complain about their treatment.  *Scoff*  Fools.

Humans dominate most of the world.  The Murdokanese Empire is roughly 90% human.  To the northeast is the fallen Empire of Riva.  Mix Ancient Greece and Ancient China.  They have recently (within the last 10 years) lost a war with Murdokanese, and had their capital city, Riva, sacked and burned.  Many Rivians are displaced.  West, across the mountains and desert is the Destivian Kingdom.  It's broken into Northern and Southern Destivia, and is very much Celtic and English.  They spend most of their time fighting.  They fight Northlander and Islander pirates.  They fight the Undead that come from the desert.  They fight the Hobgoblin "monsters" and they skirmish with the occasional orc.  Most of the time though, they fight among themselves.  The north is full of Northlanders.  They come from the lands of ice and snow, with the midnight springs and where the hot springs blow.  Northlanders are, for all intents and purposes, Vikings.  Stuck in the middle of the Murdokanese Empire and the Northlander city-states are the tribal-ish Islanders.  They inhabit a plethora of Islands in the middle of the sea.  Their cultures are varied as they are a mixing and melting pot of pretty much every civilization since the dawn of time.  Think, the American Indians meet Ancient Egypt, meets Pirates!  Human characters are almost certain to be Imperials.  There might be an exception.

Elves, like the humans, are a varied, diverse lot... just not as varied and diverse.  One important trait they all share in common is a vulnerability to psionics.  No elf is able to master the art, and every elf is vulnerable to it's affects.  The most common, and subsequently accepted elves are the Heartwood elves.  The three biggest reasons for this are first, the Heartwood Forest, the largest (and possibly oldest) forest in the world is literally right in the middle of the Murdokanese Empire.  The elven queen has a thing for humans.  When the War of Minds broke out, the queen and her loyal subjects of the forest did not join in the genocide.  In fact, she condemned it.  The Heartwood elves allied with, and then joined the Empire.  Today, the elves of the Heartwoods do not consider themselves a separate monarchy.  They consider themselves Murdokanese, and just happen to have a racial Queen who functions exactly like a Murdokanese Imperial Governor.  Lastly, the Imperial elves of the Heartwood Forest view the other elven subraces with disdain.  They are rebels, race traitors, and heathens directly responsible for the downfall of the elven people's dominance of the world.  In short, the other elves ruined a good thing.  Players seeking to play elves will be Heartwood elves.  Listed below are the other variations of elf for information purposes.

The Winter elves are the most violent and warlike of the species.  They come from the far north, sharing the land with giants and northlanders, who are equally savage and violent.  Like scolded teenagers, they resent humanity (even the northerlanders, whom they tolerate because a war with them would annihilate their species), psionics, and their harsh reception elsewhere in the world.  They epitomize the harsh nature of the north.  Instead of learning the lessons of history and finding better ways, the Winter elves dig in their heels and dive deeper into the behavior and mentality that made them pariahs in the first place.

The elusive Wild elves are a thing of mystery to most other elves.  They are rarely seen, and when they are, it is almost always at the end of a blade.  The Wild elves did not fight in the War of Minds; because they were already fighting everyone else.  These strange elves inhabit the same volcanic continent of the orcs.  They are xenophobic isolationists who almost never venture out of their own temples and strongholds.  Few records of them exist, and those that do are both orcish and biased.  The growing relationship between the Imperials and the Orcs has seen a rise in the presence of these "Wild" elves, but they seem to have no feelings one way or another about their fairer skinned cousins.

It should be noted that there was once a sub race of long limbed, darker skinned, nomadic desert dwelling elves.  But they were all but extinct before the War of Minds, and nobody has seen or heard from even one of their number in centuries.  Indeed, the last known member of the nefarious Skull and Sand clan was killed in battle by the Murdokanese Legionnaire, Montimus Victus 379 years ago.

Dwarves do not exist.  If they do, they are buried deep, deep, underground somewhere.  Nobody that lives on the surface has seen or heard of them.  There is only vague reference to them in some of the oldest Orcish scripts.  Dwarves are not a player race.

Gnomes do not exist.  See the above.

Halflings do exist.  For the most part, everybody likes them.  But they are hard to take seriously in terms of martial or magical prowess.  They excel at mundane tasks where people can socialize with them, but where they are often overlooked.  Halflings are not a player race in this setting.

Orcs do exist.  They are very different from the books.  Larger, stronger, and tougher than most humans, Orcs are renowned for their craftsmanship and prowess on the battlefield.  Their culture is extremely civilized and sophisticated, but also very, very, foreign to most Imperials.  Think Feudal Japan meets the Klingon Empire.  Orcs are a playable race.

Goblins are very common on the orc continent.  They are not uncommon in the Murdokanese Empire.  Goblins have replaced Dwarves, Gnomes, and Halflings as player character races.  Depending on their origins, Goblins are a servant race of orcs, or a Rivian slave race that was liberated by the Imperials.  While most people are suspicious of the small, greenskins, they recognize their value as a worker species.  Goblins are mechanically inclined.  They are good shock troopers and sappers.  Goblins scarcely resemble typical D&D goblins.  They're not stupid, and they're extremely resilient.  While goblins have little culture of their own - they don't have their own pantheon or territories, and they've spent centuries in servitude, they are not the dirty, smelly, uncouth creatures.  Some do still in squalor, of course, but in the Empire, many more goblins find themselves in the skill labor and warrior ranks.  Most goblins look to the Empire as an opportunity to have something they've never had before.

Half-orcs & Half-elves are rare.  Half-elves are more common than half-orcs, but it is because humans have had contact with elves longer than orcs.  Half-elf and Half-orc PCs will have been raised under Imperial law.  Half-elves are of particular interest because they do not share the elves vulnerability to psionics.  However, they also do not share the elves natural affinity for sorcery.  Most half-elves in the Empire become courtesans, gladiators, soldiers, or trained wizards.  Half-orcs in the Empire are typically outcasts from their own continent, or the result of a particularly attractive and submissive human and a liberal (or drunk) orc.  The orcish parent is rarely, if ever involved with their offspring's life.  Orcs almost universally consider half-orcs a mark of shame, as mating with a human is beneath them.  Particularly ambitious, lower caste orcs see Imperials as an opportunity to rise in station by aligning themselves with aristocracy.  This is an unfortunate, ill informed outcome since the Imperials with prestige and authority only really see mixing with other prestigious Imperials as a road to success.  The few Half-orcs that there are usually find themselves becoming gladiators, soldiers, brigands, or in other professions where their size and strength are seen as perks.  There are more half-elves and half-orcs in prison for crimes they did commit than there are free citizens for prosperity, success, and wealth.

The races that are typical villains and monsters are Bugbears, Yaun-ti, Trolls, Gnolls, Crabmen, Bullywugs, and Lizard Folk.  The two most dominant "enemy" or "villain" species (outside of player races with classes) are Skeletal Undead and Hobgoblins.

I'll have more information for all of you when I post up the game in the Player's Wanted thread.

[Cataclysmic Archangel]

*reads wall of text*

....

*looks at character concept, which was human arcanist/wizard*

....

*reads wall of text again*

....

*crumples up idea and chucks it in the fireplace*

[TheHighwayHitman]

Umm... sorry?

I'm not entirely against an arcanist. I just want to be clear that I know of their popularity, and want someone who is going to understand that I do not pull my punches with them. I'm also not going to run a whole game of them.

[Revelation]

Whew! Feeling better. However, reading the thread I do thank you for your desire to run, Highwayhitman. however from what you've said about the game I don't think i'd be a good fit for it. I'm probably gonna be locking this topic as my plate suddenly got a tad more full, but i'll wait until you can post an interest thread/recruitment thread for those interested.

[Cataclysmic Archangel]

Umm... sorry?

I'm not entirely against an arcanist. I just want to be clear that I know of their popularity, and want someone who is going to understand that I do not pull my punches with them. I'm also not going to run a whole game of them.

Ok, fair enough.  It didn't read like that at all, to be honest.  I had an idea for a human wizard, based off of a variety of 3.0/3.5 sources that would require some working with and possibly some compromise.  So I'll bring it up when/if things get going.