Game Description
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[An Introduction]I want to start a new PbP game…a 4E game set in Ptolus (Monte Cook’s setting). More info HERE and HERE. This will be my first 4E campaign, my second Ptolus campaign, and my first PbP campaign. I will begin with the canonical Ch 33 adventures and go from there. If you are a hard-core Ptolus fan, this campaign is probably not for you. But then again, I don’t want to rule anybody out. (It’s just that you’re probably familiar with Ch33 adventures already). I’m also no Ptolus expert. The Brick is a big book, too much for me to memorize each detail.
[Game Type & Setting]D&D 4E, Monte Cook's Ptolus
This will be a 4E campaign, and will require a great deal of conversion and shoe-horning on my part to get the setting to work with 4E rules. The 4E conversion is a side-intent of mine for running the game.
I am looking for 4-6 players, with up to 3 alternates to replace dropouts. But will take what I can get!! I would also like to see a variety of PC gender represented.
Anything from the 4E core books and 4E Dungeon and 4E Dragon magazines is available. If you want to play a Litorian (lion folk from Ptolus), instead use Dragonborn. Is this an obvious choice? Maybe not. But for now, it’s what I’m going with until I hear a better idea.
No Chaotic Evil players. Evil is a possibility, but you need to have a good reason for it and a good method of containing that role within the group and story dynamic. Submit your character concept before you bother statting up. Include anything you think is relevant in describing your concept, as well as a physical and personality description and some kind of history that I can use to tie him/her to the story and setting.
Once the characters are chosen, we can stat them up. We’ll use a point buy system.
[Game Explanation & Premise]My “Premise” for the game is bi-layered. The primary focus for the game will be exploration of the city of Ptolus. The second, very subtle, focus is on the issue of to what extent does life deserve to live…and how to deal with this question. I explain these below.- Exploration of the city of Ptolus.I want to use the comparatively slow nature of PbP to delve into the culture (et al.) of the city and respond to the players’ ideas and actions thoughtfully. The Ptolus Brick has 650 pages of lore on the city and is supported by a great community. There is a ~30 page player intro to the city, but taking advantage of the depth of the city is up to the players’ imaginations - and also the central goal of this game. It’s pretty important that the players buy into this notion and share in such a desire / direction for the game.
- To what extent does life deserve to live? This is going to be a much more subtle focus of the game primarily driven by the story. Therefore, it is entirely possible that this focus could be side-stepped by the group completely. This particular premise (or focus) is up to the players to realize since they are the protagonists and drivers of the story. I would like to have players who are at least interested in the possibility of a meta-plot and the things that such might offer. The down side to this is that due to the lengthy nature of a PbP game, the time it would take to develop the meta-plot is great. This is why I intend to have this focus sit in the background while the primary focus (the city) takes a more up front role.
[Game Master & Expectations of Conduct]As far as the actual conduct of the game, I want everyone to try for 1 post/day but really only average 4-5/week or so. I need time myself to respond properly and adequately, and we all know life gets in the way. Unless waiting for a particular player’s response is critical to the situation, if there is no response in two days I will assume there is nothing to be posted. I will wait longer if there is need to.
I also want to have all PC speech (in-character quotes) posted in that player’s color and bold-ed so that it is easily recognizable. Each player can choose their desired color in their proposal. I will try to have each major NPC have its own color and specific colors for generic NPCs as determined by its generic role. At the very least, bolding PC quotes will suffice. And, if you'd like, you can italicize mental thoughts of your PC. These practices seem to be pretty standard and I think they make a more readable/enjoyable experience.
I will try to keep important info and links in a separate Information thread, and will keep it mostly organized in the first post of the thread. Feel free to use the Info thread to keep your own notes and info, as well as to ask question that you the player may have forgotten but that your character would still remember/know. And, small/direct OOC talk can be done in thread but lengthy, tangential OOC discussion can be done in a separate OOC thread.
Some rolls I will make myself, but most can be done in thread using the dice and roll tags. I’m not interested in fudging, it’s just easier for me. And combat will be somewhat sparse in this campaign. Major scenes and milestones will have important combat encounters, but there will be more skill challenges and role-play encounters. The reason for this is simply b/c of the logistics of running combat in a PbP game. I will try to have digital encounter maps for the very most important & complex combat encounters. But I’m not promising anything!! If you're a combat fiend, this is prob not the game for you.
Each player will need to read the Player’s Guide to Ptolus, see link below. If you have any questions about the setting, ask! Ptolus was written for 3.5E, so use the fluff from the guide but the crunch from the 4E books. If there is something from the guide that you want to use but does not seem to fit with 4E rules, post about it and we will discuss it.
[Application Process] Depending on how many ppl want to play, I will be inviting those whose concepts I like most and think will fit best with the setting and story.
You can post your concept here, or PM it to me. Please be sure to include a physical and personality description, as well as some kind of history. The more detailed (tho not nesc the longer), the better.
I'm looking for stuff that I can use to hook the character into the story and the setting - primarily the setting.
I will be taking apps until we fill up. I want no more than 6 players and a few backups at most. I will close the advert thread when we reach the quota.
Right now, it appears as though we have three and possibly a forth player already so there are only a few slots open. I may reject a concept simply b/c it is too similar to one already accepted. Please don't get angry with me if this happens.
Read the player guide and the flavor intro to get a starting point if your looking for something to build upon for your concept.
[Character Concept & Creation] One of the most important things I want to see in the character gen is some sort of tie to the city. Why did you move to the city? What keeps you here (other than delving), if anything? If you grew up in the city, what did you and your parents (or other family) do? Do you have political/economic ties? Ask questions, dive into the culture, create. The player guide should give you a great jumping off point. I also plan to give each player some unique information about the city as determined by his/her background. It would be up to the player to use this info in interesting ways to solve problems and overcome obstacles.
Once I have your character concept, I will begin working on a handout with unique PC knowledge known only to you that may or may not already be in the player's guide. You can assume your PC knows everything in the player guide, but also the extra info that I give you. This info is determined by your concept and is up to you to figure out how to use in the development of the story. Hopefully, this will add a lot to the story and game play. This may take me some time to develop for each PC, so bear with me.
I will also include some other general handouts for everyone, like maps and basic information. Most of this info should be in the player guide anyway, but some of it won't be.
Use the "Method 2" point buy system with 22 points to spend detailed on page 17 (I think) of the PHB to gen ability scores.
We will be starting at Level 1, but I hope to progress through levels fairly quickly as I want to give XP for role play and other non-combat encounters - in addition to combat, of course.
You start with no items, but will have 150gp to buy whatever you want and pocket left over cash, and everyone also gets one Level 1 magic item of your choice, all subject to approval.
[Acceptable Source Material] All 4E books. All 4E Dragon and Dungeon Magazines. And, of course, all fluff from any Ptolus product.
[Ptolus Information].
Kaane's Bidding
...there is no chaos. There are only patterns, patterns on top of patterns, patterns that affect other patterns. Patterns hidden by patterns. Patterns within patterns. If you watch close, history does nothing but repeat itself. What we call chaos is just patterns we haven’t recognized. What we call random is just patterns we can’t decipher. What we can’t understand we call nonsense.
-- Chuck Palahniuk
* * *
It is midday on the second day of Rain in the 721st year of the Imperial Age. It’s raining in Ptolus. It always rains in Ptolus.
Walking down Center Street, just past Tavern Row, the chilling rain and familiar streets of Ptolus are somewhat comforting. You look towards the Spire – always hanging above the skyline, always glaring down on each and every Ptolusite as he toils through his mundane day. Many of the events that brought you to this point are as mundane as the events in any other’s life, and yet some are not.
You find yourself making your way to the Ghostly Minstrel about to begin the latest quest of your short career. Professional delving is not all that you thought in some ways, and yet much more in other ways. You are supposed to meet, what you assume to be, an older gentleman named Kaane. You got Kaane’s name from a post on one of the public bulletin boards in Delver’s Square. The post said to meet today at lunchtime in the Minstrel, the standard meeting and lodging place for delvers. His note said he would be sitting at one of the large round tables near the northwest corner.
Finally, you arrive at the Minstrel. Nothing has changed; even seems to be short on some normal maintenance. It is comforting. Then, something strikes you as you open one of the double doors leading in. Glancing at the architecture of the building and then to a broken piece of the dilapidated doorframe, you realize that not only are the Minstrel and other buildings falling into disrepair, but so is the City itself – nay, the whole Empire has been falling into the same state. All at once, like trying to swallow too large a bite, you shockingly realize that it is not simply the infrastructure, but the very culture and civilization of the City and Empire that is deteriorating. Why had you found it so strangely comforting? This sudden realization jars you and, yet, somehow feels like old news. It is as if everyone knew this but no one decided to voice the matter in a public way.
Technology and magic had once made the Empire great. Now all of the cities except for Ptolus struggle to survive. Moreover, the only reason Ptolus remains afloat is as a result of delvers like you. Or, more precisely, because of the secrets hidden beneath the City – and above – that you delvers risk life and limb to discover. Even in spite of this, you know that, beneath the surface, the City is in a precarious way, if not wholly crumbling like this very doorframe in front of your eyes.
As you go inside and shake the rain from your calcified body, you immediately pick up the eye of Kaane. You have never seen nor spoken to this man in your life, but immediately you know this must be him. You head over to his table. A few young delvers already populate the seats surrounding the table.
You almost forget the reason you came here. The posting was a call for experienced delvers to hunt down ratlings and bring back their tails for payment – but not just any ratlings…albino ratlings! For these tails, the posting offered 10 gold per tail, more than triple the standard reward of 3 gold per tail given by the municipal City Watch. It seemed like a lot when you read it, but then again you are not exactly an experienced delver either. Nevertheless, delving is your calling. Of this, you are certain. Well, at least perhaps as long as the gold remains flowing!
On your way to the table, you cannot shake that feeling of greatness-passed…past. You think about those folks who want Ptolus to break away from the Empire, and the others wanting to install some crazy notion of government run by the common masses instead the emperor. With the crime, both the petty gangs and the sophisticated organized syndicates, and now lately the Chaos Cults, it is amazing the City has not yet crumbled around you. It is like the doorframe, you think. Somehow, the constant abuse allows it to keep standing, preventing it from falling completely apart. But at what point is enough…enough? When does one stop patching and repairing? When do you just say: screw it! And tear the whole thing down to begin anew? But then what happens if you cannot rebuild that door? What if you have forgotten how to put the pieces together, and all the knowledge that built the door has dissipated into nothingness over the years because it has just been so long that no one remembers how anymore?
A part of you is surprised by the thoughts that come to mind. Nevertheless, now it is time for business.
Kaane greets you with a pleasant but hardened smile, “Hello good fellow! I assume you are here in response to my vermin posting. Please have a seat and introduce yourself. We all have much to discuss.”
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Kaane's Bidding
