The most important battles a man fights, he fights alone, in the privacy of his own heart. Redemption is claimed or lost not through swords, words, or external miracles, but by the results of these battles, sometimes too small to discern.

So almost 15 years ago, I ran a fabulous unique campaign here called Redemption. I want to try again today with the same campaign, sort of. 

This campaign will be different from most PbPs (just like the original campaign) because this is less a D&D campaign (even though it'll be set in the Forgotten Realms) and more a collaborative story. I'll still be the GM, but there will be less dice rolling, especially at first, and more exploring characters. We won't be eschewing dice rolling completely, but I'll let players know when dice rolling will be required.

What I am looking for:

• Players willing to go with a slower burn story and still stick around to contribute. What I mean by this is that there may be long periods of time where you are not posting because the current scene is not focused on your character, but you are still active on the OOC thread and don't ghost the campaign when it's your turn.
• Players who are committed to a long term story. I expect this will take a couple of years, and I'd love to have the same players at the end as when I began. That being said, I recognize life happens and I will have escape hatches set up, so if you need to duck out temporarily or permanently, we can do it as long as I have a little warning. 
• Players who are good writers! Proper punctuation and grammar, able to do more than just a sentence or two. You will have some storytelling power to create environments and reactions from others, and we are looking for good engagement for those reading the campaign with us. Quality is more preferred than speed, though both is even better, especially in rapid fire scenes.
• Players willing to create characters who are deep and real and creative. Tropes don't need to be avoided, but the more common the trope, the better executed the character should be. I will post a list of questions I want answered for each character to help develop them in ways outside of the normal D&D style.
• Along those lines, stretch your creative muscles and don't feel constrained by many of the normal D&D rules for race or class. You might choose to be a mage but your magic works differently from normal mages or something. This isn't a contest for who can make the most OP character, just looking for fun and flavor and depth. Gimmicks won't be accepted, but unique approaches with a realistic personality attached is what I am looking for. Plan on your character's personality to develop over the course of the story. If they are the same at the end as when we started, both the player and I as the GM have failed. Let me note that I am looking for depth, not breadth, meaning I don't want a party full of crazy races (though I'm not opposed to well written characters along those lines), I want your creativity to not be limited to race/class/power styles.
• This will be a PG story - no explicit scenes of any type, though we don't have to pretend sex doesn't happen. We just don't need to see details on stage.
• This won't be an evil campaign and I definitely don't want any murderhobos. Well executed characters that might be evil but are willing to play nicely with the party might work, but edgelords of any alignment are right out.

Caveat: Writing-wise, I tend to be more of a tortoise than a hare. I'll definitely have bursts of speed at times, but I typically only have time to write during the day when I am at work in between calls. if I'm getting slammed, I have less time. Nights and weekends frequently have little to no spare time, so the story can continue within the framework I've set up, but will have to wait when I'm not at work. Same goes for holidays - you'd THINK I'd have MORE time to write when I'm off work, but that is totally not true. I might, but it's sporadic and unpredictable. That being said, I will do my best to prioritize the campaign in my offtime to keep things moving, and I am nothing if not very consistent on a daily basis. Me even posting this means I know I am committing to a long term game.

I don't have a hard start date for the campaign, but I'll tentatively say around the first of the year. I want people to have plenty of time to work up characters and run them by me with my feedback for any changes before we start.

I would enjoy having a co-GM to bounce ideas off of and help run things behind the scenes - if you are interested, let me know and we can chat about that possibility. 

If you are interested in being a player, please send me a written backstory! Specifically, I want a story to see your writing skills, not just a few paragraphs. [Edit: Since I am wanting to see your writing skills, make sure you don't just give me a backstory, but you write a scene or two or an anecdote so I can get a feel for how you write, how your character feels, thinks, approaches things, etc.] I will want the following questions answered, though they don't all need to be in the written backstory - any you don't have in the backstory can be answered directly by copy/pasting into a PM. Also, DO NOT post anything beyond a basic concept for a character in this thread. I want details contained in private threads so that no one but me knows them. Feel free to put everything into a google doc and share a link with me. I'm happy to provide my email address for that purpose if you desire. Just let me know and I'll PM it to you. (I may add to this list of questions as I choose, and other DMs are free to yoink this for use in their campaigns in whole or in part.)

1. Why is this character an adventurer? Adventuring is dangerous, and even downright deadly at times. Most people have no desire to risk their lives so deliberately, so any PC had better have a DARN good reason to be out risking their lives as an adventurer.
2. How does your character feel about the gods and religion? Just because the gods are active doesn't require them to have faith, though religion/faith is a massive driving force for a large number of real people, so fantasy people won't be any different. 
3. How does your character view wealth/power/fame? Desirable? Undesirable? Why? Why not? Is it a primary goal, a secondary one, or something to be avoided? Or something more complicated?
4. Where do they sit on the trust/mistrust scale with acquaintances/strangers/friends/family? Do they trust easily? Do they trust wisely or foolishly? Have they been burned by trusting poorly, and did they learn wisdom from it or did they start mistrusting everyone more?
5. Related to trust is how they view relationships in general. Are they sought after or avoided? Why or why not? What benefit or threat do relationships bring to your character? I'll note that a people-hating character that cannot play nice with a party will not be accepted, though there's plenty of room for introverts and extroverts alike. In fact, tell me if they are introverts, extroverts, or ambiverts (a lot of both in different ways).
6. Tell me about their family and their relationship with them, as well as any other important relationships they have (anything not in the backstory can be included as a direct answer to this question).
7. Everybody has something surprising about them - some skill or knowledge or experience that would seem out of character to someone trying to pigeonhole them. What surprises does your character have?
8. All people believe something that is not true, both about the world around them (“The world is a dark, hateful place, and anybody who seems happy is just faking it.”) and about themselves (“I'm a very forgiving person - these grudges I carry don't mean I don't forgive.”) What lies/untruths does your character believe about themselves and the world around them?
9. Everyone also has at least one fear. It could be spiders, or it could be a fear of failure. What is your character afraid of and why?
10. What really bugs your character? Pet peeves and annoyances?
11. Hobbies! What does your character do for fun in their off time?
12. What does the CHARACTER view as their general strengths and weaknesses? This is beyond simple class roles.
13. What does he perceive his major problems to be? What does he perceive the solutions to those problems to be? Let's say, a magic wand was waved and all his problems were solved. What then? What does he really *want*? If he were totally free of his issues, would he look for love and settle down? Maybe start an art gallery? Or a focus group for paladins wrestling with their blackguard side having troubles fitting into society?
14. Related to that, as the writer of your character, how accurately does your character perceive their strengths and weaknesses? What S&Ws are hidden from their view but might be plain to see to those around them?
15. Give me at LEAST one good story hook to draw on for use! This should DEFINITELY be in the backstory!
16. What do they see as the reason to live? Why do they do what they do? What are their core motivations? This may have been answered already by other questions, but I want this explicitly laid out. Note that THEY may not know this, but YOU should.
17. What is the coolest thing about your character that you see as the creator of them? Or in other words, why should I accept them into the campaign?

I think this will be very cool and a different sort of story than typically gets told in these parts, and I am excited to see what possibilities you present! If I don't accept you as a player up front, I may still use you as a replacement if another player has to drop or as a recurring NPC along the way. No promises, but I will use all the quality I can! 

I will accept no more than 6 players. We will be using 5E as the basis, but I'll houserule on stuff along the way, and at the end of the day, the story is more important than the rules. Make your characters around 5th level or so. The Forgotten Realms will be the basis of the campaign, but don't feel constrained to be FROM the FR. However, I don't plan to accept a party full of extraplanar PCs, so be cautious when choosing that path.

If you desire to work up and submit multiple characters, feel free to do so as long as the quality doesn't suffer!

Let me note that anyone who was a full player in my last run of this may NOT be a player in this one, but you are welcome to check with me behind the scenes and we may give you a recurring NPC role. 🙂 If you were a recurring NPC in the last campaign, you are free to apply as a player. (If you're not sure where you stand here, ask me and I'll clarify!)

Due to the more intensive nature and longer duration of this campaign, I fully expect all of us to become real friends IRL! Looking forward to making new friends!

Also, the original campaign was so long ago, all the threads are gone, so don't bother looking them up. 😁

Ask me if you have any questions! Let's have fun!

PS - Post in here if you have any interest so I have an idea of how many might be applying.

[Edit: As this has come up a few times, let me clarify. I am looking for depth, not breadth. The more far afield the character concept is, the better the backstory and writing need to be in order to be accepted. While I am open to odd race/class combos or ideas, the execution of that idea had better be stunningly good if they are really distant from the vanilla options. And honestly, some if the best characters are the ones with vanilla class/race combos that drive deep into fascinating personalities, like the human warrior who was small, but learned from difficult life experiences how to get up every time he was knocked down. He was never pretentious, but struggled to feel as though he belonged anywhere.

That was one of the PCs from the last campaign and he was fabulous. Depth, not breadth, but you can have breadth if your depth makes it such a compelling character that I couldn't NOT have them in the party. That being said, I won't accept too many far afield character concepts into the party - I don't want a collection of circus freaks, so to speak, as the entire party. I might accept 1, maaayyybe 2 of those types.]