The Adventure Begins, in Earnest.

So the PbP game that I mentioned has advanced through the preface and has started off on the first leg of the adventure.

Preface: All characters, for whatever reason they chose, found themselves in the small farming village of Handover. Handover supports a population of approximately three hundred inhabitants, or roughly sixty family. The man governing the village is the Mayor, the people governing the Mayor are the Merchant's Guild, a small group of business men and women of town. There is also no less than two churches, each with their whispers in the Mayor's ear.



The characters, for the most part, arrived on the day of the Spring Fest. One of two days that the village assembled, sold their wares, and celebrated their harvest. Talyanna the Holy Woman and Balan the Guardian chose to be from Handover and have just recently returned to their home after Talyanna was sent away abroad to learn her clerical duties. Balan had followed her and hired on, while Talyanna studied, as a guard. Morzin the Hunter has wondered into town, ever vigilant for undead, as he hunts them with conviction and single mindedness (literally). Dagon the Mercenary found himself in town low on funds and took up work as a guard for the Mayor. Garen the Wanderer found his way into Handover when he was sent ahead of the Spring Caravan to announce their pending arrival, as he had hired on as a caravan guard.

Things of note thus far: excellent role play. Creative and well written dialogs and descriptions have given me tons to work with. For example I mentioned a young girl in one of the first of my posts and Talyanna thought it strange how much she looked like her when she was young. The girl has sense made a couple appearances and subsequent vanishing acts. Based on this 'discovery' alone I have worked out a whole plot hook, should the game last through the first adventure, around the girl. Dagon has had some interaction with the local Sheriff who is also a dwarf and working for the Mayor. There have been some other minor interactions but the one that has kicked it off, is while waiting for the caravan to arrive the Mayor has asked Talyanna to bless the occasion. As she moved to the podium, a man runs from the woods, covered in blood waving his arms and is summarily shot in the back by an arrow from the tree line.

What will the party do... there is a hook, but the player that it is for has not posted so I am curious to what will happen.

Happy Gaming!
TB

The Characters for My PbP Game

As I mentioned in my previous post, the characters are done for the most part. I am still waiting on one more (a Magic-user it looks like). Do to the length of time it take to roll up characters in PbP, I did add some house rules; max hit points at first level, roll 7 sets of 3d6 (arrange as desired and use the leftover for gold), and two weapon fighting (which, surprising to me, no one took).

I will add more as things develop and characters become, well characters.


Morzin the Hunter, 43yo, Male, Elf (Mu/F) - AC 7 [12] (Leather), HP 7, Att Spear (1d6), Save 14 (+2 vs Magic), Special Heredity Foe, Keen Detection, Mv 12 (45lbs), Gold 0, Lvl/XP 1/0 (+5)

Dagon the Mercenary, 22yo, Male, Dwarf (F) - AC 3 [16] (Plate), HP 7, Att 2H Battle Axe (1d6+1), Save 15 (+4 vs Magic, +1 vs Death / Poison), Special Combat Machine, Heredity Foe, Keen Detection, Hard to Hit, Mv 6 (100lbs), Gold 3gp, Lvl/XP 1/0 (+0)

Garen the Wanderer, 20yo, Male, Human (F) - AC 5 [14] (Chain), HP 7, Att 2H Sword (1d6+1), Save 15, Special Combat Machine, Mv 12 (75lbs), Gold 20gp, Lvl/XP 1/0 (+0)

Talyanna the Holy Woman, 22yo, Female, Human (C) - AC 5 [14] (Chain), HP 6, Att Mace (1d6), Save 14, Special Spell Casting, Banish Undead, Mv 12 (70lbs), Gold 2gp, Lvl/XP 1/0 (+0)

Balan the Guard(ian), 23yo, Male, Human (F) - AC 3 [16] (Plate), HP 7, Att Long Sword (1d6+1), Save 15, Special Combat Machine, Mv 9 (85lbs), Gold 0gp, Lvl/XP 1/0 (+5)


TB

When in doubt, whip Play-by-Post (PbP) out!

I advertised on a PbP site to see if there was any interest in playing a PbP game of Swords & Wizardry: Whitebox game. I wanted to get my fix and this seemed the best course of action do to limited RL time and limitations on finding a group locally (read rural). Surprised ~ I had quite alot of interest, even to the point of getting Private Messages (PMs) sent to me after I closed the recruitment thread. Why did the interest surprise me? It had nothing to do with the mechanics, but the fact that the site seems to cater more to v3.5 and v4 D&D crowd, than Retrocloners or the 'Old School' mentality.

I advertised as a small (3-5 player) short (4-5 scene) adventure using the Rules as Written (RaW) where I specified that I would making rulings on the rules as we went. I nearly, In My Opinion (IMO), ruined my experience by offering up my homebrew setting instead of just hand waving the ‘Conventional Fantasy Setting and Troupes’ that I planned on. I have rough notes on the setting, “Humanity’s Reign & Ruin”, but they are just hand written notes in a binder at the moment. It, the setting, also required the introduction of an additional Demi-Human race that I had not fully wrote up, fleshed out, or play-tested yet. Glad I decided to revert back to what I originally had planned.

So far we have managed to get through character creation, for the most part (one player I am currently waiting on a description and background for his character), and as we wait, finished characters are interacting with each other and NPCs within the small village of Handover. Character creation took a bit longer than I had anticipated. I suspected it would take a while, considering the medium that I chose to play over, but did not expect it to take as long as it has. I suspect that a day or two was added as players wrote up backgrounds longer (read more detailed) than I had expected and a couple chose to intertwine their backgrounds. In retrospect, it was worth the wait. Roleplay posts have been better than expected, I just hope the lethality of the S&W:WB rules does not make it all for naught.

TB