The Lost City of Barakus
Valley of the Shrines
The Wizard's Amulet
Character Generation
*20 point buy
*No stat above 18 after racial adjustment
*Roll HP, max lvl 1, re-roll 1's
*Bonus feat at 1st level
*No traits
*Fighters get 4+int skill ranks
*1 Hero Point/Level
Setting:
The Lost Lands: This is the setting of Frog God Games and formerly Necromancer Games. Of the well known published settings it is probably closest to Greyhawk in feel.
These publishers historically have released only adventures, and did not have an official setting. The adventures were designed to be inserted plug and play into any traditional "old-school" fantasy setting. Over time, an implied setting began to emerge from references in the adventures, and many fans have fleshed it out into a playable state. The official setting is under development by Greg Vaughn for a future release.
For the purposes of this campaign, I am utilizing a map I created and stocked with numerous layers, sites, dungeons, settlements, and one extremely detailed city. Beyond the edges of this map the setting is left vague for now.
Pantheon: This campaign does not use the golarion pantheon. A list of deities can be found here. Some of them have not been converted from 3.5, and none of them list sub-domains. If you see a deity that you like the flavor of, but it doesn't have a domain listed that it probably should, ask. If it makes sense for the deities portfolio, it will be added. Some of the deities who's names are in the list do not have any entries filled out yet. Again, just ask, I probably just haven't gotten to it yet.
Magic/Fantasy Level: On the spectrum of low magic/fantasy to high magic/fantasy, the Lost Lands are somewhat closer to Game of Thrones or Middle Earth than they are to Golarion or the Forgotten Realms. People in settlements would not be accustomed to a summoner strolling into town with his Eidolon. Magic is more rare than the assumed levels in pathfinder. Buying and selling magic items is very restricted. There are specific NPC's you can buy and sell from but they will have to be discovered and they will have a limited selection of items for sale, primarily consumables. Crafting is also mostly limited to consumables for PC's.
Points of Light: The area I have mapped out for this campaign has the characteristics of a "Points of Light" campaign setting. There is a Grand Dutchy off-map to the West, but the realm where the campaign takes place is, as a whole, a very rugged frontier. The two cities in the region are walled and the roads connecting them to each other and the world beyond are very dangerous and traveled mostly by well-defended merchant caravans. People typically live out the whole of their lives in the place where they are born. The majority of the map is trackless wilderness populated by dangerous monster lairs and dungeon sites.
Playstyle:
Old-School: The slogan of Necromancer Games was "Old-School feel, New-School rules!" They published adventures for the 3.x/D20 ruleset which were designed to recapture the feeling of gaming in the era of AD&D. I have found that old-school means wildly different things to different people depending on who you ask. At the outset of this project I was intent on forcing pathfinder to play like AD&D. I am an unapologetically nostalgic gamer, but I have learned that it is difficult to force pathfinder to suit some styles of play because of it's design assumptions. It can cause more problems than it solves. I have reached a kind of middle-ground, choosing my battles and embracing pathfinder for it's strengths. As long as you have some nostalgia or curiosity for old-school gaming I think we will at least be getting off on the right foot.
Sandbox: My campaign is characterized by open-ended exploration and dungeon crawling, supported by a very detailed city sourcebook. The modules I have plugged into the map are primarily site based adventuring locations, that don't have to be tackled in any particular sequence. There are triggers at certain points that lead to more plot driven gaming temporarily, and there are antagonists constantly progressing their own agendas, but there is no over-arching meta-plot. Inciting incidents that spur the players to specific action are few and far between. By and large the campaign is only going to have as much story as we inject into it as a group.
(Un)Balance: CR and APL guidelines have been used as a tool to arrange for different adventuring areas to be more or less appropriate for parties at various stages of their development, but the design of these adventures and this campaign is such that wildly innapropriate encounters can be stumbled into. In some cases provisions are in place so that running away is viable or non-combat alternatives are possible.
Likewise, WBL will be used as a tool for me to consult when calculating the APL of the party to estimate how they might fare against some of the challenges they encounter, but it will not be used as an indication of how much wealth they are assured to have at any given level. The treasures have been placed, whether they are discovered is up to the players and the fates.
Deadliness: These adventures have a reputation for deadliness. The hardcovers have pages of blank obituaries in the back, Because character development and role-play feature so strongly in PbP gaming, I have mitigated this somewhat by the inclusion of hero points. However, permanent death and loss of a character is still a reality in this campaign, more-so than in typical adventure path play.
Posting:
Pace: I know PbP can't match the pace of table-top, but I don't want to run a game that doesn't progress. I am looking for players that are committed and invested and really want to succeed against all odds in a game that requires more than a good build to achieve.
Posting Rate: You should have a high posting availability. I hate stating a requirement like "1 post/day except weekends" because there will be days when I can't post too. What I'm looking for is someone who can typically visit the thread one or more times/day, and post if needed. Quality counts too. Make posts that push things forward and reflect that you have read everyone else's posts and know what's going on. Please warn of and/or explain absences greater than 48 hours.
Formatting: I am OCD about formatting. Speech in bold with quotations. Internal monologue in italics. Out of character and mechanics in blue. Dice rolls labeled. Buffs and modifiers indicated.
Character Sheet: As above, I am OCD about formatting. Take pride in your character sheet. I need it up to date and I need to be able to read it. A hero-lab outputted stat block with no text formatting is not quite enough. I need to see that expended resources are being recorded just like they would be on a paper and pencil character sheet. I will link to examples of players that have well organized well formatted character sheets. You don't have to do yours exactly the same way but you have to make it nice. Comprehensible and nice.
Mini-Stats: There are certain lines in your profile that will display under your name next to your avatar when you post. Use these to display a mini-stat line with the most common things I have to refer to as DM, such as your armor class and saves. I require that these all be formatted exactly the same way. It is one of the typical formats that can be seen all over the PbP forums. You can find it on all the PC's in my games. If someone in my games doesn't have it formatted this way at this point it means they actively hate me and want me to suffer :) I post from work often and if this line isn't laid out the way I'm used to I make mistakes, get annoyed, become a grumpy DM, and kill PC's :)
Initiative: I do simple initiative for PbP. It goes in blocks. You don't have to wait for an individual initiative count to take your turn. Actions resolve in the order posted. I place an initiative tracker that shows who has and has not acted, and I update it throughout the round. You can post multiple times during a round, with dialogue and OOC, but when you make the post with your actions for the turn, it should begin with a header in bold stating the round so I can see at a glance who has taken their turn and update my tracker accordingly. If people aren't doing this I will rage quit. End your combat post with a status update indicating resources spent, active buffs and conditions, etc. After combat edit your profile/character sheet/mini-stats to reflect the current status.
Resources: You are responsible for tracking your expenditure of resources, active effects and conditions both in and out of combat. If you spend gold, record it. If you have taken damage record it. If you acquire a turnip record it. If it's not on your character sheet, you don't have it and can't use it. Encumbrance rules are enforced.
