Gaming Anonymous's page

Long time lurker. Considered from pbp stuff late last year, but ultimately decided against it. Last summer though I completed a 5E Wrath of the Righteous (using ideas from this board to fill in some story line gaps) campaign which was a lot of fun. Huge fan of the Paizo APs ever since the Shackled City Dungeon days though Pathfinder and I have a sorted history so I don't use it anymore. That isn't the point of this thread.

Currently I am running a modified Red Hand of Doom (5E) with fey instead of goblins but my players had expressed interest in “Kingdom Building” after they inherited some area of their own. It won't fit in the timeline of the current war so I started preparing another game that we could use it after this campaign which will be an amalgamation of Kingmaker/Rise of the Runelords/Curse of the Crimson Throne (plus I've been playing the Pathfinder Kingmaker game so I am all into Kingmaker again).

I will be using this thread to detail my modifications to the Kingmaker story line (maybe even my conversions to 5E), ask for feedback on the ideas, advice on somethings, and eventually serve as a campaign journal of types.

Important Note: I tend to borrow or twist a great many things from other sources into my homebrew games. Do not be surprised if you recognize a name, character, or something from somewhere else. I make no claim over these things as original content of mine. I am just here to tell a fun story with my players using everything from my 20 years as a DM.

Campaign Description
Amalgamated from Red Hand of Doom's Elsir Vale, Kingmaker's Stolen Lands, Birthright 2E, Greyhawk, Hammerfast, Curse of Strahd, & Siege of Bordrin's Watch
The Savage Lands, situated north of the Mercantile Empire of Hylar and spread across a wide crescent shaped mass of land reclaimed from the northern wild-lands and accessible by sea through the Kol gulf is a wilderness claimed by nobles, bandits, and beasts alike. This rugged frontier has been a magnet for migrating peasants, tradesmen, merchants, mercenaries, political or religious refugees, criminals and nobles alike from all corners of the world – all seeking adventure, fame and fortune, or simply escaping the life they had left behind.

Though formerly the Savage Lands were a realm of savagery and shame largely inhabited by monstrous creatures and lawless folk, due in part to a mutually beneficial relationship between humans and good-aligned races in the Savage Lands, now it is fiercely disputed by the hardy human colonists. Life in the Savage Lands is still harsh and dangerous for those not of noble birth or wealthy and some end their days begging on the streets or hanging from the gallows for petty crime.

Tentatively organized in tiny kingdoms, merchant trading centers, independent city-states, small principalities, and warlord strongholds, but most of them are little better than fortified villages. All of them are the targets of fierce incursions from bestial and human monsters alike and most of them don't survive for very long.

The northern region is largely dominated by the monstrous and barbaric tribes while the southern region is somewhat more stable for the human settlements, but even in the south there are threats that live in the hard-to-reach places like the forests and the mountains. In the center of the whole region lies Karuk-Azhik, the great seaport of the Dwarfs. The ancient Dwarfroad, a remnant of the once great dwarven empire that dominated the north of Oerth in ancient times, cuts through the southern Savage Lands to the Dwarven City of Hammerfast which overseers the stronghold of Bordrin’s Watch that protects the mountainous pass from the Giantdowns into the Savage Lands.

The bleak and misty lands of Barovia that is nestled between the Giantdowns and the Mercantile Empire of Hylar shares a border with The Savage Lands though many do not venture into Barovia due to the rumors of werewolves, vampires, witches, and more. Tradesmen and merchants from Barovia make the journey to Hammerfast to sell their wares and secure supplies to return to the small kingdom.

A twist of fate or perhaps bad luck has brought a small group of humanoids together that may be the only chance that the civilized reaches of the Savage Lands have to survive the coming of great trouble.

Greetings and well met!

After lurking for awhile on the Paizo Messageboards... I have found myself without the time to dedicate to a weekly game of tabletop, or the ability to just sit at my computer for hours on end every night for a chat-based game like the days of old. Now I have decided to take up play by post again after several years.

I have experience with play by post, but not here on Paizo aside from skimming the forums. I use to play a bunch on another website for around ten years off and on. I found it right after high school and didn't leave it until about 2013.

Early in 2017 I completed a two in a half year Wrath of the Righteous campaign. I've also completed several other smaller scale campaigns. The other big ones to my name was an extensively modified Red Hand of Doom campaign and a rather large Legends of the Five Rings campaign that I shared with two other GMs (we had 22 players at the game store so the campaign can concurrent with 3 different groups).

Essentially that all means nothing right now since I have never posted on the forums so I am brand spanking new here. So I need to make a name for myself so I can be able to settle into a much more in-depth and larger campaign further down the road.

One of the things I loved doing at the table was building a comprehensive world through several campaigns and adventures which help to shape it. I would also like to do the same here through a series of one-off modules as I build the world and my own brand!

However I am not green to the pitfalls of play by post gaming (not that other mediums don't have pitfalls... Most systems in general have them as well) so I have developed some unique... tastes. So this entire thread might be an attempt in futility when you take into consideration all these little things. Now for the sales pitch...

Diceless Pathfinder. You heard that right... Diceless... Pathfinder.

Initially when I was considering making a game I was looking at Diceless systems, because some of the slow down in PbP can happen with Dice Rolls. Plus over the years I have just come to prefer story-based role-playing such as Amber DRPG and the system/dice lighter games like Fate, The Window, etc. So I thought... I wonder if someone has attempted this with Pathfinder. A quick google search... and there it was!

Zenith Games Blog did it, complete with an example combat too. I won't bore you with the details yet. The gist is simple... All dice are replaced with a static number. Things like maneuvers, terrain, and just general planning become vastly more important. I am going to include “Hero Points” to give that feel of exceptional luck that comes with dice rolling, but essentially the game is completely story-driven.

I'd probably start with a nice classic module such as the Silver Anniversary Return to the Keep on the Borderlands in this quest for greatness (heavily modified since obviously... I can't leave well enough alone).

Would there be a handful of interested souls to join me on the first legs of this adventure or am I already coming out of the gate entirely to ambitious? You can be honest.