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Chapter 1: Water Water all around, but not a drop to drink.
Week two at sea, without a hint of land in sight,

It is here the story of our heroes begins. Aboard a lone caravel bobbing up and down on the swelling seas of an unknown ocean, in an unknown land, perhaps even an unknown world.

Hello gamers,

I'd like to run a sandbox game, and I'm looking for people to try it out. I'm building a world for my table players and want to build it off a world that has already been lived in. So I want a few players to 'live' in it before I roll it out to them.

Here is some info, I'll try to answer as most as I can ahead of time and try to fill in the blanks but if I double talk or get confusing let me know.

Lower Combat, more Role Playing & Diplomacy:
I want to mention this first, as it is fairly important. I prefer to streamline combat for PBPs, less dice rolls = faster game playing, at least in my experience. So while it's perfectly OK to create a warrior type, I will point out now I may simply say that after you character engages in a battle the outcome would be weighed based on the participants and give you a more 'movie like' fight description and then resolve it based on the most likely outcome. If There is a full group of Pcs against a dozen Kobolds, they may hinder the party, but I doubt they would lose so it may be a simple: "The party chooses to engage the Kobolds, and after a chaotic battle are victorious." Or something similar. Deadly battles, or "boss fights" would most likely be round by round still.

Game Type: 3.5
The world I am running is 3.5, I allow any official 3.0 material that has not been errata'd yet in as 3.5 content, as well as 99% of all 3.5 content for building characters, equipment, feats etc.

Character types:
Feel free to play any type of character you want, I'll do my best to adjust the campaign to whatever role you want, whether that is an adventurer, farmer, tradesman, etc. I want this world to have characters so that means you can really do whatever you want to do. Most characters have some kind of nautical skills due to the events in the world section. This is not a requirement however.

The World:
In our current table game, the big bad evil guys succeeded in a clandestine coup, and wrought terrible damage to that world, ravished by demons, visited by plagues, and it's lands rendered bare by apocalyptic conditions. Small clusters of population, including the player characters, have escaped this world by using ancient magic to open doorways into another world, leaving the previous one behind. The new world is made up of vast oceans, and very little land, though there have been talk of floating cities that are gaining in popularity. (I hate the movie, but think Waterworld in concept.)

Racial Hatred:
In our world Dwarven greed was 90% responsible for the last world ending, so any new Dwarven characters face a "barely tolerated" status, and have such fled the general world and are rarely encountered. (you can play a dwarf if you want, but if you do not enjoy being treated as 2nd class citizen, then this is your early warning.)

Conversly, other typically evil races are usually tolerated, or even venerated. There is a tribe of Gnolls that defended a human settlement as it's mages struggled to open gates to the new world. The fought back a tide of demons and ended up saving most of it's villagers. Though they suffered huge losses these Gnolls earned honorific status amongst the people they saved, and have fully integrated into the populace as equals.

So this means if you want to play a typically 'evil' race it can be allowed as you can write your own back story ticket if you wish, within reason and after DM approval. Demons are always slain on sight, no race tolerates them, no one would associate with them (currently anyway.)

Magic and the Gods:
The gods of old are all dead. This new world is not connected to gods, or weaves, or any alien magical sources and therefore magic is difficult to conjure and control. Arcane magic is waning, any spells cast, are not able to be recast, spells already memorized still buss in their heads and are cast-able however. Most wizards and sorcerers are loathe to cast them however as they are seemingly lost when trying to re-memorize them, or renew their sorceress power.

All prayers are currently going unanswered, those spells already prayed for are castable, but also fade from memory once cast. Most believe that there are no gods in this world, or those that do reside here are not answering prayers.

Footnote: all spell casting classes are available to play, but there may be a delay or hindrance in casting spells, at first. I cannot say if, or when, or what changes may come in that regard. It would be a campaign spoiler, but I do allow any of those classes to 'shift' out of being a spellcaster if they wish and replace it with a different class for a small XP fee if they feel they want to 'abandon' magic or the gods that granted it earlier. There may, or may not, be an event that grants spells, prayers, or other odd powers. That's not for me to divulge for now.

I think this is kinda a good start anyway for a post, as it's getting verbose.

So to summarize:

Sandbox 3.5 rules game

Depending on interest, I would love to do this epic style and possibly have a large amount of players. So I'll wait on a cap to see how this idea goes over.

Evil races allowed, and generally assumed to be tolerated. Character ECL should be no higher than 3, with a maximum level adjustment of +2. Meaning you need to take at least 1 class level of something.

You may buy starting equipment up to a value of 2,000gp (nonmagical only), and 1-2 magic items totaling no more than 900 gp combined. (magic is rare.)

Dwarves are known bad guys, and generally despised/attacked on sight. It is not recommended to play one, though if you love pain, and fighting for every scrap of bread, go for it. I'm just laying down the world, not what you can/cannot play.

Faster combat through streamlined combat, unless the fight calls for a more structured fight.

Magic is iffy at best, and apparently NOT renewable. (you can start with spells if you wish, but expect problems.)

The world itself is very 'Waterworld', there are pockets of land, which are generally going to be densely populated and controlled, or unknown and untamed. There have been a generation or two that have never stepped on land, content to live on/in large water vessels or makeshift constructed islands. Though settlements would love to find new land to populate and grow.

I'd able to commit to at least 1 large post per week, this would be advancing plot style posts, where it isn't simply answering questions or minor details. Those I can sprinkle in during the week with no trouble.

I'm excited about this as I really want this to last a long time, and I finally think I can pull this off, which will be more cool to say to my table players, this is Lord Guy Whatever, he single handedly killed a Sea Serpent defending the town of Whereeverville.

Hopefully I didn't ramble too much and made this pitch resonate with your gamer desires.

Thanks for reading, I'll check back in later to see what you guys think.

Regards,
W.