Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2020 1:09:58 GMT -6
Hey, all!
This thread is best read in context with the following, older posts, here on OD&D'74, and on Dragonsfoot:
Adventures in Blackmoor & The Last Fantasy Campaign
Adventures in Meleon
"The Grim Winter" Campaign Journal
Since I reactivated DF campaign journal a while ago, on a whim, I figured - why not do a more concise write on my "home turf", as well?
So, in a nutshell, this is the third "bigger" chapter in an online PBP campaign that has been running, with many changes, interruptions, and detours, since 2005.
Here's a more detailed description I give on DF:
...And that's what it is.
This thread is best read in context with the following, older posts, here on OD&D'74, and on Dragonsfoot:
Adventures in Blackmoor & The Last Fantasy Campaign
Adventures in Meleon
"The Grim Winter" Campaign Journal
Since I reactivated DF campaign journal a while ago, on a whim, I figured - why not do a more concise write on my "home turf", as well?
So, in a nutshell, this is the third "bigger" chapter in an online PBP campaign that has been running, with many changes, interruptions, and detours, since 2005.
Here's a more detailed description I give on DF:
As to the connection to our earlier games - it's there, but it's not spelled out. Our "pure" Blackmoor campaign ended eight years ago, and in between, we've played two or three other "big" main games, and, between 2015 and 2019, spent a lot of time in my homebrew setting/eternal pet project, "Meleon". When I started this current game, the big consideration to make was whether our group would remain in that homebrew setting, or do something more related to our original adventures, to which the players still remained very strongly attached.
"The Affair of the Necklace" and the "World of Ashmark" constitute a compromise between both concepts, of sorts: We're probably in the same, or in a mirror world to Blackmoor, but so far into the future that the new campaign is probably as detached from the old campaigns as, say, the world of the classic Phantasy Star II is from Phantasy Star I, or as removed Terry Brooks "Defenders of Shannara" series is from his classic "Sword", "Elfstones", and "Wishsong". The connection is evident to us on a meta-level, and it's surely there to the degree that the players want it in terms of context and backstory, but it's not "forced" on us, as if this was the third part in a novel trilogy that would be impossible to understand without having read the two earlier ones.
My main motivator to "give up power", and move this back from my home setting, and into this new-old turf that might maybe be called a "spiritual successor" to Blackmoor has been - convenience. Fifteen years into this game, it's clear that we're approaching some sort of "endgame", no Avengers joke intended. My faithful and myself, we will probably continue to roll the dice till the sun melts the moon, but, right now, too much of the campaign depends on me being the DM, in the sense that "I'm the world". That's a strategy that's ultimately bound to fail, and one that we were in dire need to democratize. So, this is what we're attempting with the new game, I guess - an open endgame to our fifteen years of joined storytelling and worldbuilding that makes the setting less a thing that I curate alone, but one that the other participants in the game also have a connection with, and a frame to work within. Whatever comes afterwards, we'll see when we get there, I guess.
---
Talking about technical aspects of the game, I can first report that Discord works pretty well for PBPs, and that the mobile support is an incredible asset, as well as the relatively uncomplicated options to upload bigger files, like maps, and because the different dice rollers that you can install in your channel work pretty flawlessly. Discord's disadvantage is, however that looking old stuff up can become a chore, especially as your game increases in complexity. There's a search function, but the only way to keep an overview of your game will be to keep really, really thorough notes. Winging it, especially if it's a slow game, like mine tend to be, is not really possible in the new format. Google Notes has been pretty big help for me, here, especially since it's also mobile-compatible.
I do my maps on Inkarnate, an online, browser-based mapper that costs 25$ per year. I prefer it to other mapping tools because it's relatively quick if you know what you're doing, but in terms of options and handling, it's certainly limited and quite overcomplicated, sometimes.
As to the system, the party is using d20 - because of historical reasons, and because the Skills/Features system works pretty well within the context of the slow and very limited interaction that a PBP allows. At a real gaming table, we'd likely use Mentzer D&D, but that system just doesn't work too well in an online game, at least not to us, and after 15 years of experimenting with different options. If my players were familiar with that system, I would probably strongly contemplate "Castles & Crusades", or the notoriously underrated "Delving Deeper".
Originally, our group had planned to end this particular adventure in February, and to merely use it as a test run for something else. However, with Corona, and all, we decided that rolling the dice a while longer would be a good thing to do, amid all this mess that we can do nothing about. A second adventure, as hinted in the above summary, will start in September, with a possible third chapter tentatively planned for 2021.
...What can I say? Blackmoor, Ashmark, Meleon... Or Dragonlance, Ravenloft, or Greyhawk, for that matter:
This is still home.
"The Affair of the Necklace" and the "World of Ashmark" constitute a compromise between both concepts, of sorts: We're probably in the same, or in a mirror world to Blackmoor, but so far into the future that the new campaign is probably as detached from the old campaigns as, say, the world of the classic Phantasy Star II is from Phantasy Star I, or as removed Terry Brooks "Defenders of Shannara" series is from his classic "Sword", "Elfstones", and "Wishsong". The connection is evident to us on a meta-level, and it's surely there to the degree that the players want it in terms of context and backstory, but it's not "forced" on us, as if this was the third part in a novel trilogy that would be impossible to understand without having read the two earlier ones.
My main motivator to "give up power", and move this back from my home setting, and into this new-old turf that might maybe be called a "spiritual successor" to Blackmoor has been - convenience. Fifteen years into this game, it's clear that we're approaching some sort of "endgame", no Avengers joke intended. My faithful and myself, we will probably continue to roll the dice till the sun melts the moon, but, right now, too much of the campaign depends on me being the DM, in the sense that "I'm the world". That's a strategy that's ultimately bound to fail, and one that we were in dire need to democratize. So, this is what we're attempting with the new game, I guess - an open endgame to our fifteen years of joined storytelling and worldbuilding that makes the setting less a thing that I curate alone, but one that the other participants in the game also have a connection with, and a frame to work within. Whatever comes afterwards, we'll see when we get there, I guess.
---
Talking about technical aspects of the game, I can first report that Discord works pretty well for PBPs, and that the mobile support is an incredible asset, as well as the relatively uncomplicated options to upload bigger files, like maps, and because the different dice rollers that you can install in your channel work pretty flawlessly. Discord's disadvantage is, however that looking old stuff up can become a chore, especially as your game increases in complexity. There's a search function, but the only way to keep an overview of your game will be to keep really, really thorough notes. Winging it, especially if it's a slow game, like mine tend to be, is not really possible in the new format. Google Notes has been pretty big help for me, here, especially since it's also mobile-compatible.
I do my maps on Inkarnate, an online, browser-based mapper that costs 25$ per year. I prefer it to other mapping tools because it's relatively quick if you know what you're doing, but in terms of options and handling, it's certainly limited and quite overcomplicated, sometimes.
As to the system, the party is using d20 - because of historical reasons, and because the Skills/Features system works pretty well within the context of the slow and very limited interaction that a PBP allows. At a real gaming table, we'd likely use Mentzer D&D, but that system just doesn't work too well in an online game, at least not to us, and after 15 years of experimenting with different options. If my players were familiar with that system, I would probably strongly contemplate "Castles & Crusades", or the notoriously underrated "Delving Deeper".
Originally, our group had planned to end this particular adventure in February, and to merely use it as a test run for something else. However, with Corona, and all, we decided that rolling the dice a while longer would be a good thing to do, amid all this mess that we can do nothing about. A second adventure, as hinted in the above summary, will start in September, with a possible third chapter tentatively planned for 2021.
...What can I say? Blackmoor, Ashmark, Meleon... Or Dragonlance, Ravenloft, or Greyhawk, for that matter:
This is still home.
...And that's what it is.