For starters...

Hey guys and/or gals!

I'm Sean, the dude who will be DMing this crazy thing. Just to kick things off, this topic is for us to throw around character ideas for back story, race and class. Please feel free to play any race in the core rulebook or the twygzog from the 13th Age Bestiary and any class from either the core book or 13 True Ways. Since the target audience for this game is beginners, my recommendation is to simply start with the core rulebook stuff, just because it's easier to get a feel for the game. If you feel like you want to tackle something bigger, more power to you! I don't have any ideas for a story, and to be honest, I won't until we have a full group. 13th Age is supposed to be about the characters, so if I don't know who your characters are, well, that makes for a story your character may or may not be interested in. So again, we can use this topic for discussing rules and character building. One last thing, I prefer point buy system for stat creation just because i feel it's fair to everyone, so please, use that.

I've been looking forward to trying this system for a while now so thanks for taking the time to put this together. I'll put some time into going through the character creation process in the next day or two and see what I can come up with.

Thinking of playing a gnome sorcerer who has 2 point positive relationship with the high druid and 1 point conflicted relationship with the priestess.

Question: When selecting feats I can pick from any of the appropriate tables (general, race, class), correct?

yup, you only get 1 adventurer feat (labeled A) though beause lvl 1. you can choose feats for some of you spells, talents and class features too (purple text under said abilities).

Here's a quick chart to help others select a class:

i just saw this on 13th Age's facebook page! wayy too funny

I rolled up a gnome ranger - a two-hammer wielding, church sanctioned, holy bounty hunter with an awesome mustache. I'll need some time to figure out the Icon Relationships thingies, and to finalize the wording of my Unique Thing, but I'll upload a character sheet later tonight.

Attack of the Gnomes so far. I'm liking it!

Icon relationships basically help you to build a back story and root your characters into the Dragon Empire. You get 1d6 per Icon Relationship point that we roll at the beginning of each "session" (which is gonna be weird in a play-by-post). Its purpose is kind of like a "get out of jail" card... or at least that's how my players use them in my regular games. I would like to see it used differently though, because in the book it basically encourages people to use them as things that propel the story in one way or another, they're story dice if you will. So for example, if your icon relationships are a +1 with the High Druid, -1 with the Diabolist and a +/- (conflicted) with the Emperor, there should be a story behind as to why those relationship points are positive, negative or conflicted. Then at the start of the session, you roll 1d6 for the high druid, then 1d6 for the diabolist, and then 1d6 for the emperor, but the roll is only important if you get a 5 or a 6. A 5 means that something good happens in the story for the party/character but with a consequence, a 6 means something good happens with no draw back. What it is that happens as a result of cashing in the relationship point during the "session" (I think we'll roll these at story appropriate times) has to be story relevant to what your relationship with that Icon is and why that relationship causes such events to happen. It's a little confusing but sometimes it makes for really interesting events in the story!

That sounds cool. Edge of the Empire has a similar mechanic for 'inflicting' the backstory of one character on the party. For example, you might have a "Debt" and if the roll comes up, then the lenders come looking for their stuff.

looks great! only thing is your PD is off. middle mod of str con dex in numerical order, yours is 2 onstead of 3. other than that, it's perfect, i love your OUT

The PD is auto-calculated, so I'll ask Keleth to look into it.

AAHH Awesome! Thanks for adding me in. I'm staying with the Gnome theme and working on Tanser Podane - Rogue.

Hitting a snag though. Not sure what to do. Every time I click Add in the Abilities/Powers field a little window pops up under the heading saying there is a Fatal Error. I can't proceed after that. Maybe it's me. Has anyone experienced this? I'm sorry if it's already been addressed.

Cool! I brought up the issue with the character sheet and I'm sure Keleth is working away on it.

this is hilarious. don't forget to add your Gnome racial powers guys! maybe you should all make a collective backstory as to why you know each other.

Maybe we're part of a gnomish diaspora. Our homeland or city or village became "a bad place" or "burned down" and we survived by fleeing. We may rev recognize each other by some shared cultural trait, like an armband or hair jewel, or actually know each other by having met during the flight.

I like the cultural trait idea, maybe we don't know each other directly, but can easily identify each other as 'belonging' somehow.

What about the "One Unique Things"? I put that Apró can test other peoples feelings. Not really a useful ability, but something I can have fun with.

Could also be a tattoo or birthmark common among our people?

Binleeargo and Apro, there's just one thing I think would be fun if you did. the titles of your backgrounds are very generic, which is totally fine, but can be very versatile if a little more specific. for example, instead of having a "magician" background, maybe you have "magician entertainer of Drakkenhall's gnoll wrestling club" (not specifically, of course) jusy to give you more of an edge with a background. with that, you know something about Drakkenhall, gnolls, petty magic, entertaining a crowd and any other whacky thing you could tie into the background! as another example, instead of "tracker" you could ve the "unofficial imperial tracker of demonic owlbears"! Tanser has it down pretty well, sorry for calling you guys out like that. just want to help you get the most out of your backgrounds!

Your avatar is freaking me out!! :-)

I'll see what I can come up with better backgrounds a little later this evening. Glad you're taking a peek at the sheets!

there's nothing wrong with the backgrounds you have already! the object is more to paint a story of your character than to just be another name for a "skills" table from another rpg. i just find that making my backgrounds more story-specific help me to get into my charactet

I'll revise the background names, too.

HA! A doll my Daughter has. Stands about 3 and a half to 4 ft high. I place it around corners. Scares the crap out of people.

hahahhahaha oh my god that's awesome. what's "paw"? this is what i like about this game, it leaves it up to the players to make up some of the lore too, so every 13th Age game is different.

so we're pretty much almost read to start this circus of an adventure! all i need is a little geographical information about where the gnome home (heh... that's funny) was located. if there's no map or anything in the SRD, just look up the map on google images and send me a PM or something with any questions about cities/towns/geographical info. your background and such have inspired me in a way and i just need a little more fuel to get this puppy goin! we're only waiting on characters from two other people (one of which i know personally outside of gamers plane).

As to the defunct gnome home, there is a marsh or something called The Knee Deep, (west of the Giantwalk and upriver from the capital Axis), that seems gnomish and dangerous, as well.

Revised backgrounds:
- bounty hunter for the the priesthood of Sejorlia, the Goddess of Justice
- unofficial lost-gnome tracker of the Knee Deep diaspora

I'm digging the Gnome Home! I also like the idea of having some sort of tattoo. Perhaps a rite of passage type of thing for Gnomes from our area.

Paw (also known as "The Paw", "P", or "K Juice") is a fungus grown and processed in dungeons and abandoned dragon liars by kobolds. The kobolds use paw in some of their ceremonies in honor of The Three or to just get stoned. Some of the more enterprising kobolds have taken to selling or trading paw with other races. Apró has been off the paw for quite a few years and tries very hard to keep away from the tempting substance. (He was basically a stoner gnome for a while)

Well if Apro ever wants back on that horse....Tanser knows a "guy".

I'm most of the way through creating a gnome fighter who used to be a bit of a celeberity but I don't know of there's any lore I should know?

Ok, then can the kobolds have a king? And can I spend icon relationship to be his nemesis?

I think Kobolds are in with The Three, so I think you can spend an icon point for a negative relationship with them. Although our good DM would know a lot more about that than I do.

Kobolds serve whoever won't kill them, they are just one of the most popular assets of the three. i really hope you didn't feel rabbit-holed into becoming a gnome lol please play whatever you like! as for a possible kobold king, perhaps there is a kobold somewhere that fanvies himself a king but in reality, they serve icons or just live in little tribes dotted around the Dragon Empire. perhaps there's a kobold in a high position in the Blue's kobold guard in Drakkenhall that calls himself the Kobold King when she's not looking? maybe there's a kobold that's in the employ of the Diabolist that wants to be the king of all kobolds and serves her hoping to someday obtain that goal? or just maybe there's a tribe of kobolds that lived near your gnome home that believed it was the only living kobolds left in the world and their leader fancied himself a king? it's really up to you to tell me!

How's the character creation coming? I'm ready to kick this off

i got in touxh with jade and she's been busy with school lately but hopefully by Monday we'll be good. the other player hasnmt responded to my message so i think sadly we'll move on without them.

I'm all submitted too! Sorry guy I'm not following the gnome things. I'm a dragon-born ranger that is a highly trained assassin for the Crusader. My life goal is to be triumphant over the evil in this world at whatever cost. Have fun tying that in Sean!

Just the mental image of 3 Gnomes and a Dragonborn walking in slow motion with explosions in the background is making me a-very happy. :)

Hey all - thanks for letting me join in. I picked up on the gnome theme and am playing a gnome paladin. This should be really interesting. ;)

So what's the posting schedule? I see in the game description that it's one a week, but how does that look - will the GM be posting on a particular day of each week?

the way i would like to try to do it is have everyone post once a week before i chime in and describe some more of the setting. unless of course someone is actually doing something and requires a little back and forth posting, i basically see all posts the minute they go up because my job is leanient with computer/phone use.

That sounds good. Thanks for the response! :D

A suggestion would be to have a deadline for the players to submit their post for each week, that way if someone doesn't post for a month, the story could still progress....

Has the game been put on hold? It's been almost two weeks since SClark617's last post....I know real life can often get in the way and I'm not opposed to taking a break if need be, but I'm unclear as to what the current situation is.

My apologies everyone! the past couple weeks have been crazy, I should have said something.

No worries! RL takes priority. :)

just waiting for you guys to share some more words to bring your characters together and decide what you're going to do. once you decide on a direction then we can start fleshing out the world