OOC Chat

Hey all! As I'm sure you've probably experienced at least with some others, I'm a very flexible DM. This campaign will be on the longer side, definitely not one-shot material. As such, we'll be forging the story together as we go. No module feeling, no huge dungeon crawls. Meaningful experiences, roleplay, and excitement.

With the pitch aside, I want to take all of your temperature on a nagging point with a lot of campaigns: How they start.


Do you all want to meet in a bar? Do you all want to be together for some predisclosed reason? I have a few ideas, but feel free to add on, see if we can work it into something believable for everybody.

I'm a fellow GM myself and a starting point I've used since '97 is 'local festival'. It works for almost any genre, can be used to set the tone from "best festival in years" to "we're taking our minds off how terrible everything is". Throw in a few games and let the players compete against each other or see each other in action. Archery contests, one of the PCs is a street performer, uh-oh the Rogue met the Fighter by picking their pockets and now has to explain themselves! If you're in a bar you're there to get drunk and a lot of people drink alone. It takes slightly more effort since you need to figure out what's being celebrated and what games there are but i highly recommend trying it out.

That is a great idea and I might just want to steal it. I'd like a couple of other ideas in the pot to ruminate, but that's certainly a fantastic base.

Feel free! They're great for explaining why everyone is in town. The cleric/paladin for blessings during the festival, the ranger to sell game or furs. Dwarven fighters to sell wares. Tons of variations. Never gone back to 'you meet in a bar' even though this is essentially 'you meet in a bar' with extra steps.

It can backfire though as i once started a campaign at a festival of a local god of debauchery and the first scene was "you all wake up in the same room as each other, naked. There is a body on the floor with all of your weapons sticking out of it and burn marks from your spells. Go."

They just all killed each other so the next session started with "you're investigating a possible mass-murder."

I figure if we're gathered to investigate or stop the plague in the north, we would have answered a call and possibly register our interest with some authority in Drathis. Perhaps a city hall or consulate?

I like that. We gathered at the city hall/consulate and we were briefed together. From there we did our preparations and began our journey together. We have a common goal/mission and that answers the control-question, why am I traveling with these guys.

I think that "strangers meeting at a bar" is sloppy storytelling and does not strengthen the party cohesion. If the players know each other beforehand, not necessarily everybody knows everyone, but in a party of 6, each character knows 2 others, then you can bind the party together and forge new friendships.
The strangers meeting at a festival has a lot of story potential and opportunities to bind characters together through 1-3 minor encounters.

I like both tremendously. I think I have some ideas on how we'll get this started... We may want to start in lieu of the people still making characters, and I can introduce as they're completed.

do you have a world map? it helps me to get a visual representation of the world my character calls home

There’s nothing quite like bringing a group together than a combat encounter!

Sorry I was sleeping but I woke up to some great ideas! Looking forward to getting started

Sometimes a pure OOC thread is nice for asking DM or other players questions etc. BTW I really like the posting initiative idea.

Fair enough. We'll make this the OOC chat.

Do you have some lore on the world, countries, a map?

I do have both lore and map. Several maps actually. Problem is I need to convert them to digital format. I'll put them on a lore-based thread as I get them done. I do have one map ready simply for the area.

Ya gotta love lulls like this. I had another question for you all, because I did it the other way initially but went back on it. Should we be skipping turns if it goes past the time they previously posted?(e.g., if another post isn't made by 3:00 on friday if a post was made on 3:00 thursday by the same person, they get skipped) Or should it be from the most recent post by anybody?

It's up to you man. In my pbp games i don't really restrict posting unless it's combat but however you want to go is fine by me.

Mmm, fair point. I just don't want anybody to be overlooked xD

That's a tough call, as the next person may need to react to whatever the previous player did. Different time zones also affect when a person is able to log in and view the threads.

Weekends are typically slower than weekdays as far as posting rates, so I expect a lull especially when there's a holiday.

Personally, I think if we wish to post in order and maintain a running clock, it ought to be after the last person has posted.

You know, I'd expect the reverse to be true, but I guess there's that thing about us being adults needing to do things. I just happen to not have to do very many things, so I got time.

Those are good points, I'm sure we'll get into a rhythm as time goes on; it's the first week and all.

Btw just out of curiosity, what level do you see us reaching by the end?