West Marches Style: Bringing Us Together

Wait, what? Variant healing process?

I don't think I am familiar with it, how does it work?

Is this the one where you just die? Sounds tough.

There are lingering injury variants in the DMG that are a huge bitch.

Pg 266 of the Dmg has healing surges variant and longer rest times required.

Not sure how I feel about those.

I think death should be a plausible thing tho. In games that I've played, a character dying is near unheard of, but in this game I think that if a player makes a dumb mistake and gets killed, that's on them.

This is a thing I've done on occasion--have my characters mention having encountered one of my other characters in the past. It's fun even when no one notices but me.

I think this project is great! The biggest attraction for me is the potential for involving the entire GP community!

Yeah I think if we got everyone together on it it could be really really cool.

I was thinking of how this would work in a game forum sense. To start a game you need a GM to start one then add threads. Would all who wish to partake be under one game or would we have multiple game under the name of "GP West Marches" or "Venatus" (That meams "gamer" in Latin. That is the reason fpr that word. I figured Gamer Planet sonce we are all part of it) as I like to call it?

I don't know what the max amount of players it is on thos site per game but I think having everyone joining one game would make connecting and sharing of information much easier. Also, if a player decides their are done adventuring and wants to start a shop they can start a shop. We cam make a thread of that shop and anytime someone wants to shop therr just go to that thread. The shop owner can even give out quests for supplies they need.

The West Marches style has everyone start at the same town, I'm ok with that but all the GM's will need to establish a starting town that has a few figure heads that players can talk to, just so there is little to no overlap of those type of characters.

The basic 5e PHB should be used (I say 5e because that is the system I know very well) with the Revised Ranger and it can be dicussed as to what expanded material can be used. This is to keep everyone on even ground.

Obviously starting at level 1 with starting gear, no coin rolls, as well as the point buy. Again, that is to keep everyone starting even. There is nothing known about the world outside the walls this town, The "Town of Orsus". (I love my hidden references. If we go through with this I will give inspiration to the first person to get the reference of the name of the town.) In the world of Venatus.

Now, your characters will die, you exploerers not hero's, yet. I will not hide or fudge my rolls while DMing, which is typical for this style of game.

It is late and I'm tired but I tried to cover or ask as much as I could remember to say and ask. Let this come to reality people.

I've set up a West Marches campaign. I want to aim for a low magic, gritty world. I will be establishing some house rules and some world setting details. However, the game is still open for everyone to play and GM. Anyone who wants to GM should join now and we will all hash out the details of the world (or region really) and debate house rules. We will also establish how we will maintain GM notes, maps, random encounter tables, etc.

This game will feature a dark and merciless world, where magic has lost its influence and lies mostly forgotten by the civilized world. However, pockets exist in the unexplored West Marches where magic lingers or even thrives, mysterious, dangerous, and most often evil. Spell casting available to PCs will be limited to 1st-level spells and cantrips - a character may not advance to a level in a class if it would grant 2nd-level Spell Slots or a feature that allows casting of a 2nd-level spell.

Humans are the only race available to PCs. Several human subraces will reflect the cultural differences of people from different regions.

The world is brutal and hasn't advanced technologically. House rules on combat and equipment restrictions emphasize this setting. Notably, plate armor and crossbows are not available.

In the end, this will be a game mostly about fighters, barbarians, and rogues, with perhaps a touch of magic, exploring the deadly wilds, struggling to survive and coming out with fantastical tales and treasures, seeding further adventures to brave the Western Marches.

I know that this sort of setting isn't everyone's cup of tea, so I encourage others that feel so inclined to form a Western Marches style game with a more traditional D&D setting. I'd play in it.

http://gamersplane.com/games/728/

You better hurry and approve me.

WTB GM Position.

Constable, do you mean for the game you set up to be the one I was talking about? Because I think a more traditional setting would be better for a site-wide game. With the limited races and classes you've stipulated, character overlap would be so rampant that I feel it wouldn't be ideal for as many people as we plan to have.

I have to agree with couchlord on this myself. I'm perfectly OK with gritty, but with the amount of people potentially playing having races limited to just human and mainly focusing on martial characters may come as a hindrance or put people off due to lack of diversity.

I actually enjoy the martial games @constable since I find that magic has a tendency to slow and complicate the game. However, I think that we have to allow as many races, classes etc as we can to a) draw people in with the diversity and b) to attempt to allow each character to be unique. Besides, this is a wilderness campaign. If you outlaw magic to that extent, rangers and druids (the two other wilderness classes beside barbarian) are both severely crippled and, in a druid's case, rendered nearly useless. I do think, however, that our game will end up being rather gritty and low magic just by its very nature. Rather than the DMs stipulating that no magic is allowed, we should leave it to the players to figure out what I guess will be the case: in a wilderness exploration setting like this, magic is not going to be your best bet. No matter how hard a wizard tries, they will eventually have to do some extensive physical stuff just because of the nature of the game. And then they're screwed. I think because of this purely magical characters will be few and far between without the DMs having to stipulate anything. Add to that the fact that because of magic users' rarity the few we have will be on high demand, I think it will create a really cool dynamic. But because of the rarity of magic users, I think there will be plenty of games for you to DM that are composed solely of martial characters.

Yeah, I didn't see these posts prior to signing up for the game that cbrew posted. I'm going to withdraw from that since the limitations/stipulations aren't my cup of tea at all. I'm down for the pretty well open boundary site wide concept though.

I think that's going to be the plan as CBrew did suggest in his post that if it wasn't for everyone to run another west marches game I've now realised, it just comes down to who sets up the traditional game, I would myself but I don't feel prepared to DM currently.

Gritty bloody low-magic games ROCK!
Humans rule the best worlds FOREVER!

West Marches games.....still deciding IF I LIKE THEM OR NOT!!!

haha. Great thread, fellas. Anxious to see where this goes.

Yeah I'd say we can most definitely have both, but Cbrew's game is for 50 people and I'm not sure he's gonna be able to get that many, unless he meant that to be the site-wide one, which is why I said I don't think that'll work, but as I said, I like that style of game and I want to do it. I just don't think it's right for the site-wide game.

Well, as soon as the traditional one starts, I'm in ! Maybe I'll add my name for Dming later...

I intend for my game to be site wide with the gritty aesthetic I enjoy. I encourage another game to be set up allowing the full 5e cast of characters. If my game were the DC Dark Universe, then the traditional D&D would be Archie comics, and that's alright. It may seem like we are segmenting the GP population, but we are all gaming sluts* and get around quite prolifically. (*Not slut shaming. This is a good thing.)