West Marches Style: Bringing Us Together

I kinda feel like that's not the best course of action. While we may not be segregating the pollution intentionally, it's going to happen. Despite the fact that we all get around, we only have so much energy to expend on games that we are in and for every game we add we split our energies another way. So I feel like trying to have too many site-wide games is gonna make it harder to have any at all. If we are splitting our attention between two games like this, the chances are very high that neither of them will be up to the standard we would like them to be. As several people have noted, this is gonna be hella hard to organize to the point where it's doable. If trying to organize one game effectively is gonna be hard, trying to organize two is gonna be nearly impossible. I would instead suggest bringing the player count for your game way down, like to 12 or so, and have it be a smaller game. That way it's not sucking a ton of administrative power away from the site-wide game that will be traditional.

Agree about splitting the community might be an issue for the major concept. That being said, I think that'll sort itself out as more people are lightly to flock to the "default" than the "hardcore" game.

I suggest CouchLord gets the default game going asap though, we can figure things out in there (you can always transfer the GM role later if you wish).

Also suggest that Keleth makes a sticky post to highlight the default West Marches game in the Games Tavern for new players and mindshare. If so, it shouldn't be a problem that there are other, niche west marches games on the site.

Absolutely. But a game for 50 people isn't a niche game, so that's why I suggested he lower the player maximum so people don't get confused.
I'm going to create the game now.

Well I can't do it right, right now, but I'll get it at about 10:30 EST when I get home.

Wow, I guess I can spend some time and get it started. I enjoy DMing and seem to be constantly placed in that seat. I also have talks with Keleth often. I will open the game later tonight.

I would like those interested in DMing to join soon so we may figure out the best method to crowd share the map and info that we have and also how to setup what the players will use for their map.

Like I said earlier, the basic PHB plus the Revised Ranger (as the PHB Ranger is garbage). We can discuss the extention of UA material as we play. Maybe thay can be unlocked or found as one of the advetures.
A rumor of untapped power is spread throughout the city. A team goes out and discovers it is locked inside the ruins of an ancient Yuna-ti city. They find the scroll containing the information to access the power and bring it back to display in the tavern.
You know, something like that.

No gritty world, it will be tranditional and since I am starting the forum I get to name the World, city and tavern you all start in. The rest can be up to the players. That is the only stipulation is the city you start in. It is walled high and guarded heavily, not unlike Attack on Titan. The wilderness is unforgiving and only the bravest leave the protection of the city.
If you adventure out but don't make it back all your stuff, secrets and info you had or found is now lost to the wilderness and anyone else can stumble upon it.

By it's nature it will most likely be low RP but I have no problem adding in more should a team enjoy that.

World: Venatus
City: Town of Orsus
Tavern: Joho Habu

Ok so I'm already calling it... I want to open a Magic shop !!!
Gonna be a bard or a wizard (maybe both...) eventually making my own magic items ! I'll try to buy as much of the magic items the players don't want and even have a public inventory, and a private dm only accessible bought/sold list.
I could be a DM in my shop and a player when I go on refill runs (probably have a npc seller to keep it running when my player is not there..). How about it ?

It's going to be called " The Magic Portal".

Could I request that the tavern have a more traditional name? Like, Bee and Barb or Frothing Flagon? Just an OCD thing of mine...

The Mad Mare.

I'd like to advocate for UA being available from day one. The most obvious reason for this is to allow more diversity among players, and in a game with as many potential players as we plan to have, diversity is going to be key. For instance: the PHB contains 3 fighter archetypes. UA adds about 5 more. With the original 8 races, there are 5 or 6 that make tolerable fighters. That means you have 18 different fighter variations if you use PHB alone. However, if you use UA, you have 48, and that's ignoring the fact that the Arcane Archer and Sharpshooter fighter archetypes allow halflings and gnomes to be fighters. Now of course we don't need 48 options, but it's just better to have more than less if you ask me.
However, a good case can be made I think that simplicity is best. I understand that. But how would characters "find" UA content? It's something that's learned, not read, and if you've already decided to go Champion with your fighter and then at level 8 you find UA content, are you going to be able to switch to Samurai at level 8? What happens then?
Just some thoughts.

I was also thinking that, instead of having the traditional West Marches setting, characters are shipped to Venatus or teleported there from an unimportant location. A small group of people have been living in Venatus in the safety of their walled city for decades, but the PCs are the first to go out and explore. I dunno, I just liked the idea that the entire world is uncharted, rather than just the West. Especially given the maps you drew up @Apex, I think that building a ship and traveling to an island would be an eventuality, and possibly even the founding of kingdoms and such. But if that's the case then civilization and the logical decision to go east and get a ship would get in the way of and complicate that sort of thing. If our characters were simply dropped into the world somehow however (kind of like Lost, if anyone has seen the TV show), they really do have only themselves to rely on. Just an idea.

You chatacter could very well die and if that one found "knowledge" (That is the meaning behind the reading) of the UA the new character can now take part in that archetype.

I like the simplicity of just the PHB. I believe all the UA is still in the test phase and that makes it unbalanced at the moment. I would hate to complicate things before we even begin this endeavor. Having the UA "hidden" or "lost" knowledge will male for some more interesting plays later on, giving us all something to look forward to.

Also here is the link to the traditional play of West Marches for the site. Lets discuss.

A certain shop keeper could send a group to bring back some lost lore (or something) and pay them with a few magic items (their reward). The lost lore would then be available to new players, but they would be in debt with the shop owner who just so happens to need them to get something for him...(their first quest?)

I was thinking of using roll20 for the communal map, but not sure everyone is into that. Google also has a draw tool that works like google docs.
Anyone else have ideas for this.

I think Google doc is safest bet for the shared information, at least the safest way to keep the info cleaned up. We can have a sortof library thread for all that knowledge and have the Google doc, maintained by all you players, where it is more organized.

I'd say Google docs would be the best bet. Also works out nice for me (and possibly others) as most of my posting happens at work which has strict filtering so roll20 is blocked.

I think Google Draw and Google Docs are going to be our best bet. Roll20 is a little hard to figure out, or at least it seemed to me, but Google Draw is quite simple. Google Docs is great for a multitude of reasons, but mostly because of the ability to constantly save & share material. As soon as I get home from work I'll look into them and get us rolling. I've had quite a bit of experience with Google Docs.

I still just feel like the idea that the first adventurers find this stuff but can't use it is both a little unfair and a little just weird. They found it, I feel like they should be able to use it.
I honestly don't have another suggestion other than to just allow it (which I don't really wanna do either), but the idea of discovering it hits me the wrong way.

I've been lurking this thread and not contributing because I'm reluctant to commit time at the moment, but it's a very interesting idea.

I want to make a suggestion about the civilised starting area; instead of just being a town, could it be a valley cut off from the rest of the world by impassable mountains and a great big wall (I'm thinking gates of Mordor here)? The space inside could be as much as 60 miles long and 20 wide (at its maximum) and could have one sizeable town and several villages, farming communities, etc. Why? Well, if it was just a town where would the people get food? But also, it gives more variety for character backgrounds. There could be dwarven villages cut into the mountains, an eleven community in an upland forest, etc.

There could also be people who are employed to regularly go outside the wall to cut back encroaching trees because they need to be able to see, say, two miles beyond the wall. This would be a good background for Ranger and Barbarian characters.

There could be occasional beasts who manage to cross the mountains and descend on Orsus, giving the inhabitants a small taste, and a healthy fear, of what's out there.

Just some thoughts, what do you think?

I'm just gonna be honest: I love it. It also fits really well with the idea that this little Rivendell is the only pocket of civilization on the entire continent rather than that its a town on the edge of a utopian civilization that the adventurers have come out of. I honestly don't like that setting because it doesn't make sense. We have all these adventurers who specialize in martial and magical combat. If society is utopian and boring, where did the adventurers learn their skills? More importantly, why? You only learn things like that if you need them, so why did a random assortment of people decide to learn these skills just for the heck of it and they ended up getting lucky and finding a use for them. It just strikes me as much less likely. A situation in which a small fleet of ships sailed to a far off continent and settled there, building themselves a stronghold from which thy refused to sally seems much more likely to me. The adventurers could be a mix of friendly natives, those born in the stronghold, and those who came with the express purpose of seeking adventure on the occasional ship that comes from the mother country bearing meager supplies and such.

It also gives a good reason for these people to suddenly be venturing out into the wilds; water. There would be numerous small streams and plenty of wells, but no major river so close to the mountains. Their population has increased to the point where they are struggling to sustain themselves, the rich have all they need but the poor are getting desperate. Crime is rising and something has to give. The leaders have recognised this and are reluctantly opening the gates; at the very least it will reduce their excess population.