I don't do Psionics as it is listed in the psionics handbook or expanded psionics, I basically treat almost exactly like magic, and mostly use it as Telepathy, Telekenisis, and most of what the mind-blade gets in the Psionics books... but thats all... It means no mind control.

I'm only pointing this out because I KNOW that psionics in every edition are overpowered, and I HATE that... Basically I make psionics work the way they are in Babylon 5, only with more telekenisis and suggestion, and I didn't want people to base there answer on the published psionic books, but rather on this info. I DO NOT like the way D20 psionics work so i've been re-doing them from scratch.

so that in mind, Are you sure? I just thought I'd ask... And if anything comes up with cthulu, they will still have there psionics anyway, because thats just what they do.



I will be doing this in Fantasy Grounds 2, because I have it, and I know it works, because I know others who use it. Since noone cares about piracy, I will email a copy to anyone who doesn't feel the need to buy it.


once the setting is decided, I will post what books players would have access to. If players get copies of those books, in physical or digital mediums, thats great, otherwise, I have my books here, and will reference, and quote anything necessary. Its up to players to get there own books, but if they don't, there not screwed because they will have about as much access to mine, as what can be given over the internet.




I will be commited to run this a minimum of once every 2 weeks, most likely more often though. On the weekends. In 6 days, (the 19th) is the earliest I will run it, and then 10 days from now is the latest, (the 23rd, monday?) I will set it more in stone closer to that date, after the setting is picked, and characters are made, and we get set up.


The only issue is That I PERSONALLY haven't used fantasy grounds yet, and need to look up more info. I also will only be using bare-bones maps for a while, and I won't even be using all of fantasy-grounds's features. I only really wanted to use this for how easy the die-rolling, text, and character sheets are to use.

This is not going to go over well.

Most of the people here want to be able to try before they buy. When I was considering how to run a campaign for DRLers with IRC and whatnot, I was working on a relatively minimalist setting that still gave them access to RPing elements, if they so chose to pursue them. I honestly expect most people to want to kill everything. Or most everything. Possibly each other.

The ability to rejoin the party with a new character if you died was a good thing as well, since we had a tendency to get members killed or disabled.

I will still give access to do things, they just have to ask. For example, "Is it possible for me to do THIS" and my response would probably be yes, or "wait a minute, i'll go check" at which point i'll try to find any info on said action, and if there are rules for it. In any situation. and if they don't seem to know what they can do i'll say things like 'well, you could do this, or this, or this, or this, or you could just make something up and see if that works too'

as far as i'm concerned, table-top RPGs are open ended enough that the only thing you really need is your character, and what your character has immidiate access to (Spells, items, how does backstab work, what does X feat do) which, to my knowledge, is in some way in FG2, not that I know how to use it, and like i said, Players will have free access to what info I have, for any reason, so long as its player info.




This means, if they don't want to buy, and they don't even want to Torrent the files, then they have access to all of my books. If they need help with a character I can go, 'well in this setting, these character classes exist *LIST* and these races exist *LIST* pick one, or ask questions about them'

Its kind of obvious what a paladin or cleric is, and what a sorcerer or fighter does, but then theres the odd-balls like 'Favored soul' 'Beguiler' 'factotem' 'bard' that alot of people wont get. and then theres the classes that are harder to get info on, that are dead obvious, like DREAD PIRATE, SWASHBUCKLER, and SPELL-SWORD. Everyone knows that rogues can backstab, and everyone knows that sorcerers love fireball, that info is common. for noob players its gonna be things like 'how do I backstab someone' or 'how does fire-ball work' or 'whats a familliar' at which case, I or someone who ISN'T new, will be able to answer in like 5 seconds flat.




It doesn't work that bad.... I tend to try to leave things as open ended as I can.


If you will be relying on my books for play, Tell me NOW, so I can help with your character(s) and such.

Make it like left 4 dead.

*CrazyMLC dies*
AUUUUUGHH!!!

*party moves along*
*pound, pound*
*Party member opens closet*
Oof!
*CrazyMLC randomly falls out of the closet.*

...I beg your pardon?

That was worded very strangely. Are you saying that I might already know the basics? That doesn't seem to make sense.

Or are you saying that I need to LEARN the basics? I already know the basics. Pretty much.

so you want a mindless zombie-survival horror? I can kinda do that ya know....


So so far, No psionics, and zombie/survival horror. Does anyone object to these 2 comments?

--edit--
Also L4D implies a modern setting, although I can do the zombie/horror in fantasy. so I need comments on this too.

Yes, I do. I want some damn fantasy! Forget this new fancy-shmancy future stuff.

...Actually, medieval fantasy zombie survival horror sounds pretty cool.

Steampunk fantasy zombie apocalypse survival.

Oooo... I like that.

I really just meant that if someone dies they pop back randomly, not exactly zombie horror though.

But Medieval zombie horrors might be good... Maybe some steam punk?...

But no dense zombie areas, I'd like it to start at the beginning of the zombie invasion.
But I'd also like a good plot.

Either let us mess around, kill things and/or each other, loot mansions, or give us an awesome plot.

Just in advance, my deity is The Kool-aid man.

i found a fun way to do zombie horror.(did this for the second campaign i did) have 2 dms, yes 2. one does the layout, maps, story. the other gets to do random encounters(with a set list of legal and made up undead) and control said enemies during combat.
as the main dm to make things better and balanced i gave zombies certain points (eg slow zombie 1, fast zombie 3) and gave the second dm however many points i felt made sense.

I can't wait to talk about plot and such, but that might have to wait, I'm going to a huge circuit city that's really far away from here in attempt to buy last minute valentines gifts, gifts for myself, etc.

I like both Ideas, But Unfortunately, the "no fancy shmancy future stuff" and "Steampunk" Are mutually exclusive. So I'll satisfy both, in an abnormal way.



2 things... Thats not how it works. If someone dies, they either need to be A) Resurected B) Revived C) make there way through whatever realm there character goes to, in order to self-resurect, which I will allow but that takes alot of time....

2nd thing is, No.... In my campaigns here, my party's CLERIC says his deity is michael jackson, and that his holy symbol, which he must touch to use any spell, is a silver codpiece. I've had my fill of the novelty-gods... No kool-aid man please....



Now on that note, Zombie-survival horror, Apocalypse, Fantasy/steampunk ish setting...

Is it required to be zombies, or are say, Werewolves, Cannibals, serial killers (Jack the ripper?), demons, or other invaders going to work?


I have multiple existing settings, I've ruled out all the modern/future ones, and now the locale and chosen enemy will narrow it down...

how scarce do you want items and buildings to be, This will narrow it down to the last setting.


So on a scale of 1 to 10, (10 being LOTS of items/buildings/people, 1 being Oh crap we're lost in the sahara, and we're naked and alone) How would you prefer it to be? This greatly affects the difficulty, More things and places means more options, and thus better game-play, while scarcity will make this BRUTAL.

And lastly, On the note of 'does it need to be zombies specifically, or does any horror style work' would you prefer the action-thriller-horror-hordes like a L4D, Hunter the Reconing, 28 days later, or the thriller-horror-monstrositys like Jason, Michal Myers, werewolves. OR would you prefer a more Story-based horror, thats less action, like Hellraiser, Call of Cthulu, saw, or the older zombie movies?

Basically:
How much action
How much horror
How much thinking
How much getting lost or confused
How much supernatural stuff
How many opponents (I don't need ANY opponents to do survival horror, it could be the environment)


I'm trying to judge a theme beyond simply "survival horror"

Steampunk and fantasy are so very, very far from being mutually exclusive. There are a disgusting number of examples of where they are combined.


From what I see, we are getting a fantasy-steampunk setting, which indicates a relatively urban setting. We want pre-apocalyptic if it's apocalyptic at all. We want it to be casual, VERY casual. This does not exclude a good plot.

Zombies are pretty niche-filling, and the others you listed are usually very different from them.

A reasonably high population density would probably be good. That way there won't be too many zombies to start out, but it can ramp up with a logical explanation.

We want to KILL THINGS(not environmental survival). Enough stuff to kill that it's not too boring. Also there needs to be more reward than just exp, so make the zombies armed or maybe just have us do little miniquests that involve fighting through some zombies to get to a weapons cache. Or both, whatever.
Supernatural stuff? We have MAGIC. I think that is a pretty reasonable baseline/limit.
Too much thinking/confusion will stagnate the game depending on who plays. Based on what happened in the last game we tried.

It should definitely be in a city, but I do like a lot of role playing in there as well. If I wanted mindless hacknslash I'd go with graphics, eh?

I didn't say fantasy and Steampunk where mutually exclusive, I said that Steampunk and "none of this fancy technology" are mutually exclusive, because steampunk is still technology. Steampunk means steam powered golems, Guns, and trains... it might as well be called 1885 with zombies and fireball at that point. Not that I have a problem with this, But someone said 'no tech' so no tech. City yes, tech, no.


Relatively urban setting, casual, and not apocalyptic, and if it is, its the begining of the apocalypse, got it.


Zombies fill the niche of survival-horror.
Werewolves fill the niche of survival horror
call of cthulu IS a survival horror,
Friday the 13th and halloween are horror/slasher (Survival from the protaganists point of view, but they all die)

Just to warn you, my zombies don't die. you will hate my zombies, and you will run from them. honestly, a room full of my zombies, or being trapped in the cthulu mythos... You'd live longer with cthulu, while reading the necronomicon.

If I do survival horror, those 2 words WILL be stressed...



If I do zombies, werewolves, or canibalistic cultists, it will ramp up on a bell-curve.



Okay, so saw and hellraiser motifs are out. And if you want to kill alot, there's werewolves, you'd kill alot of werewolves, and if its zombies, you'd probably have to kill the same few zombies ALOT.


If this is survival, the key is to make your survival difficult and require effort. you cannot simply survive on reward alone... Typically in a survival setting, your rewards are minimal, and typically quite obscure such as that 27 foot rusted metal chain 5 miles back with the dead dog chained to that old house? yeah you could have used that to hold this door shut... sucks for you... because thats just how survival is.



I was asking about supernatural stuff because of magic... you can have a non-magical fantasy setting. that's why I ask.



To many spells do that... In fact in all my campaigns the spell-caster is allways like "Wait wait.. I wanna cast a spell... give me a minute to find it... yes that works, I cast X... wait, i don't have that component... okay hold on... I cast Y! Oh wait... that requires the target to be crystaline... Hmmmm... I'll find it... just wait...." and then there goes 20 minutes of flipping through the PHB only to go "OH YEAH! Thats in Un-earthed arcana"-- Which I said I'm not using because its overpowered.

Unfortunately "To much thinking/confusion" with noob players and "we have MAGIC" are very mutually exclusive. so everyone needs to decide.


all players must answer these
Magic, yes/no
Zombies y/n
Werewolves y/n
crazy peoples y/n
demons y/n
cthulu y/n
OTHER y/n

If you want it, Say yes. If you don't want it, say no... If you have a reason not to play if one is included, give a good reason other than 'its cliched' or 'I don't think it fits' because I'm the DM its my job to make it work. Now if its something like "i have a phobia of wolves" or "My family is overly religious and wouldn't let me play devil may cry because 'devil' was in the name" Those are valid-ish responses...


Anything that you have a good reason not to use, won't be used, otherwise everything will be, but things with preference are more used. K?