KhorasForum

I'm excited to hear their reaction to the new and wondrous land. Anquar and the Talismans were always among my favorite bits of Khoras.

Other than here, I haven't heard of HARP, but this sounds like something I'll have to check out. Let me know how things go for you.

I've heard a lot of good things about Roll20, I just haven't checked it, or any sites like it.

I'll certainly take it under advisement.

Also, just an update, since I've been given an opportunity; I've finished the character background (or at least, it's in a reasonably developed state), but I'm still working on the modifications to the Cavalier class, as I'm making decisions about how I want to go about doing things. As soon as I have the class archetype finished, I'll post links to everything I've got for review and critique.

I agree. That's hilariously devious on your part, Dave.

Lol. Well, at least the party got rewarded for their amusement.

Yeah, it comes on live every Thursday at 7:00 PST/PDT on Geek and Sundry's Twitch channel, and the old episodes are all up at geekandsundry.com, if you're interested. It's got the voice actors behind a lot of major video game and animated series, and some of them have also acted in movies, like Taliesin Jaffe, who was the little kid with the wubbie in Mr. Mom, and Mel Gibson's daughter in What Women Want. It's also really cool how many people they've gotten into D&D, and they've taken fairly good advantage of using their popularity to raise money for charity and things like that.

And feel free to get in touch with me whenever you start working on it. I'd be more than happy both to discuss the actual mechanics, as well as to help you get a better idea of some of the technical aspects of things like fighting with and without weapons and armor, weight management in backpacking, and whatever else you're interested in that I can help with, so just let me know.

In the meantime, just have fun, and make sure we get to read all about what your players' adventure leads.

HeroForge is pretty cool, though I'm the weird kind of nut for whom there just isn't enough customization, so I'm tempted to try to cast my own out of aluminum or something, or else carve one from wood or plastic, just to get it perfect.

Still, I really think minis can be a cool thing. My sister (half-sister, really) is 21 years older than me, and during the 80s she played D&D and painted minis, but for a while about ten or fifteen years ago, when she tried to find pewter minis for painting for my nephew, the local game stores only carried pre-painted minis, so I love that it's becoming easier to get the perfect mini, ready to paint, than ever before.

Having said all that, while I think minis can be great, and am thoroughly pro-mini, I also think it can be a lot of fun to play just in the space of theater-of-the-mind, too. A few of my friends from high school did that, and, despite not being the most interesting group to spectate, had a great time playing just during the lunch break, even without all the handy and helpful maps and whatsits.

There's a really popular show on Twitch produced by Geek and Sundry, Felicia Day and Wil Wheaton's website/YouTube/Twitch channel called Critical Role, that I've been thinking about asking you guys about for a while, as it's an entertaining 3+ hour-per-week D&D session that they got the players and DM to do live after they heard about the game, which had been running for two years.

It's a bunch of voice actors, and they all do the voices and get into character really well, so that, if you're looking for a D&D campaign that's fun to watch with players and a DM who are clearly having a ton of fun, it's enjoyable. I hadn't mentioned it, just because I don't know how much David would enjoy watching another DM run a campaign, but I've been watching it for about six or seven months, and it's been on for a year now.

They originally played in Pathfinder, but when they were asked to consider doing it with a live online audience, they switched to 5e because, given the size of the group (there were originally eight players, and there are now seven, with occasional absences due to their schedules) made combat in Pathfinder really tedious. However, Matthew Mercer who is the DM, is perfectly happy to use house rules as he sees fit, and they completely invented a new class in order to translate one player's Gunslinger character over, since 5e doesn't have that class. I wouldn't play 5e over Pathfinder, but now that I've seen it done reasonably well, I wouldn't say no if that was the choice I was given. It's certainly a lot better than 4e, which Matt Mercer has himself mentioned, despite their game getting sponsored by Wizards of the Coast. 4e just sucked. Bad. XD

But let me know about any progress you make, David, because I might have some suggestions regarding combat mechanics. In fact, the biggest reason I want to make my own game is that I actually have significant experience with humping lots of stuff in a pack across various terrain, martial arts (as well as arms and armor) from both Asian and Historical European backgrounds, etc., and while I understand that not everybody cares about realism in the details, I really would love to see combat mechanics, armor mechanics, etc. that are fun without sacrificing all pretexts of being the least bit reflective of the real activities being abstracted. I'd actually been considering getting in touch with you about my ideas, but had been procrastinating about it for a few months. XD;

Thanks, I'll definitely do that, then, once I finish designing my archetype. For those of you familiar with Pathfinder (AKA D&D 3.75), I'll be designing an archetype for the Cavalier class, as well as an Order. The Orders are sort of like which Knightly Order you're character is in, but "Knights Errant" are basically just generic Arthurian knights, and all the rest are very flavor-centric, so even though one or two are actually pretty cool, they don't fit my character and would lead to significant distortions of the concept.

I'm thinking that I'll probably call the archetype Condottiere or Man-At-Arms. I'm not sure what I'll call the order yet.

Anyways, I'll upload those things once I get around to drafting them up, as right now they're just ideas that need to be fleshed out.

Thanks to both of you for your comments.

Yes, I totally agree with you, David, and I've actually been mulling over some ideas for my own game for some time now. You should be happy to know that you've been a significant influence on how I look at tabletop gaming.

However, until I come up with a new system, or convince a three players and a DM/GM to play some other system, I've pretty much settled on Pathfinder as my "core" game for now, and that's what I'm looking to play, though I'm always fine with tweaks and house rules.

And I totally understand. To be honest, while it's not the best idea, I could probably make a passable DM if I chose to do it, but if I DMed a campaign for other people, I'd never get to play, so I'm being obstinate about it. I want ONE campaign, damn it! Then I'll consider getting behind the screen. XD

That said, I'm glad to hear that what I do shouldn't be a problem as long as it's not unbalanced. Would you be able to tell me if my class was unbalanced or overpowered if I made it accessible on here when it's done?

And finally, yes, I've actually been thinking about writing a short story to serve as the character's background, which is part of why I was concerned about how much detail I put into the character's backstory.

I have a question, for all you DMs and GMs, though I'll have to give some context first. Despite having been on this forum for years; being quite knowledgeable about the mechanics of 3.5, 5e, Pathfinder, and even a bit of GURPS; and generally loving RPGs in all forms, I still have yet to ever play even one session of a pen-and-paper RPG, of any system.

I've just never had access to a good DM, and I've never really wanted to go to a local game shop and play with random people, though I guess I'd be willing to consider it.

However, I've been trying to get a character concept that I particularly want to play fleshed out in the meantime (it looked like I'd be playing with a friend in the near future, though he's moved away recently, unfortunately), and I'm stuck. Obviously, it's pretty difficult to get very far in rolling up a character with no DM around, and perhaps it's a waste of effort, but I've found it very good for my creativity, so I still would like to pursue it.

But there are some big problems that have kept me from getting too far, one dealing with translating the character concept, and one with fleshing the character out. Given that all of this is meant to be preparation on my part, I was hoping you guys could help me get a better sense of how I should be thinking about this: first, I am very attached to my character concept (I've actually been iterating on the basic premise for about five years now), but it doesn't fit neatly into the classes of 3.5 or Pathfinder, and while I plan to go with a Pathfinder Cavalier because it's closer than, say, a fighter, the whole knight-in-shining-armor thing doesn't fit my CC, and the discrepancy is enough that I'm thinking about using the Pathfinder rules about homebrewing an archetype. My character's more of a mercenary tactician/man-at-arms than a cavalier, and all of the tactics-focused archetypes are focused on bits of flavor that don't line up well with a character that is, at heart, something along the lines of a condottiere. I already have some ideas about how I'd like to go about this, but I don't want to create an archetype that's overpowered, either. What would you allow a player to create? What should I watch out for while designing it? If I have to do lots of tinkering, what limits should I impose on the process?

The second (really? I saw a lot of questions up there. XD) question I have is this: since I don't have a DM to guide the process, I don't have any specific campaign setting, but I have lots of ideas about who my character is, where he comes from, etc. How detailed should I make my character's backstory? I'm concerned about creating a whole petty kingdom and villages, etc. that might be inconsistent with the world this character eventually finds himself in, but I'm also really inspired creatively by the character, and want to go as far as I can without procluding him from actually being played someday. What level of backstory do you think you'd be comfortable with, if you weren't part of the initial process of rolling up the character, etc.?

I know that a lot of this is just guesswork, on your part in answering this as well as mine in asking, and that much of what you'll say might well just be common sense type answers, but I still want to get a feel for what actual DMs would be comfortable with, and any advice that you might have. I also know that, short of actually getting into the details of the character, stats, backstory, concept, etc. it's a bit difficult to give clear answers, but given how long this post is without all of that, I feel for the sake of brevity that I'll have to leave off with that, unless some of you want me to go into greater detail in a later post herein.

Anyway, thanks a lot for any help you can give.

I agree, both additions to the maps would be great, and as a bit of a map-geek, I'd appreciate them.

I don't really think that the maps will limit creativity, because if someone wants to make things up as they go along, they're always able to do so, but having a detailed base makes creating within the lines (so to speak) much easier.

Then again, I'm perfectly happy to see any big additions to Khoras, so anything anyone else comes up with I'd be interested in, most likely.

Well, not anytime soon, but after I graduate with my double major in philosophy and history, I want to study linguistics at UW Seattle.

And thanks guys.

Ha, no. I never found any programmers, so I shifted to other projects. Right now I'm mostly writing and revising poetry.

I'll go back to this eventually, because I believe too strongly in the concept, but I just don't have the resources to make this a thing, yet. Also, I'm about to take a programming course on Coursera, so that'll help, even if just a bit.

Thanks a lot for asking, though.

I don't care about football, but since I'm planning on moving to Seattle and getting a third degree after I graduate, I guess I'd say the Seahawks.