More Planning

Next Question, regarding "The As-Yet Unnamed Campaign."  I am offering three options; I will break any ties but won't vote.

1) Pick up where the Juvenis Campaign left off, with the present party (logic be damned) facing an ice toad in front of a gate in the snow.

2) Explain the resolution of that adventure and restore the party back to Stavanger.

3) Explain the resolution of that adventure and begin the campaign somewhere else.

Please vote.  I'm good with any of the three.  Regarding somewhere else, please give a general indication of where you'd like that "else" to be.


With regards to the proposition of DMing, you'll never find an easier opportunity to take the reins and get experience.  With an online campaign, you have many minutes to think about what you're going to say; you have players in this venue who will understand, better than any other players you'll ever have, the uphill climb you're facing, who will be empathic with your situation; and you will have help, not only from me, but most likely from the players.  So when you say, "I'm not ready yet," this is a Big chance for you to be ready, like you've never had and you won't ever have.

Think about it.

The Online Campaign, Proposed Again

Let's seriously discuss an online campaign.  At present, I have two volunteers, Engelhart and Pandred, who have already agreed to play, both of whom have characters already.  Obviously, I would like to make a shout out to Embla, Rob, Lothar and Mikael, to learn if any of the other established players would like to take part.

Following that, I'd like to hear from others who feel they have the time.  I am only interested in persons who spend a lot of time on computer, and are willing to check and update their interest in the campaign on an hourly basis, specifically during those times when we are reasonably expecting to communicate with one another.  D&D is a collaborative game.  Online, it cannot be played in a fashion that the participants check into the campaign once or twice a day.  If we were to regularly play between 8 a.m. EST and 4 p.m. EST, then I would expect players to check on their phones or computers on average every 30-45 minutes during that time.

Alternatively, we could agree on a set period of time, 3-4 hrs per week, when everyone involved gave 90% of their attention to the game.  I am not set up for visual contact, but at the same time I would be fine with people playing music, watching something or playing a video game while we played at these set times, so long as one eye was constantly on the game, so that no question asked needed wait more than 30-45 seconds for a response.  Even in text, such a turn-around time could get a great deal done in a few hours.

At this time, I am ready to set up and run just Pandred and Engelhart.  I would expect that others would be likely to join in once we were started, and I'm quite able to run two people.  A third, obviously, would be Much better.

Take note; while I would expect participants to willingly read the Authentic Wiki, to understand the rules, I would also be more than willing to teach.

On another point, it's been suggested to me that I set up others to act as DM in some capacity.  I see it as promoting the idea of advising others while they run players in the online campaign.  That would be interesting, but it would involve trust and quite a bit of bravery, since it would still be on the internet and public and all.  I'm open to exploring that possibility as a means of teaching people to DM better.  Write and let me know what you think.  Could you run a small, agreed upon sequence of dungeon rooms with me whispering in your ear in messenger, while you actually performed as DM, knowing that you could rely on my support behind the scenes?

Pause Before Buying

Okay, I'm taking a breather.

I got all the new characters started, with backgrounds.  Some are selecting spells, some sage abilities, some weapons, some are waiting for a pricing table.

I worked about 10 continuous hours yesterday and almost 9 today.  Wednesday and Thursday are best for me.  I have half a day of the next five going forward, so I won't have all this time.  But the main thing is getting all the players busy.

Everyone, look for pricing lists tomorrow.  The Senex campaign will not be starting in the Donbass, but in the Greek Islands . . . but will probably be moving towards the Donbass at some point.  I'll be providing a price list for the market of Syros ~ everyone, including Kismet, Sophia and Enrico, should assume they have an opportunity to go shop there; we can assume these three will meet Yuliya and Ibrahim there.

The Juvenis campaign will be buying goods in Stavanger, of course.

Please, everyone provide the information for your characters that's needed so we can keep moving forward.  There will be time to hesitate and question your market purchases on the weekend.

Also, I know that most campaigns need some complicated reason why a bunch of strangers group together to become a party.  I don't think this odd at all.  People meet, they hit it off right away, they all have similar interests and they thrown in together.  Happens all the time.  We don't need a special reason.

I don't know if I will have a reason to talk to the players on this blog again.  I may write a post for general interest, talking about the process of making so many characters and such ~ but I have found in the past that readers don't actually have much to say about that.

One player asked if I could set up a place where the would-be players can begin to chat and get to know each other.  I suggest using this post.  I'll take down the moderation until tomorrow morning ~ which might be interesting.  All sorts of riff-raff and such could get in here!

Characters One-at-a-Time

In not very long, I'm going to be moving the campaign chatter right off this blog.  Here is the plan.

I'm going to create a second campaign blog.  The old campaign blog has been renamed "Campaign Senex."  This will include the following characters: Ahmet, Andrej, Ibrahim, Lukas, Nine-toes, Yuliya, plus henchmen Enrico, Kismet and Sophia.

The new campaign blog will be named "Campaign Juvenis."  I'm still setting this one up, waiting for details as to where it starts before finalizing the lay-out.  This will include Arduin/Rowan, Dani, Drain, Maxwell and Shelby/Lothar.

Everyone seems to have had their character's stats rolled now.  The next step is to deal with each of you individually, so that we're not tripping over each other comments.

Keep an eye on this post.  I'm going to update HERE, not in the comments, posting a link to your personal character as soon as I'm ready.  Please have a character name so that the post I create will be in your character name, and not yours.  Here are links towards dealing with various character creation issues:

Senex

Ahmet/Enrico
Andrej/Sophia
Lukas/Kismet
Nine-toes
Yuliya Romanyuk
Ibrahim bin Yusuf

Juvenis

Rowan
Aleksandra Ivanovna
Gudbrand Andersen Lillesund
Lothar Svenson
Engelhart Askjellson

That's everyone.

People can start addressing their questions to these posts as I create them.  Please be patient: I'll be running around to 11 different posts, so I may take time to get back to you if others are dealing with really difficult problems.  We'll just work out these things for as long as it takes until we're ready to go.

Elsewhere Party ~ 3rd Ballot

Whatever Drain's second choice might have been, it is clear that the party has chosen Northern Europe on the second ballot:

So, we have one more vote ~ where in Northern Europe.

Here are your choices:

• Denmark (civilized, parkland & sea)
• Human Norway (semi-civilized, forest & sea)
• Human Sweden (civilized, parkland)
• Human Finland (forested lakeland)
• Human Estonia-Livonia (forest, rock & sea)
• Gnomish Norway-Sweden (forest and rock, mineral)
• Elvish Lands of Finland-Karelia (forested, contemplative)
• Halfling Archangel (very far north)
• Gnomish Russia (forested, desolate)

As before, please rate your first three choices in order of importance.  If there is a tie, we will have one last ballot to break the tie.

UPDATE

Okay, it is settled:

It is up to me, now, to pick a market city.  That I am going to do randomly.  There are 8 trade cities in human Norway: Kristiansand, Christiania, Fredrikstad, Halden, Bergen, Narvik, Stavanger and Trondheim.

I roll a . . . 7.  That's Stavanger.

I went looking for some images and found this:

Let's Start: Rolling Character Stats

Issues surrounding the location of the Elsewhere party will be dealt
with in another post.

Here are the two groups.  Have I missed anyone?  That's entirely possible!  Please point out your comment and I will update the above.

As far as I know, Oddbit will be running either Lukas or his hench Kismet, or both.  James C. will be running either Andrej or his hench Sophia, or both.  Nine-toes will be running his character Nine-toes from back in the day.

Butch I'm not sure of ~ will it be Enrico or someone completely new?

Apart from Nine-toes, who has been clear and only has Nine-toes to run, could Oddbit, James C and Butch be perfectly clear about which character will be run and in which capacity, of it a new character is to rolled from scratch.

The rest of you all need to roll new characters.  Here's what we will do.

I need you to roll 4d6 a total of six times, keeping the sum of the highest three dice in each roll.  I will then need you to assign these six rolls to strength, intelligence, wisdom, constitution, dexterity and charisma.  Then please post these rolls in a comment below.  With the assigned rolls, specify your race and your gender.  Races are limited to dwarf, elf, gnome, half-elf, halfling, half-orc and human.  Not all races can be all classes:

race-class limitations table

• DO NOT give your character a name or any other details other than the stats, the character's race, gender or the character's class.
• DO NOT argue about the race-class table above.  These are final and I don't want to debate about it, particularly at this time.
• DO NOT forget about the ability stat limitations for the individual classes.  You will find a table for these listed below.
• DO NOT ask questions about the campaign or beyond the specific rules regarding character creation, or what you will be able to do at some point in creating your character, except where it directly applies to your character's stats, your character's race and your character's gender.  We'll get to everything eventually.
• DO NOT make any adjustments to your character's stats due to your race or your age.  Wait for me to tell you what adjustments to make.  I want to see the natural numbers you rolled, not adjusted numbers!

Character Class Minimums

Do remember that my character generator makes nothing a dump stat.

I would strongly suggest that players do not try to run a multi-classed character . . . but IF you have the minimums for all the classes you want to mix (and there are no limitations as to what classes can be mixed), then you may ask questions about it.

All classes have higher minimums for multi-classed characters for the primary stat.  The primary stat will be the one that requires the highest minimum for the class.  For the assassin it is strength, for the monk it is wisdom, for the ranger it is constitution.  For a multi-classed character, this stat must be 15 or better (the wiki under cleric and mage disagree with this ~ I need to fix the wiki on these points).  Where the minimum primary stat is already 15 or higher, there is no change.

All multi-classed characters get all the abilities of all the classes they happen to be, with one exception.  Whatever the mix, a multi-classed character gets the best possible selection of weapons and the worst possible selection of armor.

I think that's the lot.  Let's give it a try.

Elsewhere

While people decide which campaign they want to be in, we can take steps towards figuring out where the indeterminate campaign will be.

In future, when I want to give actual real life times, I will designate them as follows.  It is nearly 12 noon for me, but it is nearly 7 pm Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and 2 pm Eastern Standard Time (EST).

As such, I will give this as a real life time as 7pm GMT/2pm EST.  I trust that the Pacific Time people, like me, can figure out what I mean compared to the American eastern seaboard.

To determine what "Elsewhere" is, we'll take a ballot.  This will take at least three ballots, I figure, so I ask that people be patient.  Here are the options:

Western Europe (Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain)

Northern Europe (Scandinavia, Denmark, Russia north of Moscovy and west of the Urals)

Eastern Europe (Poland, Hungary, Kiev, Moscovy)

Africa (limited to what I've created; south Libya, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal, not including Egypt)

Ottoman Empire (Egypt, Middle East, Greece, Balkans, Mesopotamia)

Safavid Empire (Caucasus, Persia, west Afghanistan, west Pakistan)

Moghul Empire (India, Ceylon, east Afghanistan, including Burma and southern Indian states)

Northern Asia (Turkestan, Uzbek, Kirghizia, Kazakhstan, Jagatai Empire, Siberia east of the Urals)


---------

Sorry, I'm not going to run Paraguay at this time ~ it is not connected to the trade system.

When you vote, please designate your first, second and third choices.  Please do not abbreviate.  Abbreviating will suggest you're not really prepared to take the time to express yourself when the game starts.  Also, I like attention to detail [he said, looking at Maxwell who spelt Frederic's name with a 'k'].

Please give you choices in this format:

1)  Region; 2) Region; 3) Region.

Your first choice will be rated at 3 points; your second at 2 points and your 3rd at 1 point.  Points will be added and we will revote on the top three choices overall.

Best of luck.  Deadline 12 noon GMT/7am EST December 1st.  Votes by those in the Donbass campaign will not be counted.

Regarding Details in Getting a Game Started

I am glad that I haven't heard a lot of angst from among the would-be players.  Prospects should remember that I'm not big on players who wish to perpetrate a strong invented personality, which will then be used as a justification for disrupting or derailing group play.  D&D is, to my mind, a group activity, not one in which an a single individual attempts to achieve their personal goals independently of others.

This is never more true than online ~ the secret of a good online campaign, I have found in the past, is plenty of chat between the participants, where the chief slant of the dialogue is between the participants and not directed at me.  Think of D&D as a wheel; yes, every part of the wheel has its connection with the hub, that being the DM ~ but if any part of the outside rim is broken or left out of the spin, the wheel smashes on the pavement.  Players have to do more than play together ~ they have to reach out to other players, to ensure that everyone is on board and involved, whether they have been able to express themselves or not. These are the best games.

For those who have expressed interest but not the ability to be wholly committed: believe me, I understand.  I would like to have the resources to be "on" 24/7.  Looking at my week, I figure I have approximately 42 hours of time in which I will have the freedom to see a question, concoct an answer and post said answer.  I also feel that I will be able to jumpstart my book writing again by being forced to be clever, creative and intellectually active on a daily basis.  I find I am craving some kind of push; so I won't just be squeezing in a bit of play for four or five hours a week.

It takes about 10 hours of typing, responding, fixing maps, creating visual spaces and answering questions to equal about 90 minutes of ordinary face-to-face game play.  For players, it isn't practical to be able to give your full time on a given afternoon or two mornings per week.  You have to be prepared to find 3-5 minutes to quickly pump out a response, somewhere between 4 and 20 times per day, to keep the momentum of the game going forward.  I've seen what happens when people are only able to respond to what their characters are doing one time per day or not at all.  It is destructive to the cause.  What is needed is a practical obsession, one where ~ if you have 90 seconds free ~ you immediately rush towards the campaign to see if anything has changed.  It doesn't mean you have to speak every time you check, but it does mean knowing what others are saying and then jumping in before it's noticed that you're the part of the wheel not turning.

So be realistic.  I appreciate greatly your interest and your spoken desire, but don't put me in the place of giving you a spot at the table if you're uncertain.  You have to be certain.  Otherwise, please let me shake your hand, clap you on the shoulder and welcome you to watch with vigor.

Perhaps I might think of some way for others to rubberneck a bit on the campaign.  That might be educational, if somewhat annoying to the participants; if you're really interested in playing, but can't, perhaps we can make a space where the moves and choices of the players are freely discussed ~ with the deepest respect and cautious empathy expressed towards the players at all times!  I don't want to bitch session where people write in to talk about what a bunch of fuck-ups the players are ~ we don't need haters.  But an honest dialogue that expresses roads and options not taken, or expresses positive approval for choices by players could inspire better play in other campaigns.  Comments moderated, of course.

In such a case, a short comment would be better than something very long, unless a person felt absolutely sure that nothing in the comment could offend; I'd hate to dump someone's carefully thought-through 500-word comment because one sentence in the middle was 'iffy.'

Much of this hinges on whether or not Oddbit wants to go on playing Lukas; in that case, because I'm a purist, I'd have to argue that he is still at the top of the Black Sea on the coast of the Sea of Azov.  People should be questioning if they'd be willing to start there with Lukas, if he's still in this.

Otherwise, please consider where you'd like to start.  It is a big, big world.  Montague [as Frederic] mentioned Khwarezm [spelled about two thousand different ways; in my world it is divided into three states: Khiva, Kulpakstan and Tash-Ko].  But I'm prepared to run anywhere in my mapped world, from Senegal to Scandinavia to Burma.  If someone wanted to try the new map of Britain, I'm just a day or so out from completing it [being lazy; sorry].

Please let me know ~ and anyone who hasn't weighed in yet, please feel free to do so.

JB, if you're out there and wondering; I'm more than willing to give it another try.

Turn, Turn, Turn

No doubt, I am testing the patience of my gentle readers.  I am sorry about that, sincerely.  I'm just trying to get my shit together.  I am getting it together.  This just happens to be what that looks like.

I spent yesterday in thought and much of today as well.  While watching burgers sizzle and fries bubble, while watching calamari drain and ground duck meat thaw, there's not much else to do than think.  The subject has been, what do I do next?  Specifically, now that I'm admitting that my physical well-being demands rest on a Saturday; I'm working Friday night and Sunday is a complete loss as well.  My players can't run during the week so once again, I'm stuck without a game.

But am I?

It's crazy and some readers will roll their eyes, but I'm willing to give online a try again.  The campaign, that is.  D&D.  If anyone is interested.

No, it isn't going to cost anything.  I know I talked about that months ago but I'm not going there.

And I am duty bound to give respect to those players who were in the online campaign when I drew it to a halt back in April, 2014.  James who played Andrej still reads the blog now and then; Oddbit who played Lukas commented on my post yesterday, so I know he's still around.  I'm not sure about the fellow behind Maximillien; we seemed to part ways on philosophy some time back, I haven't heard from him in ages.  It's also been a long time since I heard from Butch, who played Ahmet.

I can make time to play.  I feel that perhaps this is what's needed to give me a shakabuku; I could use one of those.  I know that the moment I settled on this plan ~ about 140 minutes ago, while finishing this morning's shift ~ I felt a moment of legitimate happiness.

That proves this is a good idea.

Last time I asked for new players, I asked for a short statement expressing reasons for wanting to run.  I strongly suggest that would-be participants be the sort that need to constantly check their phones/puters for updates.

My best times will be Wednesday through Fridays, most of the day; Friday after four I'm out, pretty much until Sunday evening.  Then Monday and Tuesday evenings are fair.  Still, if it goes like it has in the past, the game will run pretty much 24/7, as regards asking questions or making plans, particularly if the players are willing to talk to each other and act as a party rather than as individuals.

I may be open to running two campaigns, four persons per campaign.  It really will depend on how willing players are to commit and give plenty of time.  Willingness to write a lot is more than a plus, it is critical to making an online campaign work.  This much I've learned from past experience.

So, anyone in?

The Boldest Experiment

I was asked if I could satisfactorily answer the following:

"What happens when a character dies in a per-pay enterprise like this? Should they expect not to? Imagine the furor around a video game costing $59 where character death was permanent. Now multiply that by 100."

Sigh.  This makes me sad.  The very intention of the "what if" scenario proposes that people have become so fragile, so needy, so entitled that if they were to spend money for the privilege of playing a game, the ensuing tantrum of their dashed privilege would grow so onerous that my resolution would be swept away in a hurricane of screaming, self-righteous hysterics.

Multiply that by 100.

One hundred of what, exactly?  100 commenters on the internet?  100 players?  I'm certainly not capable of running 100 players at the same time and I find it impressively unlikely that I would be killing 100 players simultaneously if I was.  That would truly be a total party kill, not to be matched in the annals of the game.

But let's imagine that someone has chosen to play in my campaign - and that I've rolled a die, or they have, and as a result they've died.  They are so invested in the game, so invested in their character, that they choose to seek compensation for the death of this character through a means that will cause me harm in some manner.  Let's further assume that this person's perception of me turns so black over the death of this character (remember, paid for), that they truly, deeply, intensely hate me.  We need to multiply something by 100: let's multiply this hatred.  What are the possibilities?

Well, I'm on the internet with my real name.  It's reasonable to assume that someone truly motivated could choose to seek me out, hunt me down and kill me.  This is not the first time I've speculated about something like this.  A little over four years ago, I had a little troll who wrote nasty messages and personal threats and a lot of other things, causing me to remember the story of Billy Pilgrim and Paul Lazzaro from Slaughterhouse Five.

So it goes.

My father, who is 80 now, cannot get it into his head even after forty years of my deciding to be a writer that this occupation actually requires that I be, well, publicly known.  Just a month ago he was cautioning me in serious tones to "be careful" about who knows me on the internet because there are people out there just waiting to use personal information about me to destroy any chance of my getting a "good job."  He is, without a question, a doomsayer of the first order; I remember back in high school, when we first got a Betamax Video Recorder, that my father discouraged us from speaking about it to our friends, arguing basically, "If word gets out that we have one of these, there are people who wouldn't hesitate to break into our house to get it."

Today, my father lives in the same house that I lived in when I was zero.  That house, today, is worth around $800,000.  It sits amid a bunch of other houses that are also worth one hell of a lot of money - and it always has.  We would try to explain to my father that every person in our neighborhood owned a VCR, but that never seemed to get through.

Oh, in case someone is thinking right now, "Why doesn't your father help you?"  Well . . . in the original Fun With Dick and Jane, Jane goes to ask her father for money and gets this speech:

Father: "All right.  It's the monsoon season . . . and you're standing outside in torn raincoats.  Come through this by yourselves and you'll be dry for the rest of your lives.  Take money from me and you'll be wet.  Soaking wet from now on.  Jane, it's the best thing that could happen.  Especially for Dick.  I'm so happy for both of you.  Especially for Dick."
Jane:  "Dad, Billy is doing his work by candlelight."
Father:  "Splendid!  So did Abraham Lincoln."
Jane:  "How are you both doing."
Father:  "Never better!  Jane . . . we have sowed all our lives, and we're now reaping the harvest!  Reap!  Reap!  REAP!"

(this vid was the best I could find)

So, basically, I'm not deserving.

Okay, so I've gone around the barn, down to the store, gotten into an argument with the hairdresser next door and now I'm on my way home.  1.  I already have a public persona; 2. I've already been not liked; 3. every public persona risks some nutjob turning up some day; 4. Given my upbringing, I ought to be insanely paranoid but I've chosen not to be.

Let's contend with a far more likely scenario.  Said player's character dies.  Said player is unhappy.  Said player shouts about it on the internet, tries to raise x100 angry sentiment against me.

Sorry.  I don't see it.  First of all, I don't exactly know what horrible thing can be said about me that hasn't already been said.  Someone could claim to know something about me that's horrible - but that's already been claimed and it turns out that making shit up on the internet is quite ordinary.

Moreover, I ask the readership: consider if this argument would produce much sympathy:

"I paid $100 to play a role-playing game online and my character was killed.  And now I want justice."

Is there a way to add information to that argument that doesn't make the person sound, well . . . I'll refrain from the expletive.  I can at least feel reassured that, living in Canada, there's no practical way to bring a grudge suit against me on the basis of "I'm very rich and I like to use the system to fuck with people."  The legal system is different here; bringing suit is not just a matter of having money.  Moreover, I'd be operating under the legal disclaimer that exists on the Patreon website: so that as long as I follow Patreon's rules, I'm protected.  It would be very hard to bring a suit against Patreon at this time and there are much bigger fish in the kettle to contend with if that were the case.

As near as I can tell, this leaves my personal feeling of remorse or regret at killing a player character, given that someone has paid me for the privilege.  This leaves my self-esteem and my resolve in the face of pure, unbridled hatred, as I am told that I have committed a sin by running a fair and reasonable game in which a die roll may result in a character running out of hit points and being killed.

In 1985's Lost in America, the character's wife loses all the money the couple has at a Las Vegas Casino - and in one of the most painful scenes ever filmed in the history of American cinema, Albert Brooks, director and writer of the film, spends six minutes arguing with the owner of the casino in a vain attempt to get his money back.  I'll link the last four minutes of that conversation.

I don't know what sort of person could watch that scene and identify with Albert Brooks - but if that sort of person wants to give me money to play in my world, that sort of person is going to find that I'm on the casino owner's side.

Imagine the furor.

Yeah.  Furor.  Imagine it.

I'm just shaking in my boots.

An Atrocious Suggestion

Jeez, I just want to start this post with an apology.

As soon as I'm done, I'm going to put up a poll.  I really want honesty - because I've just gotten off the phone with a friend who decided what I needed was a swift, spiritual kick to the head meant to alters my perspective.  There was yelling involved.

I ran an online campaign for 5 years.  That's evidence of commitment.  The campaign included maps, geographical and social details, combat, a continuous character narrative arc and a personal player sandbox agenda.  I did it for free.

My friend feels I should be paid for it.  I asked, how much would someone pay for that and he said, quote, "Why the fuck don't you ask them?"

My part-time job, which I am leaving for in about two hours, pays be about $1,500 a month.  Unlike the job I had when I was running the online campaign, I don't have a desk, I don't have a computer and I have zero free time.   Right now I am working, writing, getting a little bit of D&D done and that is about it, since occasionally my partner likes to see me.  The only way I would have time for an online campaign would be if I were working even less hours than I am now (about 28/week).  This works out to the measly sum of $75 to $100 dollars a day.

I figure I could probably manage two to four parties of 4-5 people each, either scheduled for a given night of the week and run partly on skype, or continously on email throughout the day as I did on the campaign blog.  This is a maximum of 20 people.  20 divided into $1,500 is $75 per person per month.  Let's further establish that I'm on the hook for at least 6-8 hours a week per party, both in direct playing and in answering questions, solving problems and prep-time.

Or I could cut the number of my shifts, keep working half the time I am now and charge less - but that is more work for the same amount of money.

The real problem, I think - and my friend admitted the issue - is that this is something of an all-or-nothing thing.  Right now, because of exhaustion and scheduling, I can't even run one of my live parties; and they get me in person, for free, when we play.  I don't know what or how I would run people on line.  Perhaps when the book is packed away and done.  I can't see it happening now.

I'm just going to ask in a poll, however - and christ on a cracker, I'm sorry as shit for doing this - what people would pay on Patreon to run online in my world.  It would at least tell me how many.  I remember when I offered this for free about five years ago, it wasn't that many people; but I would never have expected then that people would give me $3,000 in donations, either.

UPDATE:

The results to the poll were as follows:

Crossed Party Paths

Thank you, Maliloki, for asking a question yesterday that gives me an excuse to write this.

I have had three campaigns running in my world at the same time.  I still sort of do, but the online campaign's hiatus cruelly drags on.  Offline, I still have two running.  The question was, is it the same world for all parties?  And if not, is there a chance that the actions taken by one party will affect another?

My first party began in the town of Kolyeno in the county of Voronezh, Russia, on May 1, 1650.  It began there because that was the first part of my world that I mapped according to the principles my blog readers recognize (elevation, 20 miles per hex, etc.).  I began with Voronezh because it was flat steppeland, lightly populated and a long way from the ocean.  I felt, at the beginning of my mapping, that I should start deep inland, developing my skills as I moved outwards.

I know that in my book How to Run I proposed starting on an island or a peninsula.  I made that suggestion because I know most campaigners don't set out to make nit-picky maps based on the actual world's latitude and longitude.  A writer has to know the audience.

At the time of starting that campaign, eight years ago, I hardly had more of the world mapped than that tiny area of south European Russia.  Kolyeno is a tiny village of about 200 people, the right location to start a 1st level party.  In such a small village, their own, where they had friends and family, they weren't likely to be threatened until they took their first risks.  The choices the party made, combined with random events that involved the party indirectly, led them first towards China, then Persia and finally to Transylvania.  Throughout it all, it was their choice to stay or go.

The online campaign began within two weeks of a spontaneous idea I had in February, 2009.  I called it a 'stupid idea.'  It turned out to be somewhat better.  By 2009 I had four years of mapping under my belt and I had produced sufficient areas of the world to provide several options.  However, as I was working on advancing my trade system specifically for a start in Germany, I wanted to experiment with that.  Therefore, I offered the online players a choice of Mecklenburg, Saxony, Sudetenland, Vogtland, Erzgebirge, Bohemia, Moravia, Upper Austria and Bavaria.  The party ultimately went for the last option.  I rolled randomly for a center in Bavaria that wasn't Munich, Augsburg or Nuremberg (I did not want to start them in a big city) and got Dachau.  Yes, that same Dachau.

That location created the events that followed.  The choices the party made, combined with random events that involved the party indirectly, led them first towards Switzerland, then Cuxhaven (after a slight reboot) and finally to the Azov Sea.  Throughout it all, it was their choice to stay or go.

Of course these two campaigns were utterly unique, though they both started on the same date.  At the moment the First Party was in Kolyeno in Russia, the Second Party was waking up in Dachau, Germany.  When the year turned to 1651, the First Party was stumbling south through the desert east of the Caspian Sea, while the Second Party had just been freed from the hands of a bandit in northern Italy.

The Third Party began late in 2011.  Because I had done detailed maps of the area, and because that party did not care, it began in Kronstadt in Transylvania, again on May 1, 1650.  That party consisted of three persons who poked around the area a little before wandering generally southeast into Serbia, Kosovo and ultimately Albania.  When the year turned 1651 for them, Demifee had died and they had made their way to Amisos in northern Turkey.

Now, this is interesting.  In game time, the Third Party passed down the road from Amisos to Melitene before the Second Party, during January of 1651.  However, in real time, the Second Party had already been down that same road, in April of 1651.  Technically, after the Third Party in game time but the actual campaign took place in winter 2013/4.

If this doesn't fuck with your head, nothing will.

The Third Party never came to the little dungeon I set up for the Second Party (which they encountered on the way back to Amisos), for obvious reasons . . . I didn't need to!  As the Second Party came through, they came across the wounded Sphinx, who they saved, setting up a totally different adventure on the same ground.  Why wouldn't I?

Will these parties encounter each other?  Possibly.  For the next year, until Spring 1652, the First Party will be wandering around the northern Ural Mountains.  This because two members of the First Party pulled from a Deck of Many Things, earning the enmity of the same demon, then played stupidly playing with certain picture-portals in a dungeon (they were warned, seriously, that the pictures were EVIL), the demon grasped their souls and dumped them onto the first level of Hell.  Literally.  The rest of the party then went on a quest to get them out (the characters weren't dead, just trapped, a'la Theseus).  I doubt if the Second or Third parties will stumble across them, there, as 1651/52 plays out.

After that, the First Party settled in their Transylvania fief, only to spend the next year trying to wake up King Carol, the last king of the Avars, who slept for 900 years under a mountain in the Tatras between Slovakia and Galicia (Poland).  That is a whole other story.  For them, as I said on the previous post, it is now late 1653 . . . and for various reasons, they will soon be heading for Khorezm in Turkestan, to fight a big, big fight against an old enemy.

I expect that the Second Party, online, will be managing to keep alive in and around the Black Sea for all that time.

Meanwhile, the Third Party is returning these holy items to their origin.  I can't say yet where they will be, since the players only have some of this information . . . however, it looks like they will be crossing to Aria, in northwest Afghanistan, seeking knowledge.  Just now, they're involved in events in Egypt.

See, my world is so immense, so HUGE, that even if all three parties happened to be in the same place at the same time, it would probably be a big city - where they could easily not stumble across one another unless I arranged it.  Or, like the Second and Third parties both passing through Tokat, they would be there three months apart or more.

I don't have to take special steps to ensure they don't meet.  Though I do need to keep good records on the date.

Something made easy by the fact that my world uses the same calendar.

P.S.:

Do be sure and catch the newest post on my new cooking blog.

The Online Party Gets a Shot in the Arm

This morning I woke up to find someone shouting at me to quit D&D if I hated it that much.  Ha.  You write one bit of satire . . .

Okay, while hating D&D, I decided I would squeeze out a little time from my book to produce this - took about 10 hours:

Updated June 9, 2014

Well.  I have a lot to say about this map.  Hold onto your socks.

Starting with what it is.  This is the head of the Sea of Azov in the eastern Ukraine, just up a bit and to the right of all that stuff you've been reading about the Crimea.  Whereas most of my maps have 20-mile hexes (you can find a version of this area in that scale among other political maps of the area right here), here the hexes are six miles across.  The map is only a third completed. The green line up the center indicates which part is done and which part I only have notes for.  The grey areas in the undone section show where there should be more hills.

The rough edges of the map are such because this map has been randomly generated from the information provided by the 20-mile map.  Every hex has been determined by an excel random generator, which can be downloaded here.  The major rivers were determined from the larger map, and the minor 'creeks' were included from what on the previous map would look like 'empty' hexes.  The hills were hand-made, in three versions and then duplicated to get a nice feel for topography.  Some areas of the unfinished map have had the hills included, and if the reader looks close, they'll see that there is an unusual, rougher group of hills that stretch from Kamut in the top centre to Sulin on the middle right.  These are the Donets Hills, the area iof which is today one of the heaviest industrialized areas on earth (usually referred to as the 'Donetsk Basin' or 'Donbas'). The hills produce every kind of mineral one could want, as well as ridiculous amounts of coal and iron.  Russia lost this area when the Ukraine went independent.  Imagine losing the Ruhr Basin, or Silesia, or the American Rust Belt.  It's like that.

Prior to 1676, however, these were just hills.  In my world they are populated by a race of half-dwarves, half-orcs called 'Dworkin.'  Yes, that is an intentional slur for those who get it.

The numbers in the undone section are for reworking later on; the reader can see that in addition to numbers in the complete section, there are hammers, slices of bread (food) and coins, just as Civilization IV.  These were also drawn from me, from screenshots.  Why not steal.  For those not familiar, the loaf of bread shown in the heavily civilized area stands for five food.

Things get pretty busy at the top left, don't they?

The online party has been patiently waiting in the orange hex south of Rosk, two hexes up from the Sea of Azov, center of the map.  They are in this region to establish a mission.  They are very, very interested in this map right now.

The numbers for the hexes indicate the level of civilization/cultivation.  The lower the number, the more civilized it is.  A '7' is a mostly empty hex (as opposed to the completely empty hexes, that have no numbers).  The most developed hex on the map is a '2.'  The numbers, and to some degree the topography, determines how much food, hammers (labour) or coin the hex produces:

Empty hexes have no production.  Most of these are dry steppe, but the green hexes around the delta are marshlands (some cultivated, the dark hexes not).  In vegetation they would resemble short grass plains, where animals could be grazed, but not indefinitely, so that herds would have to be moved from hex to hex.

7:  These are dry steppe with a good water source, streams or groundwater that produces areas of good soil or richer grazing.  These areas produce 1 food.  If there are also hills in the hex, an additional hammer is added.  If on the coast, an additional coin.

6:  The orange indicates steppe mixed with patches of open woods, where the deciduous trees grow singly or in small patches.  The soil is better, some trees produce fruit and there's wood for burning. All six point areas have 2 food and 1 hammer.  If there is a large river, then add a coin (creeks do not add coins).  If there's a coast, add a coin.  If there's a town, add a coin.  Previous bonuses also apply, and that is a rule that goes forward as the number goes down.

5:  Like six, these are open woods and steppe, but there's more water and trees are more abundant. All 5 point areas have 3 food and 2 hammers.  If there's a town, add 1 hammer.

4:  These are areas of mixed open woods and cropland that have been irrigated or where there are abundant wells, where the soil is rich or where intensive herding is possible.  Luxury crops can be grown.  All 4 point areas have 4 food, 2 hammers and 1 coin.  If on the coast, then add 1 food from intensive fishing.

3:  These are areas more intensively cultivated for luxury goods, plantations or fibre crops for textiles. All 3 point areas produce 4 food, 2 hammers and 2 coin.  If on a large river, add 1 food for expanded irrigation.

2:  These areas are pure cropland.  The land is extraordinarily productive.  2 point areas produce 5 food, 2 hammers and 3 coin.

The towns that are shown on the map are not ALL the towns that exist here.  Shown towns are those that unusually affect the results.  Most hexes that are 5 or less have villages or sizable towns of one or two thousand - but that is not actually to be determined until producing the 2-mile hexes that are developed from this map, later on.

So, it is easy to quickly add the total amount of bread, hammers and coins, if a person wanted to assess the power and strength of the kingdom, say, or determine how many soldiers there ought to be, or how fast the region could gear for war.  I'm more interested in the various details that come to light.  That isolated 4 hex, for instance, about the center of the map.  Who dwells there?  Who's family built the land, who uses that base to control the scattered hammers in the hills to the south?  Is that not an adventure?

And what of that vast, empty area to the west.  There are open spaces 35 miles across.  Is there a copper dragon that nests in the hills?  Why does the river have no farms upon it?  The land must be rocky, broken, filled with carnivores or perhaps criminals, who plunder the isolated hamlets for their food and the efforts of their labour.

What of that little town on the shore of the Azov, a little peninsula poking into the sea, with its trade (one coin), 1/9th of all the coin (see this explanation) that is made in the area around Rosk.  Who controls that trade?  What is it?  Can it be grabbed?  Or expanded?

I look at the empty low hills everywhere, or the sections of empty hexes around the higher Donets Hills, and I see dungeons, monsters and opportunities.

I love the random generation that made this.  I love the ideas it puts in my head.  I love that a player can look at this and see immediately where they might go, and what small areas influence the overall picture just by being 'different.'  Look at this description of the lands on the map that I wrote 9 months ago, and tell me the random system didn't generate perfectly for my needs.

Sorry, no, I don't actually want to quit D&D.

Big Monsters Are Fun

All quiet here, but on the campaign blog I just tossed a hydra at the party ... fun fun fun.

The Petrel's Wing

Well, it may not be politics, but I did promise the plans for a ship, and I mean to deliver.  I've been working on these for about four hours, having stolen the originals from this site here.

I'm making this ship for my online world, to play the part of the Petrel's Wing, but the basic deckplan is for the H.M.S. Surprise (launched 1794 it says here, but I have seen 1778 and at least one other date that says it was scuttled before 1790 ... ah, history scholarship).

The website linked shows these plans ... and they are lovely:

There are, of course, a couple of problems ... no scale, there are cannon onboard, the entire first deck down would be superfluous for D&D because if there are no cannon then there's no need for a gun deck, etc.  So all I've been doing is photoshop to A) get rid of the guns; B) compress the stairs on the gun deck and the 2nd deck down so that they match up throughout, reducing it from a five-deck ship to one that's four decks; and C) get rid of the labels because, while they are useful, they spoil the use of the ship for combat.  Thus we get the final result:

Yes, not as colorful as the first group, but clean and with hexes and without guns.  It just takes a little diligent careful slicing and cutting and 'painting' to make them useable ... but I'm afraid for some of you that I've included my online party for the benefit of scale.  Each hex is 5' in diameter.  If you take the time, you can clean the party images right out of there, and make it useful.

I haven't actually run a combat aboard a ship since ... wow, 1989.  Parties in my world tend to avoid piracy because it takes just one sinking and you have a TPK.  I think its silly; I'd love to be a pirate.  In any case, last time I 'made' a ship it didn't look as nice as this.  I have to thank the originator for putting the plans online.

What a terrible plagerizer I am.  But ... I'm bibliographing my sources and I'm not trying to sell these for cash.  I just want them for the party's campaign.

Pulse Check

If anyone who isn't a player wants to ask questions about the online campaign, here's your opportunity.  I've tossed out the opportunity once before, without much reception ... but nothing wrong with checking now and then.

I'll answer any questions anyone might have.

Stolen Adventures

I have a confession to make.

Recently, in my online campaign, the party there was captured by bandits.  It's an occasional sort of event that happens to parties from time to time, and usually it plays like death.  The party gets angry, a few search for ways out of the mess, revenge is vowed and until the party actually frees themselves, it is boring as hell.

The context, or 'story' as some DMs call it, doesn't allow for much interaction.  The characterization of the bandits is usually wooden and horrifically cliched, making it impossible for the party to have any emotional response except resentment or embarrassment for having gotten themselves in this position.

Now, let me pause here and say that the famous Appendix N from the DMG is shit.  I don't mean that the actual content there is shit - though admittedly, some of it is - but that it is completely worthless for Dungeons and Dragons.  Everyone has read it.  Most of it is pulp fiction, with little or no literary characteristics, and while adventure rich the adventures themselves are for the most part as flat and staid as the above interaction of bandits.  Pulp fiction isn't meant to appeal to people with an education, it is meant to appeal to the necessarily ignorant - which Gygax and Arneson must have been, for just look at the shit they read.

(This is two posts now where I've crapped all over popular fanboy wank-text.  I am so having a good time!)

I think I was very lucky to have had parents who possessed a library of over 2,000 books, including a dozen different series including all the classical literature I could ever ask for.  But of course, a lot of it was completely out of my reach when I was only seven.  I was deep into atlases and geographical statistics at the time, but I didn't have the experiential context to manage a book like Robinson Crusoe, Moby Dick or even Call of the Wild.

Fortunately, my parents had seen to that too, and in the 1950s - before I was born - they had begun collecting a simplified form of those classics - namely, Classics Illustrated.

Now, I wouldn't suggest that the Classics Illustrated library - as comic books - is a stand-in for Appendix N.  I am suggesting that the length and breadth of deeper, well-written material kicks pulp fiction for six ... if you have the time, the patience and the wherewithal of mind to realize the possibilities offered - for staid and dull campaigns like the party being captured by bandits, among a thousand other possible adventures.

One of my favorite examples of the Illustrated library was one called The King of the Mountains (Le roi des montagnes), which is so wonderfully obscure now there isn't even a wikipedia entry for it.  That is, in English.  The French Wikisource has an entry.  The author was Edmond Francois Valentin About, who was extraordinarily popular in his day.

The story of the King of the Mountains is about an ordinary German botanist who, while collecting plants north of Athens in and about About's day, is kidnapped by a bandit chieftain in the mountains, who then insists that he must write a letter in order to obtain a ransom of 600 pounds.  The bandit, Hadji Stavros, is extraordinarily charismatic, strong-willed and temperamental, and enjoys the loyalty of a large number of men.  The bandit is also heavily involved in the business and maintenance of the countryside around Athens, even contributing some of his own money to the repair of roads (2,540 francs), as they had gotten so bad no one would travel them, "leaving us no one to rob."  The King has a daughter in school, upon whom he tries to impress virtue, and he loans his men occasionally to persons of his family to fight in war.

I stole all this for my campaign, and I'm confessing it now.  I am concerned with the party's perception of me now, since they seem to believe that I thought the whole thing up on my own.  However, as T.S. Eliot said, "Good writers borrow, great writers steal."  I needed something extraordinary for the adventure, something that climbed to a higher ideal, and Edmond About had conveniently supplied it for me.

Incidentally, when I grew older and obtained a copy of the original book - translated, I'm afraid, I don't read French - I discovered the plotline of the original book was very little like the Classics Illustrated comic.  This, naturally, was rather enjoyable, as it enabled me to read the book for the first time as a thing in which I did not know everything that was about to happen.  I would strongly recommend the book.

I would strongly recommend reading a lot of intelligent, complex, difficult, proven literature that's been created by dedicated authors these past 28 centuries of human development (and Gilgamesh too, if you must), instead of all the worthless crap that's been written since the 1940s.  If you did, you might begin to understand why I am so angry about the film that was described so nastily in the last post, and about the simple-minded fanboy culture that permeates the D&D world right now.

There is better than this.  Players deserve better than this.

If you are interested (and I have to laugh at how juvenile it is now), I did find a copy of the classic comic online.  You should be able to find a copy of the real book if you bother to search - and of a thousand other real books besides.

Toss Appendix N into the trash heap.

If There Was Ever A Stupid Idea...

It is nice to have laurels to rest upon.

I launched the idea of running an online campaign on a blog on February 18, 2009, just nine months after starting this blog in the first place, with the post, Stupid Ideas of Mine.  I did start such a campaign, at first on this blog, and then on a blog of its own - which has been more practical.  The first campaign limped along, and was joined by a second, then a third campaign ... these last two not having the necessary legs.  So it goes.

After the first campaign sputtered out, there was a long period in which I did not run online.  However, back in September 2011, I decided I would pick it up again.  Throughout that month, I gathered four new players, and together we started the new campaign on September 23.  It has been ongoing continuously for one year (less two days).

During that time we have had massive fights, played with complex magic, explored ruined ships, had an outdoor campaign, had an underground campaign, fought in a war and had brief dalliances with potential love.  It has been everything an ordinary campaign might be ... and despite the method, I think I've proved now that I can do EVERY kind of running with just text alone.  The players have proved that it is worth it to them to struggle and try to succeed, and get along as best they can.

It is strange to me that what makes credibility online with the community is not how well you can play, but how NICE you are.  That there is the fundamental flaw in the community itself - and for those long time players who can look back at the years between the 70s and now, it has ALWAYS been the flaw.  If you've been part of groups founded on campuses, inside gaming stores or at community centres, the one measure of the DM that simply does not rate mention is ability to play.  The jackass with the key to the gaming room is often a major representative ... the DM whose mother organizes the convention is another.  And lest we forget the player who's day job provides enough money to buy all the figures, all the table time and especially the booth where in convention after convention he or she sits and signs autographs.

Can he or she play?  Who the fuck knows.  Does it matter?  Clearly not.  You don't need to know jack shit about playing in order to design packaged content for gaming companies ... that much is obvious.  What you need is a connection, a completely bland personality and the ability to be NICE for year after year as you spout absolutely the same drivel over, and over, and over again.  You need to be able to write pandering, useless articles for the dragon magazine online with a marvelous plastic smile plastered Romney-like over your features.  You need to beam widely at paying audiences while you take money from the conventioneers because 90 years ago you scrawled something on graph-paper while you and the Great G burped Dr. Pepper together.  It is how well you genuflect, how miraculously devoid of substance are the panegyrics you write, how fantabulously sexy and immaterial are your Los Angeles connections, and how long you can keep this going without your nightly self-esteem-induced vomiting overwhelming you.  So long as you are likeable, for the Love Of The Game, no one will ask you whether you can play the fucking thing or not.

There was a stupid idea at the core of my question three years ago, but it wasn't whether or not it was possible, or fun, to run an online campaign with a blog.  It has been, it will continue to be, I see us going forward and I know that after a year the players are beginning to TRUST that the effort they make today will have a chance to materialize.  No, the stupid idea I had three and a half years ago was that it would buy me some sort of credibility; that readers might see that, despite my volatile and oh so acerbic bitterness, there was REAL substance behind the vitriol.  I deluded myself in thinking that with solid evidence that I could construct a campaign, design a complex world that had continuity, advance the characters through that world in a pure sandbox style, and carry it on for a long time, would wake people the fuck up and realize that I'm only acerbic when I am opposing the mind set that makes that value set impossible.

People would rather read nice people.

Even if the nice people are deadly dull.

Laws, chillins, write what you want, but there's no place in the world for bloggers who use words like 'bastard' ... no, chillins, no!  That's why we burned that miserable, self-absorbed film Ratatouille that depicted a child born out of wedlock, yes'm, yes'm!  Only use GOOD words, chillins ... else you're soul will never walk with Jesus!

Not that I think, for one second, that D&D is the only past-time to which this kind of ignorance applies.

The Taking Of The Southeast Tower

Sometimes, I think if I had a few fast typists on payroll, plus a programmer, I could run the world.  If all I had to do was talk ... hah ... I could probably manage ten or twelve parties at a time.

My online campaign just reached a high point in their adventure.  Feel free to comment here, if the mood takes you.

This is the game, dear readers.  All the rest of the writing on this blog is not a patch to actually playing.

Comments on the Online Campaign

I wondered how many people reading this blog also have a glance at the other one representing the Online Campaign.  One of the players there said he tried to get a friend to read along, but that the blog-posts were hard to follow for someone who wasn't actually playing.  I had hoped when I started the campaign that it might show off something of my dungeon mastering style, and therefore lend credibility to the arrogant, intolerant positions I tend to take on this blog about D&D and how it ought to be played.  I wonder if that worked.

I've also heard it said that non-players of the campaign have nowhere to voice their opinions.  If you could, voice them here.  Don't feel they have to be positive opinions - I'm not opposed to criticism, so long as its positive and not directed in a personal manner.