Message-Id: <199708310542.BAA25980@bobbi-harlow.MIT.EDU>
To: yoav@MIT.EDU, rshah@MIT.EDU, shabby@MIT.EDU, ringrose@ai.mit.edu,
        jboerj@sapient.MIT.EDU, ntorres@MIT.EDU, dkk@MIT.EDU, sst@MIT.EDU,
        jerrod@MIT.EDU, melsod@MIT.EDU, jhsung@MIT.EDU, merlin@dimins.com,
        mwhitson@MIT.EDU, winston@MIT.EDU
Cc: yandros@dimins.com
Subject: That Campaign I was talking about running... 
Date: Sun, 31 Aug 1997 01:42:27 EDT
From: chad brown <yandros@MIT.EDU>


Notes of world setting, character building, and getting things started...

  There has apparently been some confusion about what I've told
  various peope about how the campaign will go.  I'm hoping that this
  will clear some things up for some of you; for others, this will be
  almost entirely new information.

  Many people have asked me what world is used for the setting, and
  have been confused by my answers, so, for the most part, disregard
  anything that you heard before this.

  The real answer to ``What world is the campaign set in?'' is ``it
  doesn't matter.''  A better question would be ``What's the world of
  the campaign setting?''.  The answer would be ``TSR's Advanced
  Dungeons and Dragons, 2nd edition, with the Tome of Magic and the
  Player's Option and DM's Option books added as well.''  This is more
  informative, but might still confuse people.  I'll attempt to clear
  up this confusion.

  The Optiverse campaign, as I've taken to calling it until you guys
  give it a real name, is about a group of people, not a world.  The
  first adventure takes place in ``Generic Fantasy World'', which you
  can consider to be something like the Forgotten Realms but without
  all of the FR particulars, or you can think of it more like `AD&D
  Land' - that place where all `plain AD&D' adventures took place
  before TSR started selling world information as fast as someone
  could type it in.

  The campaign centers around this group of adventurers, of which you
  (should you chose to join us) would be an established part.
  Questions about the group's history, such as `how the group formed'
  and `how did I come to join the group' are interesting questions
  that we'll answer once we know who's in the group and what they're
  interested in doing.  I'm leaving that mostly up to the players,
  although I reserve the right to `guide' your history down certain
  paths.  You have all been members of this group for some time now;
  you've been working together long enough that you have a good idea
  of each other's skills, abilities, personalities, and traits, and
  you are, if not all friends, at least close companions.

  At least two of you are from This world (the `Generic Fantasy World'
  of the first adventure).  The others of you can be from any place
  that you'd like...  but you have to be able to explain it to me, and
  I have to approve.  More on the explaining part later; first we talk
  about constraints.
  
  o The characters that you create are all non-adversarial companions.
    If you want to play a character that often argues, complains,
    gripes about, competes with, completely trusts, is in love with,
    or secretly envies another character, that's great, but there are
    no two compleely incompatible personalities in the group (at
    least, not at the start. :-)

  o The characters that you create are all Adventurers.  They might be
    somewhat unwilling adventurers, but they are adventurers
    nonetheless.  Mages enjoy field research and active hunting of new
    Art.  Thieves enjoy new challenges in the forms of new people and
    places, and both Warriors and Priests are not at a point where
    they want to settle down.
  
  o The characters that you create are all taken from the Player's
    Handbook (PH), the Tome of Magic (ToM), Skills and Powers (S&P),
    Combat and Tactics (C&T) and Spells and Magic (S&M) books.  None
    of the `Complete Handbooks' are available.  In particular, all of
    the races and classes described in S&P are available, and the
    Character Point (CP) system is used throughout.  If you have a
    *very* strong wish to play something else, consider making a
    special request, but please keep in mind that I want to try
    playing close to the books.  There will be no dragon PC's in this
    campaign. :-)
  
  o The characters that you create, with the exception of two people,
    can be from any place that the player would like to describe to my
    satisfaction and approval.  As I said before, at least two of the
    characters are from this world, although they haven't necessarily
    been on this world for all of the time between then and now.
    Characters can be `from' the Forgotten Realms, PlaneScape, Dark
    Sun (although these characters have stats according to the books
    listed above!), Mystara, Greyhawk, DragonLance (before or after),
    Delic, Valley, Arcadia, M.I.T., Fivtoria, or A Land Called
    Hon-ah-lee.  Players should determine what type of character
    they'd like to have and then work with me and possibly other
    players to create histories.  Regardless of background, you will
    find that, for whatever reason, tech level and Modus Operandi
    somehow stays about the same while you're here.
  
  o One of the first things that the players should do is come up with a
    name for the adventuring group.  This will depend on the
    characters as a group and individually, so I'd much rather that
    you do it than I.  The things that I do impose are that the group
    is a somewhat successful group of people that has shared more than
    a couple adventures, possibly in several far-off, fantastic
    places.  The party doesn't have to be made up of preachy,
    better-than-thou, virtuous do-gooders, but the party *does*
    generally do what's `right', although they typically expect to get
    rewarded for it.
  
  o The composition of the group can be whatever the players determine.
    I can tell you now that there is one human wizard character.
    Party balance will largely be controlled by reasonableness on my
    part and yours.  For example, if everyone else in the party
    decides that they also want to play mages, then the party could be
    wandering coven, ala Ars Magica, wandering around expanding their
    Art and righting wrongs while building their influence and
    reputation.  Alternately, the part could decide to style itself
    more like a special-purpose mercenary outfit, with established
    combat roles for its people, who are well-trained men, women, and
    other who operate with military precision (what a great term!),
    and who also happen to be mages, rogues, priests, and warriors.
    Or, you could be a group of wandering performers - magicians,
    jugglers, actors, and musicians, who just happens to sometimes
    (ok, often) get caught up in matters outside the simepl idleness
    of their normal lifestyles...  Whatever -- you get the idea.  The
    main point is that I want the players to create characters that
    they think will make the campaign more fun.  I'll worry about
    party balance.
  
  o The size of the group also depends on what you choose to do, but
    since I expect that there's a reasonable chance that some of you
    might (*gasp*) die, I will probably make use of some kludge like
    ``the group is larger than just the n of you, but the others are
    off doing other things right now.  Other members of your group
    (known to all of you) may or may not be on their way, depending on
    when they can get free.''  Because of this hack, there is some
    leeway in characters `coming and going' to and from the campaign,
    but because the campaign is centered so strongly around the group,
    in order for the campaign to be enjoyable, the group needs to
    maintain consistency and focus.  In short, I intend to use this
    mechanic more for explaining new characters than fot adding and
    removing new characters every week.
  
  o Some of you may have noticed that I've pretty consistently left
    psionics out of the lists of character classes I've made up to
    this point.  While I am currently thinking that I am willing to
    allow psionicists into the campaign, I'm not certain that I really
    think that that's a good idea, and I may change my mind in the
    future.  If you want to play a psionicist, then talk to me, and
    tell me a good story about your life as a young psionicist.
    Psionicist characters will be monitored very carefully by me, and
    not all powers are likely to be available to people.  Psi's will
    use the suggested character point allocation from Dragon magazine
    if we can find it; if not, then psi's will have to take the
    non-customized class options as listed in S&P.  Note that if psi's
    are actually played, then access to _The Will and the Way_ and
    _The Complete Psionicists Handbook_ are recomended.  Consider
    psi's discouraged but not ruled out - you'll need a
    well-thought-out idea to make me happy about it. :-)

  
  There is also One Big Rules Change: Experience.  Rather than handing
  out XP and asking players to keep track of new levels, I will be
  keeping track of how you are advancing and let you know when you
  reach new levels.  In doing this I hope to soften out some of the
  obvious jarringnessess of levels in the system.  Rewards that might
  have typically been given in terms of bonus XP will instead be
  rewarded either completely in game terms, or by granting bonus CPs.

  How powerful is this team, anyway?  What level characters should you
  create, then?  For purposes of multi- and dual classing, create your
  characters with 20,000 XP - about 5th level for single-classed
  characters.  Although it depends on the size and composition of the
  group, I suspect that you will find that single-classed characters
  are generally better off than multi-classed characters, especially
  given the extreme flexibility of the Player's Option series.
  Keep in mind that picking a good character concept and executing it
  well is the best way to advance.  From previous interest, I expect
  there to be roughly 6 members of the team, mostly around 5th level.

  I expect a fair amount of the uniqueness and fun of the campaign to
  come out of the group of us starting more or less from the rules as
  they are in the books (I will be *not* using many of the `standard
  house rules') and then making things special with the details.  It
  would probably make more sense to say ``I want to start with the
  base rules as printed in the books'' than to say ``I want to play
  with the rules as they are printed in the books'', since I fully
  intend to use the books for rules rather than background and to
  modify the rules where it makes sense (but remember that many things
  are inaccurate to make game paly faster/simpler/happier).  Just
  because you choose to create a warrior doesn't mean that you should
  go out and figure out how to build the best Textbook Fighter you
  can..  Here are some ways in which I expect that things will differ
  from what I've come to know as `standard house-rules AD&D':

  o while I will be happiest when charisma is roleplayed well, I will
    be using it more or less as the book described, making reaction
    and loyalty checks whenever appropriate.  Being an effective
    leader of a group or being able to discuss things with hostile
    creatures both require charisma.

  o spells and items won't all be taken directly from the books.
    Really.

  o the C&T combat system once again takes the combat system away from
    the longsword; at least in my opinion.  While it is still an
    excellent weapon, with the revised weapon speed and facing/reach
    mechanics, it is once again worthwhie to carry other weapons. :-)

  o use of fatigue and encumbrance rules will prevent everyone from
    immediately wanting to split strength with Muscle up and Stamina
    down.


  Scheduling-wise, I'm currently planning on waiting for the term to
  start and class/work schedules to become available before scheduling
  runs, but I don't currently expect to run more often that every
  other week.  I believe that we can schedule around problems for
  almost anyone with a strong interest.

  Well, I think I've babbled on about this more than enough for now..
  Let me know if you have any questions or comments, and *Please* let
  me know if you're interested.