Your Character in the World

Your Character in the World

Your character has travelled to Blasingdell, making your way to The Windy Goat. As you approached the village, you are overcome by a general warm feeling of being ‘home’ and a desire to protect it.
Characters begin at 1st level. You can choose character options from the Player’s Handbook, Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, and Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything.
You can use the “Customizing Your Origin” feature from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything.
Build well-rounded characters able to interact with the denizens of Ashein, travel the dusty roads, explore the ancient landscape, and battle the beasts blighting this beautiful land.

Roleplaying Social Contract

1. Roleplaying is a game. Games should be fun. If it’s not fun, it’s okay to quit.
2. Roleplaying is social. One person’s fun should not be at the expense of another’s.
3. Roleplaying is based on trust. Trust is based on honesty. No cheating or lying (even by omission).

Rules Disputes:

• I will make a judgement call during the game. (I will usually try to rule in favour of the player, unless it looks like it will seriously derail the game)
• After the game is over, we can look up rules disputes and set a precedent for next time.
• Time Machine Rule: If someone forgets a rule, or bonus, there is no “taking back actions” to correct the problem. The game moves forward, not backwards, in time.

Characters:

• Characters should be created with the party in mind. That is, they should have a reason to cooperate and trust each other.
• Characters should be basically “good.” I don’t enjoy self-centred jerks in real life; I have no desire to play with them as characters.
• Your character’s personality is your choice. I will not force your character to “develop” unless you talk to me in advance about the character-development arc you want to play out.

Intraparty Conflict:

• If you want to do something bad to another PC, you must get permission from that PC’s player. This includes, but is not limited to, stealing possessions and peeing in their beer.
• If you don’t like something another PC does, discuss it out of game with that PC’s player. Do not “react in character” by attacking the PC or anything of the sort.
• I will not allow the game to be used as a tool for bullying or passive-aggressive behaviour.

Dissatisfaction:

• If you don’t like the way the game is going, tell me. Tell me what you want to happen, what you wish had happened, and what you didn’t like happening.
• If you don’t feel comfortable criticizing my game, ask someone else to relay the message anonymously to me.
• If someone complains to you about the game, relay it to me, anonymously.
• Rolling the dice means you are prepared to accept a poor roll. Be a good sport about bad luck.

Other ‘rules’:

• Critical hits will follow the ‘Perfect Roll’ rule, i.e. add a maximum damage die to the damage total
• When integrating a new PC (someone joins the game), put aside all sorts of "I don't trust you, new guy" crap and just bring them in.
• The game world is not a shooting gallery. Expect consequences for doing bad things to NPCs.
• If a player can’t make a session, we will continue the game as long as there is a minimum of 2 players. If there is only 1 player available, we will wait until the next session there is a minimum of 2
• The DM can be bribed.

Safety Tools

The adventure will feature themes of darkness, body horror, evil spirits, sacrifice, murder, and paranoia. Lines. This game will not contain unwanted sexual contact, animal abuse or cruelty, party-initiated torture, inter-party violence, or inter-party betrayal.

Veils

Cannibalism, mental assault, kidnapping, consensual sex, enemy-initiated torture, or parasitic invasion will be “veiled” off-screen.
If there are any topics that you are not comfortable with, please let me know privately before the game and we can make arrangements. Your enjoyment is a priority over ‘plot’.
If at any time you don’t feel comfortable with the content or direction of the game, say “pause for a second” in voice chat and we will stop the game and address your concerns, privately if necessary.

Final Thoughts

This campaign is ‘homebrew’, there is no single ‘end game’. Think of it as a long running saga, with many plots, villains, stories, ending when we all feel that we’ve had enough, whether that’s 10 weeks, 10 months or 10 years!
Players come and go. Over time, if you know someone who’d enjoy playing with us and would fit in, then bring it up with the rest of the group. An ideal party size is between 3 and 5, it allows for more rounded encounters and prevents cancellations if some players can’t join. Any more than that becomes a real struggle.
We do have minimum technical requirements however (PC, microphone – no tablets!).
Running a campaign takes a huge amount of my time and effort. If you’d like to assist in any way, please let me know. Whether that’s tracking inventory, writing up session encounters for recording in the wiki or helping towards the subscriptions used to run and expand the game, all help is appreciated.
Finally, this is all about us having fun. That includes you and me. When it stops being fun it becomes painful, please let me know if there’s anything that you don’t enjoy, or anything that you would like more of.
Your DM, Phil