The following is a draft of an email describing a D&D campaign I might run sometime. Some Background Information (Not In Complete Sentences) ============================ Island, quite small, fairly settled. Elven kingdom, human kingdom, orcish kingdom. Orcish kingdom warlike; elven kingdom peaceful. Human kingdom in middle serves as buffer. The orcs attack the human kingdom about once every thirty years; bunches and bunches of them come riding down from the hills and get generally slaughtered. Humans are used to it; they use good technology and defenses to keep casualties down. Humans have tried attacking orcs back, but that didn't work out at all. (Terrain issues: human cavalry good on plains but not in hills.) Humans worship mostly Pelor, god of humans. Orcs worship Grumsh; elves worship Carellon Lareithan. Other gods (Hieroneous, Boccob, Moradin, Yondalla, etc) are quite minor. The game will begin in Silverdale, the largest village of the elven forests. Population is about two thousand. Recall, the island is _small_. There are no other known islands; those with K:history know tales of a magical apocalypse in the distant past. Character Planning =================== The campaign will be a fairly cohesive one, in which the party tries to accomplish a single objective. Combat will occur frequently, and the characters will not always have the luxury of seeking out their enemies at their own pace. Please build a character who will be useful in combat; expecting your allies to defend you is a disservice to them, and additionally will get you less experience. Rogues and bards are explicitly forbidden. The campaign will begin in an elven town. All PHB races (including half-orcs) are permitted, but players are encouraged to play elves. Wood-elves and grey-elves do not exist on this island. Recall that the primary threat on the island is that of orcish invasion. Rangers will likely have orcs as favored enemy. Experienced warriors likely gained that experience in one of the orc-human wars. No restrictions are explicitly placed on your character's alignment. However, this is not a Paranoia game; inter-party bickering will be frowned upon. Please create a character that will like and respect the other party members (potentially including paladins), and will be liked and respected by them. Details ======== Please generate characters at first level (with 500 experience). Characters may gain levels quite rapidly; you may be expected to level your character mid-session, so please plan at least one level in advance. Use 28-point point buy to generate your stats (described on DMG p20, or in 28pt.txt). We will not roll dice for hit points; instead, we will take the average result (rounded up) for each hit die. (So, a fourth-level fighter with a 10 CON would have 10+6+6+6=28 HP.) Characters begin with the average starting gold for their character class (listed in the PHB). It is unlikely that characters will be able to use item creation feats during the campaign. Knowledge skills will be rewarded. Information on certain events may be available only to those with a certain number of ranks in a knowledge skill (no check required). Examples of knowledge skills that might be useful include (but are not limited to) Knowledge: orcs, Knowledge: history, Knowledge: local, Knowledge: religion, Knowledge: planes, and Knowledge: arcana. The PHB, DMG, MM, and five class sourcebooks are potentially canon for this campaign. Certain classes and spells (notably Spikes, Miasma, and Polyother) may be subject to errata. If I discover a need to errata something that you have already incorporated into your character, I will permit you to rearrange your character as necessary so as not to penalize you for being effective. Custom character classes, spells, et cetera, are strongly discouraged: I prefer that you discover new spells and classes rather than create them. If you must create something custom, the policy is that you send me a general idea of what you want, and I send you back the exact numbers. Logistics ========== So, you read through all that, and you're still interested? Great! Type up a character sheet online and send it to me. I will make copies and print them out before each session. Examples of the format I prefer are available online at: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dkb1/dnd/fendel.txt http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dkb1/dnd/menet.txt http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dkb1/dnd/yennu.txt In addition to the sorts of things on those sheets, you should send me an idea of where your character will be going during the next few levels. Like, tell me what classes you're planning to take and what weapons/spells/techniques you plan to use in combat. This is mostly for your protection: it would suck if you spent five levels building towards a prestige class and then found out that class didn't exist in this world. You should also send me some sort of a character background, enough for me to get some idea of your character's personality. Roleplaying positive traits is much harder than roleplaying negative ones; they will be rewarded proportionately.