Well, I spent a week in Utah visiting with my family. It’s the first time in a few years that all of us have been together, and it may be the last time in quite a while. However, we were so busy that we never had time to play the role-playing adventure that I had prepared: Dawn Comes Early.
I proposed that we try it as a play-by-email (PBE) game, so that we could still play it without a single large time investment. So far I have tentative commitments from my 4 brothers and 1 nephew. However, the adventure has 6 PC’s, so we will need another player.
Also I’m not certain that all of my brothers are equally enthusiastic, so I’m going to have (semi) open recruiting for this game.
The game is called Lord of the Rings Adventure game, and it is essentially a super-simplified and stripped down version of the Middle-Earth Role-Playing Game published by the now defunct Iron Crown Enterprises.
The mechanics are so simplified that the entire rule book is only 34 pages (in fact it is called ‘The Guidelines’ and encourages the DM to appropriate judgments on the fly when problems not explained in the rules arrive). There are only 4 classes: scout, warrior, ranger, and bard. The scout is pretty much your standard rouge, warrior and ranger as self-explanatory to anyone that has played D&D, and bard is the class that is best at magic. In keeping with the flavor of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, magic is not particularly powerful or common. There are only 15 total spells in the entire game, and they are all similar in power to a 1st or 2nd level spell in D&D. Not only that, but casting spells does not use up spell points or memorized spell slots, but actually uses hit points! Magic is definitely something to be rationed.
The 6 characters for the adventure are the following:
1. Tolman Greenthumb – Hobbit Scout
2. Lily Greenthumb – Hobbit Scout
3. Galind – Elf Bard
4. Tatharina – Human Bard
5. Glain – Dwarf Warrior
6. Rilwen – Half-Elf Ranger
The story lead in is the following: Near the town of Bree, Tolman Greenthumb has discovered why there have been so many sheep disappearing from the flocks around the town recently: a troll is in the area! However someone has accused Tolman himself of stealing the sheep, and he is in the lockhouse until his guilt or innocence is proven. His sister Lily believes him though, and has asked her friends to help. They need to rescue Tolman and do something about the troll!
So, brothers and friends of mine, who is interested? I guarantee that as a PC the time commitment will be minimal. You don’t have to post for your character any more often than the DM does, and I certainly won’t be able to do much more (probably less) than one turn a day. If I have over 6 people wanting to play, I’ll either give preference towards those that seem the most interested, or I’ll consider making more characters (although more characters means more work for me, so maybe not). Generally posting for your character can be done in a short email, consisting of what actions and emotes your character does, what your character says, and any OOC (out-of-character) questions or comments. My time commitment in the two play-by-post games I play in is less than 5 minutes a day.
Let me know here in the comments section with your email or just email me directly (my email is on the contact page) and I’ll send you a pdf of the Guidelines and some more details on the characters.
Count me in. I pick the Dwarven warrior if he is not already chosen.
Also it occurs to me that a blogspot like format may be of some value especially with the DM posting and player actions occurring in the comments. Makes it easy to see where the scene is and allows an easy RSS feed to help remind you to respond, but doesn’t suffer from email’s getting crossed with a central depository
Well, the other way to handle this would be to do it as a play-by-post game, where we would all post on a bulletin board. This is how the two games that I play on sakeriver.com and myth-weavers.com handle it. However I don’t have the know-how to set up a bulletin board on my website.
The game I’m in on sakeriver started out as a play-by-email and then changed to a play-by-post. When were were doing it via email, after every encounter or chapter, the DM would put everything together on a website for archival. I think I could at least do something similar to that on moroha.
I would like to be Rilwen, the half elf ranger, i would like to say that since this is my first PBE i would like to not go first
Well, there really is no ‘going first’ or such until we get into combat in which case your agility determines the initiative order. You’ll get the hang of it pretty quickly I think.
I’d like to be the hobbit sister who’s going to break her brother out of jail.
Sanford’s top three picks are, in order:
1 Glain – Dwarf Warrior
2 Galind – Elf Bard
3 Rilwen – Half-Elf Ranger
I shall go ahead and take on the role of Tolman Greenthumb, if available.