Welcome Ainsley

Bout time you came around

Welcome to our little slice of quasi-reality.

YAYYYYYYY!!!

*jumps up and down for the newcomer*

Welcome, welcome, welcome!!!

*a little more dignified*

Would you like some pie?

Hey, I'm all about pie. Lemon meringue in particular.

Sorry about taking so long to get over here, but I finally made it. I'm one of GoldenDrakon's crazy old friends from the Air Force days, and I was hosting a half-breed "D&D 3.25" campaign over on these forums before the game fizzled out from lack of interest. A forum game from the swords-and-sorcery genre trying to survive on a forum dedicated to the superhero genre...yeah, I should have seen that train coming.

But I finally took the invitation and came over, and I brought Akamaz with me. That's him playing Corwin Ainsley, the bastard son of an outcast Ainsley noblewoman and an unknown father (whose identity he can only guess...but his guesses are getting narrowed down towards certainty, despite his mother's wishes). After betraying his cruel and overbearing mother and imprisoning her in the cellar beneath their hovel, Corwin set out on his own and became a privateer, and then a trader...and, perhaps soon, a pirate who lives and dies about fifty years before the present time of the campaign.

If it's all right with you two, I would love to make a complete transition over here, starting with the transfers of the campaign's character creation resources for any new players who wish to join in. And Akamaz and I can copy-paste our posts from Corwin's prologue chapter (Chapter Zero: The Devils of Tides, a chapter in progress), which should give any new players a chance to catch up with Akamaz. And yes, that's me as The Widowed, the name of my flagship superheroine from the City of Heroes/Villains MMOG.

I also fine-tuned and prettied up the House of Ainsley's family tree, so that any newcoming players can better decide where in the family tree they want their characters to be...which relations, which generation and such. Yes, it's possible to create and play characters who lived centuries before the campaign's present time. Yes, the player-characters will eventually be united together, along with various others from the family tree, past and present. Take from this what you will.

(I'm trying to be mum about the House of Ainsley's ultimate fate this time around, but that may or may not hold up for very long. I'll hold off on transferring some of the resource topics over, just to see how long I can suspend the suspense.... )

Anyhoo, if it's all right with all y'alls, where would you like me to re-begin with the story? And do folks here tend to prefer the warrior types, the mage types or the sneaky types?

*chuckles*

Ainsley, you do realize that it is doubtful that anyone will know anything about what you are saying...

Anyhoo, as crappy as it might be, you may wish to consider starting over.... PM myself or Wraith for more discussion on this.

Ah, but you know me. I'm all about baby-stepping new players through a game system they might not be familiar. You remember how I walked you guys through your first GURPS and Marvel Superheroesvillains characters, right?

And sometimes, I even integrate the baby-stepping as part of the prologue or introductory adventure. I learned that from playing Morrowind. It's a lot more seamless that way.

Hmm...but you were wanting to set up your own forum D&D campaign, weren't you?

Hmm.

Parallel universes, anyone?

And GD is right...

Most of that wonderful information just flew over my head. But I'm happy to oblige and give you this: *Lemon Meringue*

About your story - its fantastic the level of your enthusiasm, but as GD has stated... well, the creation of a game on your part would be a fine addition to this humble community. And I'm sure that Baby Stepping would definitely needed, unfortunately.

GD is a little more clued in, so speaking to him about it might be fruitful.

As for different games running, there should be no problem, but again, this is new territory for this forum, so it may take some time to get things running.

And so far, people have been playing the Warrior type roles in RPs. A few Mage-like appearances... but alas, not many.

corwin is... well.. he's corwin. I'll be assisting umm.. the house of ainsley (damn that's cumbersome wids.. how we gonna make a nickname outta that?)

also, is it possible to change your username on this forum? since i expect i'll be posting mostly as Corwin Ainsley, i'd like to change my username to that. do the mods have that capability?

Sure do, just send me a PM requesting change of details and I'll get on it.

I expect though, that once you start posting some more, if you wish to do some other things - it probably might not be a good idea to change your name again. But now's fine, seeing as you're new here.

Wraith wrote:

And GD is right...

Most of that wonderful information just flew over my head. But I'm happy to oblige and give you this: *Lemon Meringue*

Huttah!

Wraith wrote:

About your story - its fantastic the level of your enthusiasm, but as GD has stated... well, the creation of a game on your part would be a fine addition to this humble community. And I'm sure that Baby Stepping would definitely needed, unfortunately.

That would be pretty simple, actually. First, I'd set up a topic where interested players could sign up (similar to a topic which formerly existed on the CoHGuru forums but has since ceased to exist). To facilitate things, I'd include topics featuring all the campaign's available Classes, Alignments and Races to move things along and give the potential players an idea of what they would like to play before they sign in. Then I would generate three sets of Abilities (ye olde Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma) for each newcoming player; the player could then pick one set for his or her character and swap any two Ability scores to match his or her liking. (Players whose characters are part of the Ainsley family tree--by blood and/or by marriage--would take this time to review the family tree and choose their places in it; this will have a bearing on the character's fate after the House of Ainsley falls in a great and hitherto unnamed disaster....)

Then I would plunk down some topics for the selection of Skills, Feats, bonus Languages and starting equipment items; players could then pick and choose whatever suits their tastes and their character concepts. These lists would remain standing for future reference in the campaign; just because a character can't have the Endure Sunlight feat at character creation doesn't mean that the character couldn't acquire the Feat (after first being transformed into a vampire or a wight) later.

And then I would wrap everything up neatly and tidily in a Directory topic, for current and future reference. And I swear, I might actually finish working on all of these topics this time....

Simple, yes?

Wraith wrote:

As for different games running, there should be no problem, but again, this is new territory for this forum, so it may take some time to get things running.

And so far, people have been playing the Warrior type roles in RPs. A few Mage-like appearances... but alas, not many.

No problem. Warriors make the world go around (usually by acting as the speed bumps between their mage buddies and the angry colossal beasties coming at them...).

a question for you HoA, would i still be using Corwin a is, or would he be rerolled?

The House of Ainsley wrote:

That would be pretty simple, actually. First, I'd set up a topic where interested players could sign up (similar to a topic which formerly existed on the CoHGuru forums but has since ceased to exist). To facilitate things, I'd include topics featuring all the campaign's available Classes, Alignments and Races to move things along and give the potential players an idea of what they would like to play before they sign in. Then I would generate three sets of Abilities (ye olde Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma) for each newcoming player; the player could then pick one set for his or her character and swap any two Ability scores to match his or her liking. (Players whose characters are part of the Ainsley family tree--by blood and/or by marriage--would take this time to review the family tree and choose their places in it; this will have a bearing on the character's fate after the House of Ainsley falls in a great and hitherto unnamed disaster....)

Then I would plunk down some topics for the selection of Skills, Feats, bonus Languages and starting equipment items; players could then pick and choose whatever suits their tastes and their character concepts. These lists would remain standing for future reference in the campaign; just because a character can't have the Endure Sunlight feat at character creation doesn't mean that the character couldn't acquire the Feat (after first being transformed into a vampire or a wight) later.

And then I would wrap everything up neatly and tidily in a Directory topic, for current and future reference. And I swear, I might actually finish working on all of these topics this time....

Simple, yes?

Quite... but generally we call them OOC (Out Of Character) topics and usually use just the one thread for them, or risk cluttering the forum up. Especially since we're going to have several games running.

S.E.A.M.U.S wrote:

a question for you HoA, would i still be using Corwin a is, or would he be rerolled?

Corwin has worked out pretty well as a character so far. Why change him now?

I do remember you posting that he was Lawful Evil at one point and Neutral Evil at another, though. Which did you finally decide to go with? Either would make sense, given his overbearing mother and the rest of his background. Lawful Evil pirate captains aren't the most common (with Chaotic Evil captains leading the numbers and with Neutral Evil captains and Chaotic Neutral captains not far behind), but you can bet their crews would be pretty well organized and effective (even if pirates, being the free spirits that they tend to be, would grumble and threaten mutiny now and then...). But a Lawful Evil band of pirates would be less a scraggly band of rabble and more a small paramilitary band of naval terrorists or insurgents with standards of service, an established system of meritocratic dominance and perhaps even a determined code of honor, as far as I see.

Neutral Evil would be the happy medium, of course, with some inevitable discord in the ranks and with Corwin both establishing hardline rules and ruling through "might makes right" (and at times tweaking or breaking his own rules, even if only on a whim) in roughly equal measure. It's up to you.

Wraith wrote:

Quite... but generally we call them OOC (Out Of Character) topics and usually use just the one thread for them, or risk cluttering the forum up. Especially since we're going to have several games running.

So I'd have to find a way to condense all the resource topics into one topic, then? I'd definitely have to edit in a Table of Contents in the first post, just to keep the topic itself from getting unmanageably cluttered. I think I can do that, though.

either that or ask politely for a DnD section to post resources and such.

Hmmm...there's a thought. Common resource topics for two (or more) D&D 3.X games. Not a bad concept. What would our rednames here think about that?

Wouldn't having their own sections (for more than one game) also be a little confusing?

I've been running a game on a forum for a few years and what I thought did the trick was editing my first post. It has all of the information that I've added to the thread, complete with a list of contents that links the clicker to that particular post. Granted, you can only use so many characters in a post - so post secondly and thirdly to give yourself enough room.

If you keep within your own threads, there shouldn't be too much mess or confusion. (as I understand, each game will be different storylines, though the same rules)

However, making a forum specifically for our DnD games could be possible as well - we'll see what Golden Drakon has to say about it.

Don't forget Ainsley that not only are you putting up resource topics for your games, but also allowing OOC discussion between the players.

Wraith wrote:

However, making a forum specifically for our DnD games could be possible as well - we'll see what Golden Drakon has to say about it.

That's pretty much what the CoHGuru site did. The RPG forum kept the forum games separated from the "mainstream" stuff (the superhero topics and such), while the subforums within that forum were good for keeping the forum games separated from each other, so that my House of Ainsley campaign wouldn't cross the streams with someone else's Champions campaign and all the rest.

Wraith wrote:

Don't forget Ainsley that not only are you putting up resource topics for your games, but also allowing OOC discussion between the players.

I did that before, too. Unfortunately, the "OOC Banter" thread was one of the casualties when they redid the forums over there, so that annoyed me a bit.

Anyhow, I'll get to work on these topics tomorrow and see what I can come up with. Hurray for days off!