The Campaign Builder's Guild

I use Opera for my day-to-day. Mouse Gestures FTW. I've downloaded an add-on for firefox to do the same but I don't like it as much. Plus I love Opera's Speed Dial, the transfers tab, the way you can do stuff like 'g something' and it googles 'something', Opera can be used as a bit torrent... Yeah, I love Opera above all others.

My problem with Opera would be that it doesn't open all pages properly. But that's ok, I can live with that.

For work though (www.gm.com <-- that's all me ;) Not alone, but yeah) I use firefox because of Firebug, YSlow and colorzilla. When I develop pages I do it in Firefox so obviously I hate IE for doing some things differently. IE 7 isn't so bad though... IE 6 is the devil and there's no browser I hate more. (Borders are NOT part of the total width -_-)

I only use Safari or the IEs to make sure things look good there but for nothing more than that. My only problem with Safari so far was this one time I wanted to load an xml through javascript and realized that Safari doesn't understand the load command...

If I could, I'd make people use only 1 browser... Whichever you want... but just pick 1... lol. That or a standarization of the way browsers read the code. But... I doubt I'll ever experience that joy... -_-

I'm not sure I like this idea.

First off, I want to say that the reasons behind all of this are great. Conceptually, it all makes a lot of sense. We'd be taking away the boring parts and keeping the cool and the dramatic. That's where the coolness stays though, in concept.

The problem with it relies basically in that you'd be taking away from the player's spotlight, even if you were trying to do the opposite. You'd be giving them less chances to make decisions... Which is what a game's all about. Those "boring" parts of combat are greatly enjoyed by the players, even if they're just hitting and missing repeatedly. I know I wouldn't want you to say that I do something spectacular when all I intended was a sword slash... You'd be stealing from the former 'full control' I had of my character. And we all know players don't like it when what they say doesn't matter as much as they'd want it.

The other big problem I have with this idea is that you're giving the DM a HUGE responsability (as if he didn't have enough on his plate). If the DM can't come up with interesting descriptions for every battle the players get themselves into then the game will start to suck.

Perhaps I read too much into this and I'm drawing incorrect ideas from it... But it feels as if you're taking more from the players than they'll care for. There's a reason, after all, that campaigns don't make good novels...

I think Ish tried doing this a while back, I may be wrong though... Maybe it was just for a contest or something.

I've read several threads about what kind of music people play on their games. This sometimes helps depending on the players you have (sometimes it can distract them, as I've experienced). However, I was wondering if any of you go the extra mile and somehow get a hold of sound effects for your games. By sound effects I mean things like explosions or a creaking door... Maybe drops of water echoing in a cave, stuff like that.

If any of you have used them, tell me how it worked out for you. And more importantly, direct me to a place I can get sound effects like that :P

Edit: Actually, I found a couple of pages on the Internet that have tons of sounds, I'm excited! :D The question remains though, if any of you have used them. I have a feeling they could be better than music, but we'll see.

As far as I know, the world was originally dominated by matriarchies and this went on until the First Agricultural Revolution. Once we hit that point, the power shifted towards males for the simple reason that more people were needed to tend the lands. See, in a patriarchy, the concern of the family unit is to create more and more descendants because they will be tools for the patriarch. This is in contrast to the matriarchy, where women, due to the fact, amongst others, that they don't particularly enjoy labor.. The focus is turned to having a smaller quantity of children but improving their quality of life.

Yes, women turned over their power to become practically slaves... Why would they? I think I read somewhere that this is because we have a community instinct, if you will, that drove our minds to change the norm. Some people say that this is happening once again, that we're shifting to matriarchies. Actually, if you see how women have turned from not being able to vote or having any rights to where they are now (e.g. Hillary Clinton) in more or less 50 years... Then you see how this theory isn't that far off.

Many thanks to everyone who's replied. You made me think about certain details I hadn't thought about before, and that's good, it's what you'd expect when you're getting feedback from people who have experience in homebrewing.

I figured I would describe some of the things I came up with after reading the couple of links the_taken posted and well, everyone's reply. Let me know what you think about it and feel free to destroy it with criticism :)

I'll try to answer to some of the questions or topics you guys introduced, so let me begin with how undeath started. This is part of the creation myth of the two main races of the world (All of this is just in my head, I haven't written it yet... so.. bear with me, I'm mostly trying to get the idea across and not worrying that much about the literary quality... 'cause then I'd take too long to post this :P)

"(...) The Faceless Elder had just been brought down by Carin and Argantes (the main two deities, light and darkness, respectively), but in the time before time death did not yet exist, so he remained there; helpless but alive. The new Gods stole The Elder's power of creation and started to discuss the new order of the world.

What we now call demons and devils were actually the children of the Faceless and constituted the population of the old world. Neither Carin nor Argantes wanted such creatures in their new lands: they were older than them and were therefore wiser. After a moment's thought, Argantes, in his infinite acuity, planned to create a moment in which every lesser creature of the world would cease to exist, so they could never amount to his knowledge. He called this moment "Death".

Argantes quickly realized the magnitude of this "Death" and what it would mean to the new world. He would not share the power of it with Carin... No, "She is too unpredictable, she has no control over herself" he thought. Soon enough, Darkness went to Light and picked up a fight with her. Things rapidly escalated and before you know it, they started combat. I don't think I could describe the beauty and complexity of a battle between the gods so I won't offend it by trying to do so. What matters is that in the end, Argantes let his guard down on purpose and let Carin deal a lethal blow. Carin was pleased.

The smirk on her face was hurriedly taken away from her, however, as she realized she had been fooled. Argantes was the first to die and by doing so created death. Being as he was now the God of Death, he brought himself back to life, and by this process he had now created "Un-death". (...)"

So that's how death and undeath began in my setting. Argantes grants undeath to some mortals, although not everyone understands the method to gain inmortality: He preached that anyone who would make a pilgrimage to the spot where his blood had been spilled that time Carin "killed" him just as they were about to die, they'd be granted eternity. Unfortunately for mortals... These words were not passed down through the generations in their entirety. People do not know that undeath is only granted to those who make the pilgrimage and reach the place the very same second their lives expire. Argantes does not, after all, grant such a thing so lightly. It's only those with great knowledge of the world and their dark god who can tell when they'll die.

What happens then to those who reach the blessed land at a different time? They are granted unlife alright... But not as you'd think. The spot where Argantes' blood was spilled is now in the middle of a city. The city walls, floors, ceilings, houses and all it holds seem to the be made of stone. Those who were granted holy sight however can see that the walls are actually made of countless bodies of people who are not alive nor dead. This city is habitated by normal people... but ruled by those who reached true undeath.

But that's not all.. In my setting, it's very hard to become a spellcaster. Two of the more "popular" ways, if you will, are by serving one God and gain access to their portfolio... Or... Make a pact with a demon. Demons are the heretics of my world, they hate the new Gods and whatever's related to them. The magic that they share with mortals is not really magic by itself... It's the knowledge of how to corrupt the divine power that Gods give to their worshippers. This magic is of course twisted and a mockery of the gods... So... When a mortal wants to replicate Argantes' Undeath, they create only mindless corpses bent on wreaking havoc.

Additionally, I was thinking that the "true undead" secretly hunt the mindless across the world... This way, normal people wouldn't know of their existence. This is benefitial to the 'true' given that if the mindless were a threat, someone would go in a crusade, as Phoenix suggested, and not only bring down the mockeries, but the other ones as well due to their physical resemblance.


Ok, that took a while, haha... Please, let me know what you think :)

Hm... Well, what would anyone do once they conquer the world? Haha.. I don't know if I want them to be dumb, it just seems like an easy way out of the problem.

Edit: @Beeblebrox: Yes, I guess you are right there.. I should think more about what kind of undead I want. I'm keeping ghosts in a different category given some setting-fluff, so they're not part of this particular issue.

To tell you the truth I'm not really sure if I want undead to be intelligent or not. I mean... most of the undead population would be ghoul-like (in appearance) but I'm torn apart between the regular mindless plague-like zombies .. or something ala World of Warcraft (A civilization very much like human's... except the population is conformed of undead). I'm very tempted to go with the latter, but I don't want to because WoW already has it and I don't want to copy it (even though it's not a really original idea, but eh). Hmm.. I wonder if there's a third option...

Hello all! I was hoping to get some help with this writer block I've had for a while now. I'm looking for an original (not necessary :P), creative and fresh idea about the undead in my setting. Let me detail the problem a little more:

First off, it should be very important to keep in mind that in my setting the mythological creatures or any kind of magical beast (a medusa, dragon, werewolf, etc) are very hard/near impossible to beat. Of course, their numbers are so low (there's 1 specimen in the world some of the time) that they wouldn't be able to go and conquer the world on their own.

My problem comes when I think about undead. I really like undead ... and while they'll be very hard to beat just like any other fantastical creature... I want to keep their number higher so they're a real menace to the world. The problem with that, of course, is that there's no logical reason for them not to conquer the world being as they're so physically superior to a human. What's stopping them?

It should be noted that undead are hard to create in my setting... Mainly because I don't want them to appear everywhere and then stop being so scary. I want my characters to really panic when they see one (or any other monster for that matter). I'm toying with an idea about how if a follower of the death god makes a pilgrimage to a certain area of the world just as they are about to die... They'll be granted undeath. That'd probably be the main source of undead. It won't be as easy as just walking there... but it should create plenty of undead in the process.

Any help will be appreciated... It doesn't even have to be a fully-fleshed idea (no pun intended), we could just brainstorm together, if more than 1 person is interested. Thanks in advance!

 

As I said, I thought those guys were kinda dorky, lol... Usually it's just the DM that does the voices in our games, but even then it isn't that exaggerated.

The documentary as a whole I thought was good, although partly I think it'd give the wrong impression to some people. I think that from the group they interview there, the dude with a beard seems the only 'normal' one (No chick in D&D is ever normal!! lol). But that would be to someone that doesn't play the game... I mean, the pale guy I thought to be really dorky at first, but then watching all his maps and stuff I thought, damn this guy really takes this stuff seriously. For me that's always a good thing.

I think overall, it starts a little slow, but it picks up after a couple of videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPCn3KcuYYs

I thought it was pretty interesting, reminded me when I played earlier versions of the game, and even though I found some of the guys to be real dorky, I enjoyed it. The whole thing is divided into 22 small videos (23 and 24 are extras), just click on the user's name so you get a list of them all.

I'm not sticking with the PHB entirely, but like with all other classes, I'm trying to take most of what I can from it, and if I find I'm missing something, then I'll look into something else (Trying to stay core for the most part).

What I like in Divination relates to a very few spells in the PHB, which is why my original idea was to give them as Spell-like abilities along with other things. I also thought that if I wanted them to have full spellcasting, it would be better if they had something like Golem's weave magic, something that would feel like free manipulation of what's around them.

Funny that you would mention that about Gypsies, after reading the posts from this thread, I thought that archetype could be accomplished altering the bard with fluff.

This class would be a Gypsy in the sense of what you see nowadays: These old women that "tell of your future". This is why I thought of them having a Fortunetelling ability in one of the first two levels so it'd represent seers/oracles that do not have as much power as those working as counselors and such.

What I've learned from this thread is that this class requires additional fluff in order to stand as a PC class. Oracle/Seer abilities just go so far as to make them NPCs, like you and others have said. Because of this, I've come up with several ideas as to why they have the ability to see the future. I'll be posting the entire class soon.

Decisions, decisions.... *Sighs* What you say is true, Poseidon, all those things you described fit my original idea... And wow, now I really don't know what to do. You see, before I even posted this idea in the first place, I was battling myself between the exact same 2 options you two guys present; I figured they'd make interesting melee characters... but at the same time, that wouldn't fit the whole elder, wiser, vision I had for them. The problem I had with the latter was figuring out what they would do during a fight... Which led to this.

I appreciate what all of you have said, especially you two. I think I need to sit and really figure out what I actually want this class to be, but these ideas have been tremendously helpful, as they have helped me envision the end result. Thanks again.

6 level progession.. Yeah, that seems like the best choice if I wanted to avoid full spellcasting. The list seems good. Special abilities should prove a bit harder though, I think. Sometimes I wish I could just come up with the fluff and forget about the krunch, lol.. I think they should gain some sort of speed bonus to help them with their low HP count.

After reading what you all had to say... I can only say that I'm even more confused on what to do with this... The original idea was to make it a base class to fit some of the things that I took from other classes (Divination, more than anything else), so that would make them special right from the start. Some people said NPC class, and that would work... I can see them as just Oracles who sit there and wait for PCs to get to them, and that's perfectly fine... Shortly after, I thought about a template, which is what Poseidon actually suggested. A template also works, like a sort of 'enlightment' or something that lets them see things that other people can't. But here comes the_taken talking about how it could work as a PC class, lol... and I can say that well, perhaps it does have potential for that...

My comments on what you said:

Cool things - I agree with all of them, I suppose that the best way to make this class work in combat is to make them melee oriented. I was battling in my head with this originally, just as much as I battled between giving them spells or not. But yes, I agree with all the Cool things.

Neat Things - Able to detect anything, big No No. I despise detection above all else, lol... I feel it makes the game too... 'easy'. In my game, only one class has detect undead, and one detect magic (And neither is a wizard/cleric/druid), so they're special that way.
Decent and affordable skill set, yes.
Ability to predict events, yes.

The down side - Low HP and Fortitude, you hit the spot there. Few to no spell slots is what I'm going for, and yes, offensive magic should just be some buffs, no evocation-like spells.

Overall, I think we're on the same page. I think the most important thing to balance here is his attack capabilities... Because think about it, if you wanted to make this simple, what does predicting your opponent's next move translate to when the Seer attacks? Attack Bonus++, which sounds good, but let's be careful not to abuse it, since it would make it so fighters and barbarians aren't that good anymore when they are supposed to be the best in that area. I'm gonna do some research on the books I have for feats/spells/abilities that would fit this guy... But please, post whatever ideas you may have already.

In my house we have 1 PC and one Mac... So I think I'm gonna be able to give a good comment on them.

Personally, I prefer the PC, but I think in the end it's because I'm more used to it. There are several things people have said in this thread that I'd like to address. For instance, viruses and spyware... That is true, I've never heard of a Mac get one, but with the protection I've got on my PC, I never get one either, and I don't feel it's slowing it. This works two ways, actually, like yes... Viruses are made for PCs, but so many other things are made for PCs as well that I don't see as much for Macs (Like skins). At first, I hated the fact Mac didn't have a right-click, but my mother (Who is the one that uses the Mac) eventually changed it. Finally, crashes... Once I changed to XP a long time ago, I never really got them anymore... so I don't think that's an issue.

Now, from what I've heard from both my parents (Which are both graphic designers), my mother prefers Mac over PC because it's much easier for her to use Photoshop and QuarkXpress or whatever she uses. Don't ask me why... I don't understand her, lol... Also, supposedly, Mac was designed in its architecture to use vectors in a more efficient way than a Mac, but I don't really see much change.

In the end, if you had to choose from one or the other, I'd say that you should go with the one that you're used to. I'm on the Mac right now and I'd change to the PC if someone wasn't there. I can use the Mac but I'm so used to a PC (And like it so much) that I just wouldn't want to work any other way. For instance, hot keys... I use them a lot on the PC, and many of them are different from Mac ones... Like the windows button + D minimizes everything, right? I -just- found out that F3 does the same thing in Mac, but before that, DAMN, I'm so used to that feature that living without it just blows, lol... So many little things like that can affect how much you like or dislike a system... so that's why I say go with what you know...

Now, choosing between Linux or Windows... I've been in 2 courses in college where I've had to use Linux/Unix... The first one was to work on Solaris computers.. which I hated <_<... But the second one was a course for networking but only using Linux.. and I must say that I loved it (Maybe this guy was just a better teacher, I dunno). In many ways, I prefer Linux if I knew I was going to work with such things, I really like it's simplicity and flexibility (Plus being root makes you feel like a God :P, ok, maybe not). However, aside from such things that really benefit from Linux' simplicity, I prefer Windows for everything else... I've tried several versions of Linux (Red Hat, Suse, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc), but I didn't really like how if you want something done right you have to work in the Terminal. As I said, for networking matters, this is really great... but what I do regularly, I just prefer a more 'visual' environment which I didn't feel I got using any of those versions of Linux.

In the end however, I think that going with what you're used to is probably the best thing... When you use Linux over Windows or Mac over PC (At least in my case) you just feel as if you are missing things that you can only get in the PC, even if it's just that ease of use.