Sections:

• General Campaign Gameplay
• Gameplay Changes / Homebrew Systems
  • Injuries 
  • Skill Checks
• Character Creation
• World Information (another page)

Welcome to the Lost Lands.  A fun alliteration for a pretty dreary place.

The Lost Lands are another continent to the west of the mainland, the home of every adventurer or anyone who comes through.  Coming here might be a nice vacation - if you have a death wish.  Nobody comes here.  Those who do are either considered foolish or are in the pocket of a king trying to expand his territory.  Those that come here do not go out past the barrier.

Outside the barrier is certain death.  Foolhardy adventurers do it, sometimes, but those folk are rare enough to be considered nonexistent.  There was a band of them, once.  Sat in the taverns at night swapping tales and sharing experiences.  They even began to carve a map onto the surface of their usual table.  But their numbers dwindled until none remained, and now nobody knows where that damn table is, anymore.

The Lost Lands have been absolutely unlivable for about 1000 years, from what we assume.  When spells all went awry and high magic was lost.  In an age where spells went well above 9th level, men literally moved mountains with the weave and women casually reshaped the planet to their whim.  Mages were a step beyond forces of nature as they bent the entirety of reality to their whim.  Until magic turned on them and destroyed them and the better part of the world.  The Lost Lands practically blinked off the map.

Only a few generations ago did a scholar manage to reconnect a portal to what seems to be the only safe haven on a while continent: Heathwell.  Protected by an ancient magic spell that domes it in and keeps it safe from the outside world.  But what's outside that dome is anyone's guess.  But from the number of people who venture out compared to the number that return, it's likely just death.

General Campaign Gameplay

This game will be in the 'West Marches' style.  It differs from core D&D in a few ways the big three are:

1. There is no set party - You gather a party of any players to venture forth
2. There is no set time - You schedule a time with the DM
3. There is no regular plot - You choose where you want to explore, tell the DM in advance, and then just explore.  It's a pure sandbox.  Every session will be self-contained: you start at the inn, you end at the inn (or the town at least).

There may be lore to be found in the world if you want to look for it (and are interested in it) but generally speaking you won't be interacting with NPCs or retrieving quests.  You are frontiersman trying to make a buck or discover something new.

Beyond that there are some mechanics that are integral to the gameplay.

• Session reports are shared
  • You're all stuck in Heathwell between adventurers, and you are so few that its impossible not to hear about the last tale.  Players are encouraged to write an after-action report and give them to other players (put a note on Kanka, for example).
  • New 'quests', plothooks, or anything can be picked up by any group
• There is a shared world map
  • The world beyond the barrier is unexplored, and unmapped beyond a certain small area.  Beyond that is yours to fill out. 
  • Your characters (technically) will draw the map, and so the map will only be as reliable as your character's memory, drawing skills, and etc.  Your changes can be later changed by another.
• Competition is encouraged (to a point)
  • If you kill the Goblin King, there is no Goblin King.  Another party doesn't get a crack at it.  This isn't an infinitely grindable raid where you can just wait for it to respawn.
  • If you discover an ancient ruin someone else can be the first to solve its mystery
  • BUT DO NOT MAKE THIS NASTY COMPETITION.  If someone starts acting like an asshole I'll boot you.  Do not horde secrets, do not intentionally screw over other expeditions, and do not freak out if someone unlocked the secret to a ruin you discovered.  This is fun and every adventurer is an ally.
• Content will be loosely tiered
  • An area will generally be geared toward a power level, so if you step into an area at level 1 full of beholders maybe consider going somewhere else.
  • Feel free to give a 1st and 2nd priority place you would like to explore if you don't know the difficulty of the areas you find; in case the one you plan to go to is way too strong
  • You can find more difficult pockets in weak zones.  Generally there will be warnings.
  • Feel free to mark warnings on maps.

With all those bullet points out of the way, as I've said this campaign is going to focus a lot on players vs. the world.  I will likely be completely transparent, barring something changes my mind (which I'll explain if it happens).  I will likely roll damage and skill checks for monsters openly.  I am not going to take the role of someone actively killing players, I will mostly be an arbiter and moderator to facilitate fun.

You will likely need to deal with survival if you spend days outside in the wilderness.  You'll have to prepare your gear and decide what to take.  Maybe leave a box of what stuff you don't need (and a will... just in case).  If you miss out on a month of adventures, you will likely fall behind and need to be more careful in a higher level group.  

I will also be employing some rule changes that may be atypical for some players.

Gameplay Changes / Homebrew Systems

Injuries

I will be introducing an injury table.  On a critical hit or on a down I will roll a d8+d12 for an injury sustained as follows:

While some of these injuries are pretty extreme, it curves so that minor scar-broken ribs are the most likely outcomes with a 33% chance followed by 16% respectively.  The rest drop off into a lower chance.  This way you aren't immediately gimped in a fight if you have an injury, but offers some spice.

These injuries will stay with you as scars, and I ask everyone to write down the scars on their sheet.  Every scar has a story, and by the end of the campaign you may have a book of them to show off in the tavern.

That said - enemies receive these injuries too.  Knock Boblin the Goblin King's eye out but have to flee before killing him?  Boblin the One Eye will be waiting next time you see him.  With just that one eye.

Other

Crafting: We'll be using the system found here

Magic: Magic in the Lost Lands will be erratic and unpredictable.  Anyone using magic might suffer from 'magical burnout' as per the system in Darker Dungeons.  Casting a spell (arcane, divine, or nature) all risk the weave wavering out of your control and lashing out. The effects could be good or bad.

Attunement: May change, but for now the number of magic items you can attune is equal to your proficiency modifier.

Disease: Incredibly unlikely you'll run into this, given the solitary nature of your work, but there will be a mild risk you can contract a disease.

Survival: This campaign is about exploring and taming the wilderness, and lost civilizations.  As such you won't be spending much time in friendly or safe territories while out.  Survival will be a task in and of itself.  I'll be trying the Darker Dungeons ruleset out to see how it works in practical gameplay.

Rest: I am considering using the gritty realism rules of rest.  E.g. a long rest is a full week of relaxation.  This keeps your forays a little more tense and a time limit looming.  I may even adopt the darker dungeons rules for resting to make the sting a little less.  Pending discussion.

Downtime: Tied with rest, when you go back to Heathwell you'll have downtime with which you can do whatever you want.  It is assumed while in town you are spending time recovering, resting, restocking supplies and training.  On top of that you can choose another thing to do in general, such as crafting, carousing, researching, returning to the mainland to do something, etc. 

Level up only in town: You will gain experience as usual while out in the wilderness.  Your journey isn't fruitless, and you hone your skills in combat and in survival.  Maybe at the camp or in combat you dream up a new technique, or some new efficient way to use an old one.  The problem is you won't generally feel safe trying it in a situation that's life or death.  Especially if you're a magic user.  As such your experience gained is only applied when you get to town.  In town you'll hash out the techniques, work out quirks, and keep only what's useful while sparring and training.  This makes a level up feel a little less game-like and you don't suddenly get a power-up when out exploring.

Gaining proficiency and feats: This is being considered.  You may be able to gain unique traits and feats, or even gain proficiency, from achievements and experience.  If your crew doesn't have anyone with disable device and you end up using it often without proficiency maybe after a while you get a knack for it.  Maybe you've been the biggest bar brawler (but not best) on this side of the world; you could potentially earn a unique feat for that.  These feats and traits will likely be very situational and not massive to avoid us slowly creeping into mythic-tier adventures without noticing.  Extra skill proficiency may also be capped so you're not a prodigious skill monkey at everything.

Engrams: Being considered If you're looking to start doing magic item crafting, and want to make something really specific I may add an engram system where you need to find recipes to create some magic items. The crafting system above might be enough to keep crafting in check anyway. 

Skill Checks

A natural 20 on a skill check is not an automatic success if it is outside your skillset.  If the DC is 30 and you get a 22 on your nat 20, sorry its still beyond your skill.  You're not suddenly running up a 40ft vertical wall just because the dice landed well. The Queen won't suddenly forgo her husband and kingdom to elope with you.

Flexible Ability Scores/Skill Checks: Skill checks might not be tied specifically to your ability scores.  If you want to intimidate someone by breaking something, that would be strength rather than charisma, no?  What if you're trying to blend in with a crowd, rather than dexterity that would be reading the mood and matching it with your charisma, right? (or deception.)  If you can give a good reason why I will be open to doing a skill check with another ability score.  You can't do intelligence based athletics just because it's your highest stat.

in addition... Partial Success and failure: So, you failed your skill check.  But only by 2!  Well, what if you succeeded with a complication?  It's the skill-based check of winning a battle but not necessarily the war.  You might kick down that door but you lose 5ft because you sprain your ankle; you get leverage with your shortsword but it's awkwardly bent and not very useful in combat until fixed.  etc.

What about if you fail your check by a lot?  Well, then, you might get the worst of both worlds: a failure and a complication.  Your intimidation doesn't work too well and the goblin decides to risk it and scream for help; your lockpicks snap in a lock rendering it unable to be picked; wow you really got the spell mixed up on that arcana check.

None of these will be rocks fall everybody dies situations.  These complications are meant to shake things up and maybe alter the status quo a little but, but never to the point where it starts a cascade of failures (unless the dice really don't work out).

All alternate systems are negotiable, long-term.

If some of these systems are incredibly not fun, I am open to ditching or altering them.  The game is about fun, in the end.

Character Creation

We will be using the character creation rules from Darker Dungeons

You can create a character randomly, or you can craft your character carefully.  See the opt-in rules at the bottom.  I suggest for ability scores rolling their method:

3d6 in order.  You can reroll one score (and take the higher between the two), and you may swap two of your scores once.

This is opt in.  If you feel that is too hardcore, you may roll 3d6 in any order with a single reroll. 

If your background feature is town-specific, you may find another you think applies (or even craft one!) and submit it for approval.  I'll be lenient, you poor street urchins shouldn't be disadvantaged like this.

General (non-mechanic) rules: 

• Your character wants to be an adventurer 
  • or is motivated enough by something else to do so without much complaint
• Your character wants to, and actively tries to, get along with their excursion party
  • Your character will not, by default, screw over any other adventurer in any major way.  Maybe they'll talk about skimping on loot because someone didn't pull their weight, sure.  But they won't withhold information or otherwise put an ally in harms way if they can avoid it.
  • If you're character is constantly skimping characters, being rude, or whatever... consider rolling up someone who doesn't.  Sure it might be 'what your character would do' but that means your character is an asshole and it sucks for other players.
• You don't need a backstory.
  • Carte Blanche if you make one (even bare bones).  Just run it by me first but I'm going to try and say yes to just about anything.
  • The world beyond the Lost Lands do not matter, they can be anything.  You guys are forming the story and setting of this world with your character's backstories as you go, most likely.
  • (Same with Gods)
• Roleplay is encouraged (try not to just play yourself)
  • There will be few NPCs, so its up to you guys to roleplay between each other
  • If you have a character arc you want to go through, let me know I'll try to work with you!