If you would like to join this game, please answer a few questions.

1. What is your Adventuring Party's name?

2. Which part of D&D is your favorite: exploration, combat, puzzle solving, NPC interaction, character generation, other?

3. Tell me about your RPG experience. How long have you played, what systems do you like or dislike, etc. (Just a paragraph is fine, no need to go into great detail.)

4. Conan, what is best in life?

How does this game work?

In this game, you the player control an entire adventuring party. Just like the old school D&D idea of a group Caller, you tell me the DM what each member of the party is doing each game Turn during exploration, and each combat Round during encounters.

This has two advantages for a play-by-post game. One, you're not left waiting for that one slow poster to finally log on and make a reply. The game will move at the pace set by you and me. Two, you can coordinate the actions of the party to your best advantage.

Game Turns
A Turn is roughly 10 minutes of time. During that time, the party can usually do one of several things:
* Move the distance of the party's slowest member (120' for light encumbrance, 90' for medium encumbrance, 60' for heavy encumbrance). This assumes you are moving carefully, on the lookout for traps or ambushes, and trying to be stealthy.
* Search a 10'x10' area (for hidden treasure, traps, secret doors, etc.). Multiple characters can search the same area.
* Have an encounter (combat or otherwise)

During exploration, I will describe the initial scene. You can post questions for more details if you like, then post your party's actions for the Turn. I will then resolve the actions and give you the new scene details. You may again ask questions and then give your actions for the next Turn.

If a peaceful encounter happens with monsters or NPCs, negotiations take place within that original Turn. We can play out the conversation until you are satisfied. Similarly, if you ask questions about a scene and still have unanswered questions, keep asking until you are satisfied, then we will resolve the Turn.

Surprise: If your party surprises a group of monsters, you can avoid the encounter if you wish by simply saying so and having the party leave the area. Otherwise, you can get the drop on the monsters either by forcing negotiations or forcing combat, as you like.

Combat Rounds
In combat, we will use group initiative. I will roll initiative to speed things up.

Post all actions taken by your party each round, including all combat rolls and any rolls needed for spells cast. I will do the same for the monsters/NPCs, and then let you know the results of the round and initiative for the next round.

Again, if you have questions that need answering before a Round is resolved, I'll answer the question and then you can post your actions for the Round.

Time Keeping:
While I will run each party Turn-by-Turn/Round-by-Round, I will also allow parties that enter the same area of the dungeon in real time to interact. Because each poster will have their own posting speed, if this happens things may slow down. In order to avoid too much slowdown for the faster players, I may simply declare the encounter over and move the faster party on.

Also, differing intervals of time may occur between two parties meeting in the same location and then meeting again in another location. We'll hand-wave this away by saying that time is strange in the mythic underworld of the dungeon.

In Town
If the party goes back to town, they can heal at the local temple (hit point damage healing is free if you rest and for a small fee if you need it now. Disease, poison, curses and the like will cost money), buy supplies, recruit new party members, hire NPC men-at-arms or other hirelings, and try to learn of new rumors. Also, parties that are in town at the same time may offer to buy/sell/trade magic items, share rumors and maps (if you the player have a map to share - I won't be making them for you), and brag about your exploits.

XP for monsters slain and treasure earned is only awarded when back in town. You do not need to train to gain levels.
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:31, Thu 19 Oct 2017.

Encumbrance Rules (This is by the book, not a house rule)

Each character can carry up to 2400 coins worth of gear. A coin is 1/10 of a pound. All encumbrance figures in the gear thread are in coins. However, the amount of treasure you can carry depends on what sort of containers each character has.

A belt pouch can carry 50 coins.
A small sack can carry 200 coins.
A backpack can carry 400 coins. (and most of your normal equipment will probably be here, too)
A large sack can carry 600 coins.

So remember, even if one character theoretically have 2400 coins worth of gear they could carry, if a character only have a backpack and one large sack, that character can only carry out 1000 coins worth of treasure (and that by dumping most normal equipment).

So for each character in your party, total their current gear. Subtract the encumbrance from 2400 to see what the maximum amount of treasure they could carry is. Also figure out how much their various bags will allow them to carry (up to 2400 coins). On the character sheet is a column for carrying capacity. The numbers to put there are 0/(max treasure capacity) for each character based on their baggage and total encumbrance figures.

Hopefully that makes sense.