Happy Birthday Realms of Adventure!

Once again, it's RoA's joint Birthday/Christmas celebration (joint because I usually forget the birthday until it's Christmas). Better late than never, as ever, as this is an extra-special birthday for RoA.

We don't know exactly when RoA was founded, as the very first DMs are no longer around and the oldest threads were lost years ago. The earliest posts I have record of were made in late October, 2003, with the beginning of the Sword Coast South region. But I recall elder DMs say RoA had been running in some form before that; the very first region was apparently Waterdeep. The opening of the second region seems to have turned RoA from a single game to a community, and it grew and flourished and remained firm. RoA has outlasted all its original members, survived three edition changes, upheavals in the Forgotten Realms setting, and good times and bad times, and I'm sure will run and run.

This surely makes RoA one of the very oldest and longest-lasting games on RoA, making it an extra-special achievement.

So here's to another ten years! We might even finish some epic campaigns! :D

There's no birthday without presents, and in honour of this special occasion, here's a big one:

You may level-up any one character, gaining the XP you needed to level up anyway. For example, if you are at level 5 (10,000 XP) you need +5000 XP to reach level 6 (15,000 XP). Say you have a character with 13,830 XP, you gain 5000 XP, hit level 6 and finish at 18,830 XP.

To help them along at their new, higher level, that character may gain a 2000-gp worth of treasure. So a magical item, a new weapon, raw coin or gems. But please, not 2000-gp worth of scrolls or potions or other little things. Make it something special.

This is of course subject to DM approval. They may refuse the level-up if it would be too unbalancing to the party or to their planned adventure (especially if its a module).

Please, tell us your memories of when you first joined RoA, how you found us, your first game and character.

Finally, for interest, here's a blast from the past: DM Mike's first post for Sword Coast South, made 26th October 2003 (saved by me in April 2007 before the old threads were lost).

This message was last edited by the GM at 13:15, Tue 24 Dec 2013.

Oh how time flies! It seems just like yesterday that it was 2006 and I was rolling up my first ROA character, Orophear the elven Duskblade in Evermeet. At that point I had not played a tabletop game in years and had stumbled across ROA while looking to fill the hole. I was a transfer from PlayByWeb and instantly fell in love with the community here. Since then I have made characters, played characters and met some wonderfully imaginative and kind people. It has been an honor and privilege to create this world with you all and look forward to many years to come. Oh, and Orophear is now 8th level. Not bad, 5 levels in 7 years. Pretty speedy for RPOL :D

 2009 for me, although I've been on RPol a lot longer. It was a certain snooty elven mage who's still in play although he's earned only three thousand experience points or so in all that time. It's been quite the ride to see him this far and I've met some fascinating players and cool characters along the way.

In March 2006 I joined the community here and a few days later Quinlan Fairfellow was submitted. He's still sneaking around... :-)

It was December 2009. I was a bit bored out of my mind, living in the gap year between undergrad and law school... I hadn't played tabletop games since high school and had only recently joined RPOL two months prior for a planescape game. Forgotten Realms was my next favorite setting. While I'd read several Dragonlance stories as a child, the Avatar Series detailing Midnight, Kelemvor, Adon, and Cyrics adventures through the realms had always been my favorite. I still go back and read those books every few years.

Elias St. Claire made his way to the Silver Marches (from his birthplace in Waterdeep) to secure trade routes and root out enemies of commerce. After making it to Silverymoon (or close enough), and overcoming a short lived gender swap, Eli made his way to a nicer climate in Cormyr where nasty Sharrans were messing with the local merchants. He has been happily clunking villains with his nunchaku ever since, along with Adamar, Ayesha, and Miarisha. Thamol is quickly becoming part of the pack (though how much he likes living in Dreadgate Keep I can't wait to see). The knight Kainnius and paladin Roylion are missed, though I'm glad their characters are still around, either with the party or back home!

It's been about 4 years exactly and I plan to stay quite a bit longer!

July 2007...  seems a long time ago.  I had played in a short-lived game DMed by a friend using the RPOL framework, and when that ended I looked for other, more enduring PbP settings, and happened on RoA.

My first character here, the wizard Garath, started out his fledgling adventuring career in Phlan (where one of his team-mates was none other than DM Solo's Quinlan Fairfellow) - much more confident, and naive, than his subsequent exposure to sundry harrowing challenges would make him...  His background story begins in Cormyr, though, in a merchant family of Suzail.

@PC Phonepolice:  "to secure trade routes and root out enemies of commerce" - that sounds like an awesome character concept :P

Favored Soul of Waukeen - holler.

I finally officially joined up in April of 2011. I remember applying to RoA sometime before that, (specifically for an active game in Mulhorand if that's any indication of a timeframe), but couldn't get my initial character concept approved, so I put RoA on hold and played that character in another game. That other game died, (surprise! surprise!) and I took another hard look at RoA due to the game's long-standing (and well-deserved!) reputation for stability. (and of course RoA being set in the Forgotten Realms greatly helped too!)

My first official character was Ember in Thesk, who is now currently in Solo's Kara Tur game.

After falling in love with this community and its members, I applied to be a RoA DM in Sept. of 2011.

And haven't regretted it for a moment!   :D

Belatedly, my turn.

I came off my first and rather miserable year-long tabletop campaign in 2005, and immediately started looking for something better. I figured PBP would be more my style, learned of RPOL, and joined up in December. I liked the Forgotten Realms after Neverwinter Nights and some Drizzt novels, despite the tabletop campaign being set there. DM Mike had recently advertised RoA in Wanted - Players, and I started examining it. In my first week, I RTJed at two games, RoA and an Eberron one, then waited several days for a response, sadly. I never heard back from the Eberron one, but Mike soon got my RTJ and got me in.

My first game was Silver Marches under DM Mike. Not quite getting the nature of play here, I wasn't sure what character would fit the group. So I made three, over one long and busy weekend. :( They were Alec Schmeezle, Half-Drow Bard (thought during the last year); Raiden Brimstone, Tiefling Rogue/Fighter (a character of mine for a NWN mod); and Kas Urgimm, a Dwarf Ranger (now RoA's example PC). I went with Alec, and immediately started his career as a popular children's entertainer, lyrics by myself. :D

He was dead as soon as he stepped foot in the dungeon, and was soon replaced by Raiden. But Alec got better, and over the years, has adventured and performed briefly in Undermountain, the Shining South, the North, the North again, Thesk, and now the Moonsea under DM Shadow.

In 2006, I became a co-DM with DM Mike at Sword Coast South, and was soon left to handle a grand finale. Helping out and cleaning up around RoA, I gradually supplanted DM Mike to the point of being voted the next head DM of RoA. And proceeded to blunder about ever since. :)

Update

I've seen some players propose waiting for their next natural level-up before they apply their XP bonus so that they can jump forward two levels. I want to say no, don't do that. The XP you gain is based off your character's level now:
Level 3: +3000 XP
Level 4: +4000 XP
Level 5: +5000 XP
Level 6: +6000 XP
Level 7: +7000 XP
Level 8: +8000 XP
Level 9: +9000 XP

Ah, I see the progression now.

I only asked about the level-up because I *just* made a level a few months ago, and so I was a little afraid you might think it a big jump.  If you're cool with it, since I actually already leveled fair-and-square, then I'm a happy clam.

That's fine if you've recently levelled. I'll let your DM decide whether to go with it or not.

I *didn't* ask. As someone who is 193 xp away from leveling already, I understand the sentiment, but being 1,093xp away from level 8 instead of 193xp from lv 7 is progress in my book, so I'm not going to try and bargain with this gift from on high, even though I am so close to quite a bit more xp.

That said... If I could trip one of these duergar down a flight of stairs...

So. Be happy with the gift xp! Better than a poke in the eye!

I can't believe I've been here almost as long as BCM! How time flies :)

In reply to PC Phonepolice (msg # 13):

 That's just happened to me in another game. We settled down for the first time in a while in an Inn to rest, the GM hands out a crazy amount of experience... and I find myself one bar fight short of levelling up. The temptation... Ohhhhh, the temptation. I am minded of an old, old Dragonmirth comic from Dragon Magazine where a village is evacuating hastily as someone runs through it shouting "Look out, it's a nineteenth level fighter five xp short of levelling up!". ^_^

In reply to PC Phonepolice (msg # 13):

I will help you if don't mind.
"Only good dwarf is dead dwarf."

(Joke!).

I made my first post here as Arrazin the fighter/rogue in The Vast region on a thursday, 7 October, 2004. I had started playing by forum (freestyle) on the little browser game Utopia several years prior and had traversed several other forums before finding RpoL earlier that year.

Upon joining RpoL i joined a ton of games in quick succession, rejoicing to find games for game-systems I already had played by pen and paper with my pals. The problem with DnD games, and inevitably with all games on RpoL, were that they were subject to constant breakdowns from people leaving the game, most commonly the gamemaster, which killed the game.

I craved stability and RoA seemed to offer me that. Nine years later I still play Arrazin on here in The Vast and I still enjoy my character and watching (/writing) his story evolve with his awesome companions and a kick-ass DM. I don't have the time to play any other games on RpoL at this stage in my life, but RoA keeps me hanging on and I'm loving it. I really owe all you awesome people who keep RoA going a huge thanks, a deep bow and a round of applause. You rock.

Not to revive an old thread just because, I thought maybe some of you would find this interesting.

RoA began in the summer of 03, at least as far as RPoL is concerned. If you want to go back a little further, the concept of it began in the fall of 02 at a game shop in NY. The idea was to have 3-4 DM's run a living campaign, much like the Living Greyhawk that was around at the time, but to do so for a small collection of gamers within a single community. Things were good and the DM that had intended to do this got things setup, but the game shop closed unexpectedly.

Then RPoL was found. I have no idea when RPoL was founded, but it was already a booming site at that point. So said DM decided to try out this setup. It started with a spinoff for a campaign he ran on a virtual tabletop called OpenRPG. He started the game up, things went well, and so he thought, what the heck, why not try the living campaign idea here on this site. More potential DM's, more potential players, less demanding with a more relaxed posting rate. And so it went.

Realms of Adventure was created, DM's were recruited, Players added in, and things got started.

I know this, since I was the one that started it. I worked with DM Mike primarily at the time. Not long after I had to leave do to personal life, but between him and the other DM's and players, things carried on, which I think is awesome.

I have not been active in this for many many many years. After returning back to RPoL in Dec 04 I got a hold of DM Mike, and had planned to get active again, but that did not work out either do to personal life. After that I gave up. I left my player account here obviously, in hopes of playing, but never got around to it.

All that aside, some interesting stuff some of you might be interested in.

The first game actually began in Chessenta, which was the one I started. Unfortunately I cannot recall what town / city. The players consisted of an old paladin, a young girl who was a sorcerer trying to learn to control her powers, a kobold thief who was scared of everything, and a couple others I can't remember. I dropped this and transferred the players to another DM  (whoever ran waterdeep I think it was) when I had to leave.

We had several bigger plotlines at the time that the DM's were to use to combine adventures and stories. The major one was that a cult of Aranea were growing in the Chondalwood region and in Waterdeep. There was also a looming threat of a volcano, and something else built around Cormyr.

I remember being flooded with elven characters and we had to encourage people to play other races. We began with the core PHB and the FR book as far as allowing classes, races, and PrC's. We obviously got requests for more and had to start managing that. It usually came down to a chat between DM's in a private thread. Then eventually it became a requesting thread open for discussion. With WotC spitting books out left and right at the time it was a pain in the butt.

Everything was also contained in a single game at the time, not the multiple game forums RoA has now.

Another big hurdle that we had was trying to figure out how to get players from one area to another and from one DM to another, while also keeping a record of who they were, where they have been, and ensuring players did not give themselves goodies between moving from game to game. We had several ideas including giving players time stamps (a number of 'moves' they could make between games) to reach another area. A table figuring how much food and money it would take to travel from place to place and how long. And a few other ideas. We settled on a time stamp thing of some sort, alas I don't remember the details on that either. It might be something that is still used even, I don't know.

But anywho, I figured some of you might find that a little interesting. Happy gaming to all of you.

Thank you very much Tribal Gecko! It's good to hear how long RoA's been going, and something of the early days. We really have a legacy here, and I hope it will continue.

I think I recall those major plot ideas from an old timeline floating around somewhere on the board. We eventually moved away from shared events, for logistical reasons. It's hard to maintain equal post rates, in-game time, or to have all the DMs stick around and doing something together.

The travel table is around somewhere too. We currently have day units, which might be what you're thinking of They're accrued with level-ups and time-off, though they're largely spent for training for prestige classes.