City of Splendors: A Forgotten Realms Adventure
-
Waterdeep, the City of Splendors.
An enterprising person can easily make their living there, from tradespeople to artisans and artists. Adventurers and investigators. Politicians and city guard. The surrounding lands and seas and even the openings of the Undermountain (and from there, the Underdark), that can hold untold riches.
But, there are also untold dangers, the reason the Undermountain is sealed off for the average person. The surrounding lands and roads leading in and out is rife with those looking to make an easy score preying upon travelers, merchants and haulage. The curse of the City of the Dead never lets up. The wails and moans can be heard at night.
But with all those risks, think the reward is worth it?
City of Splendors is a Dungeons and Dragons 5e game set within the walled city of Waterdeep. We're still a bit from getting things in a playable state so we are hoping there are folks out there looking to give us a hand with whatever.
So far we have a server (TinyMUX) up and running with a few base bits installed. We also have a wiki up, with information being added to it.
Currently we are looking for a Primary Coder (for the CG and dice system). A Secondary Code (for other projects and the random additions we think up and to help with the CG/dice). We're also looking for a Wiki Worker to help add content to the wiki and to pretty it up as we go. But that's the standard MU stuff. We're also looking for people who are familiar with Waterdeep, the Forgotten Realms, and 5e to help things run smoothly.
So if you're interested in helping, please drop me a message. This has been a project I've dreamed about for a long time and I'm excited to see it succeed.
-
What codebase are you using? That's going to make a difference for coders who want to help.
-
@Meg Updated to include that. Using TinyMUX. KNEW I forgot something.
-
@lavit2099 said in City of Splendors: A Forgotten Realms Adventure:
... 5e ...
So 3.5, but more unbalanced.
I have a hate-on for level-based systems and vancian magic, plus, it isn't Spelljammer. I wish you luck with it, though!
-
I thought 5e got rid of the last vestiges of Vancian magic. No?
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
@Thenomain It's more or less gone, yes. There's still prepared spells, and all... but it's more freeform. You can prepare a number of spells, which you have to choose. BUT, your spell slots are separate. So, if you prepare Magic Missile, you can literally use all your spell slots casting Magic Missile all day long, and disregard the other spells you prepared for the day. In a way, they've combined Wizard and Sorcerer casting schemas into one. You prepare a number of spells, but then that just makes your spell list for the day, and you can cast any of those spells as long as you have spell slots, as opposed to having to prepare 2 magic missiles if you want to cast it twice a day, etc.
Another note is that spells don't get better as you level up. Instead, they get better if you cast them as higher level spells. So you can cast a 9th level Magic Missile. Of course, spells that are higher level at their base are going to be better than that, typically, but... it does add an interesting new layer to strategy when preparing.
-
And in a persistent world setting, you're not going to have wizards walking around with Battle Magic all prepared. Because they're not going to spend their whole day doing it. If you're planning to go out and Adventure?! Sure, you would then. But there are other things a wizard can do during "downtime." That was one of my annoyances with nWoD Mage. Everyone walked around buffed as if they're going to stumble upon a random encounter in the coffee shop.
As for magic, though, other classes have other options. For instance, paladins can use spell slots to use extra Smites. And with the idea of "concentration" and "ritual" you're not going to have the video game-y "cast all my buff spells then go in like a juggernaut."
EDIT: 5e is only unbalanced in terms of nova builds. But that's why you don't have an entire group up against one big boss and why you don't allow them short rests between each thing. I will say, though, that high level druids are unbalanced the way high level wizards were, since druids are now the masters of summoning. So they're the ones that can say "Sit back, I got this" the way wizards used to be able to.
-
So this has come up and I should probably mention something about it here.
Yes, I intend to allow "evil" and "bad" people. People can play the characters they want, tell the stories they want. But they'll have to understand that, no matter how big or bad you get? There will be SOMETHING out there bigger, badder, and will stop you. So, sure, you can be an evil person who starts their own thieve's guild and can recruit people. But there will be an NPC one with more sway that will prevent you from "owning the city." You can be an evil wizard that wants to enslave the world, but there's going to be people/things that will stop you. What this means for PvP, I haven't hammered that out yet. I intend to allow players to PvP, but it'll be ran through staff instead of a random "I gank you in a dark alley" or "walk into the bar and open fire on you just cuz" that I've seen elsewhere. This will require more thought than my sleep deprived brainthing has right now.
Also, in regards to paladins: in 5e, a paladin does NOT have to be lawful good. They are less "beacons of shining purity" and more "I follow an oath and get power from that." There IS a spec that is all about "I follow my god" and, at high levels, gives you "angelic" features, like wings and flight speed.
-
@lavit2099 said in City of Splendors: A Forgotten Realms Adventure:
Also, in regards to paladins: in 5e, a paladin does NOT have to be lawful good. They are less "beacons of shining purity" and more "I follow an oath and get power from that." There IS a spec that is all about "I follow my god" and, at high levels, gives you "angelic" features, like wings and flight speed.
This gets into a particular point of nomenclature. To me a Paladin will ALWAYS be the 'beacon of shining purity'. If you want to play a divine warrior devoted to an evil god? Fine. Just don't call yourself a paladin. The writers of 5e have essentially caved and pandered to the Darth Vader is cool crowd here.
Of course, I also have a fundamental problem with games that allow 'evil' PCs from the standpoint that it always invites pvp drama as players square off.
-
@Tennyson
I'm fine with Brienne of Tarth being a paladin.If you want to be a "beacon of shining purity" you can play a cleric to a goodly god. You can still be a divine warrior devoted to a god that way. Including plate armor and a shield and a sword and everything.
-
I like the way they went with Paladins. Paladins are no longer the "I have to leave the room while my companions interrogate this evil do-er because of my ridiculously strict morality". You can be if you want. Evil paladins still don't really exist unless you're an Oathbreaker, almost all the Paladins still exist on the spectrum of good, but just like the gods you might follow, not everyone is strictly LAWFUL GOOD, you can have a neutral good character who does what he believes is right. As long as you obey your gods rules, and don't go around as a murder hobo, you'll still be in the right. It gives Paladins more flexibility, less rigidity. Mystra isn't Lawful Good, Neither is Lathander, both the classic examples of good gods. So why should Paladins have to be?
-
@DnvnQuinn said in City of Splendors: A Forgotten Realms Adventure:
So why should Paladins have to be?
I always had a soft spot for Paladins. What I also always had is a serious peeve for any kind of character who 'has' to be a certain way, until they're basically cardboard copies of each other.
-
Does anyone have connection info for this game?
-
@Tennyson It's called an Anti-Paladin, there's also an Oath-Breaker version in 5e. There's not really an 'evil' or 'bad' Paladin, but there is Oath-Breaker which is up to the DM to assign as a new class if they think the player can run with it.
All the Paladin Oaths are still 'A shining example of: ________' but you can have more choices than 'My God and my sentient creatures' They're still pious to a degree and still hold certain unbreakable values or otherwise lose their powers, but not everyone wants to play a Paladin that's the ultimate altar boy.
-
Off topic to the game but on topic to the paladin discussion, third edition also introduced paladins of concepts, can't remember which book it was in. One of my favorite characters was a Paladin of Tyranny that the rest of the PCs hated but stuck with because he was effective and quite lawful so was able to build a minimum trust level.
-
@magee101
I haven't dropped that info out for general use yet. Sadly, there's a lot left to do, and doing it by myself is taking forever. I am thinking of opening it up for people to come poke around at sometime this week (as I'm off on vacation, woot) but there's little to no code in place (jobs, bboards, that's aboot it) to actually promote or facilitate Stuff. The wiki is also in a state of needing work, but I'm hoping to corner my wiki-wizard friend to make character template page and the like. -
@lavit2099
Okay, I have been DM'ing 5e for over a year now and DM'ing in general D&D for almost a decade. Otherwise I was just gonna come poke around and get up to some sneaky elvish shenanigans -
Given the emphasis on party-based 'adventures' (dungeon crawls, etc) in D&D what would the focus of a MUSH be?
How do you predict the rules will translate to a multiplayer setting? That is, when it comes to common MUSHing concerns (playing social/investigative characters, PvP, etc) which other systems made for table-top have struggled with, do you think 5E will be up to the task? What kinds of house rules might be needed?
-
For me, a D&D Mush can be played two ways. it can be played as a standard D&D experience, you get a few friends, collect on a day of the week and run an adventure that is set within the continuous world provided by the MUSH setting.
For the second part, it allows you to do more lone-wolf stuff, or be a sword for hire, or perhaps just be a noble that might on occasion hire some adventurers to go see the world or look at a piece of property you might be buying to make sure there's no goblins or ghosts around the area. You can do a bit more political if you want.
The main thing with a D&D MUSH is that you're going to need pretty constant GM oversight, with a small game you have a dedicated team that can work in shifts of 2-3 people at the busy times and try and have at least 1 on during even the off hours. As the game grows you can slowly bring in player ST/GMs that can run events for players and forward information.
One of the biggest drawbacks to GM'ing such a large game in a continuous world is data, it is really hard to keep everything straight. This can cause setbacks or retcons all of which suck but come with MUSH'ing in general.
As for houserules, I don't think a whole lot needs to be made right off the bat, but should be looked at as the game is played. You could maybe mitigate somethings or just remove certain aspects/spells that might muck up what you're going for. Generally the biggest houserules that end up happening in a tabletop>MUSH is in regards to PVP. Thankfully D&D pvp is pretty straightforward and less convoluted than other tabletop systems since playercharacters are for the most part treated just like any other creature/character when it comes to spells/abilities/etc.
The biggest struggle I think for DND 5E going into MUSH is that of the players themselves. You have to go into it knowing it's not quite going to be like playing it at home or on website like Roll20. One of the biggest drawbacks is how the D20 systems are so spatially oriented (exact distances and LOS and stuff like that), that is hard to bring into a MUSH. Some MUSHes that run D20 systems have built mapsystems into their game so a GM can whip up a map and try and keep everything in place but they are not always pretty. A lot of it comes down to just being clear and concise as the GM when speaking about distances and positioning, taking note and making sure to keep track of any battlefield changes, and for everyone involved to be patient when it comes to people asking questions.
That said, when it comes to social/political stuff, D&D is actually really simple which is both bad and good, it pretty much boils down to a couple contested rolls and good/bad RP, which is OK when it comes to NPC>PC stuff, but PC>PC arguments are never easy to settle in D&D mechanics, it can really make people feel cheated in a way if they get a few bad dice rolls and think their character has to agree with what is being said. One of the best ways to combat that however, is to have a realization that just because you lose the dice roll, does not mean your character is forced to believe or agree with the winner, but it does mean that for all intents and purposes, the winner of the dice roll has won the argument. The character that loses does not have to agree, but the end of the rolls signals and end in the discussion, so it becomes time to agree to disagree or just to walk away.
This got a bit longer than I intended but there are some of my ideas and thoughts on what you proposed.
-
@Arkandel This has been something that I hammered out when I first thought of making a D&D game.
The idea is, you have a central city that most people spend their downtime in/around. You have Guilds that recruit adventures for quests/tasks. Like, say, a noble family's caravan was robbed on the way from the north, find the orcs, kill them, get the stuff back. If you do? You get the xp, loot you find, a "quest reward" type thing of bonus xp and/or money. If you don't wanna be a merc like that? You can form a group with OOC friends (like, say, a pack in Werewolf) and run together. I imagine there will be players looking for short adventures, as well as DM's trying to get people together to run something (like adventures for the Guilds or just general "I have this idea I wanna run" type stuff).
There will be a general, overarching plot, devised and ran by me and whoever I can get to help me. But, just like on WoD games, you have the metaplot (sometimes) and you have ST's looking to run one-shots or a 2-3 scene thing. Same basic idea. I don't think any HR's will be needed specifically for this sort of thing, aside from maybe something to help smooth over edges when you have people of vastly different levels in the same adventure.
