About a text-based game

[Sator]

After reading a thread that got a bit carried away in off-topic and people stared discussing how they used to battle dragons in PnP i kind of got this idea: What if we started a text-based BG game here in the forums? I know it's not a true equivalent of a PnP game (i haven't played PnP by the way, which is a loss) but it could still be fun! I've played a text-based game online in the Wheel of Time universe, and it was grand We were originally a party of four, but many joined us soon after, including villains that made our lives miserable :P What we did was every char posts an "act" - a further development to the story from his POV, and with the agreement apart from killing any PC-s without asking in a PM first, everything was ok. We didn't have a DM figure, but we didn't need one i guess..
So what i'm suggesting now, is that we do something along those lines here, starting in the Irenicus dungeon (or even Candlekeep! ), a party of six (or more ) and someone to act as a DM (i could think of a few names already ). Now we could finally see just how hard it is to thwart a certain venerable red if one of the more experienced posters here controlled it. What i don't know is is such a thing ok with the rules the admin set up (Fable could enlighten me here), with anyone holding the rights to the BG2 games, or will any of you guys find it interesting and worth their time..

[fable]

I don't know how you'd work it, but you'd discuss it and get it going over in the Forum Members RPG forum. I'll move this thread, and leave a redirect, too.

[Magrus]

You're looking to play a text based game based on BG2? That's called Dungeons and Dragons. The game system the IWD, BG, NWN and other similar games were built off of. It has a complicated rule set that takes time to get into and learn however.

Or were you simply wanting to roleplay through the game without any rules? Someone else brought up a BG2 role play here not too long ago about the same thing. Maybe you should post there? If you are looking for playing the game with an actual rule set, I have never played BG2, but I could teach you the rules in a game I plan on starting up in a few weeks with an experienced player. Let me know if you do want to learn.

[Sator]

Argh! Sorry for posting in the wrong forum Fable, i should have looked around first...
What i was suggesting was that we play a game right here on the GB forums. It will be more fiction and character relations, rather than dice throwing and monster swatting, since we aren't around a table in the same room Crenshinibon's idea is virtually the same as mine, and to those who still don't quite understand what we (just supposing, sorry if you do have something different in mind Crensh) would like to do it like that:

Each participating forum member creates a character and posts their stats and background infro. For example, i will play and write through the point of view of a Chaotic Good Elven Male Kensai named Sator with 16 str 18 dex 14 con 14 int 16 wis 18 cha (These stats are just an example).
We start the adventure at a location we know from the games (depending if we want to follow the BG storyline or not) or just wherever we want on Faerun.. We get a DM do guide us trough the adventure and we have fun
The better the writing skills and the bigger the imagination of the players, the better the game will turn out. We use the D&D rules just as a guide to what we can and can't do. This will be a challenge for me since i would really like to write fantasy in English some day, but i fear my skills aren't good enough yet. I do some writing in my native language, but that's off topic.
So, what I'm saying is that we do a PnP game, but we just do it trough writing "acts" as messages in the forums. Example:

Act:

Sator sat closer to the fire and unsheathed his right sword with a smooth sound. He fumbled trough his gear to find a sharpening stone and slowly started honing the fine steel edge. Crenshinibon raised his eyes and regarded the blade with a slight note of amusement in his eyes, but said nothing. Sator knew that the power the Sorcerer wielded was immense, but nothing came close to what he bore witness this day.
While the whole group was struggling to hold their own against the huge fire giant and is minions, the socrecer managed to stay completely out of the fray, just to the side of a huge pillar and started casting a spell he had just acquired.
Sator shuddered involuntary at the memory and focused on the sharpening of his katana. He was no coward, but a man that could stop the Time was just too powerful to be trusted.....

And so on You get the picture If anyone's interested please join in! We post the stats of our respected characters, we appoint a wise DM and we adventure on! I've tried this before, trust me it's tons of fun

EDIT: It seems people are doing this already, here's an example: http://www.gamebanshee.com/forums/fo...pam-67500.html

[Kipi]

I'm on it if there are others interesting, and my schedule fits to everybody else...

Just a warning, though: As the game is run in forum, where people post from all over the world, it's quite difficult to schedule sessions... one alternative is to run the game with "posting time limits", ie. eveybody has 3 days to post, then DM puts in the result, and again there is 3 day timelimit... or something like that...

[Sator]

Yes well, if somebody doesn't have the time to post his pov we could just adventure on with his character being "passive" for a while - meaning, we can just mention his doings based on his profile trough our own pov's but not doing anything drastic. Furthermore i suppose that if we do start a game, the players will be limited (a party of around 6 and a DM ) and will get to know each other. So limits like that are pointless, i mean it's all for fun right? Let's see what the others have to say about it.

[Magrus]

Ah, well, if you read through past the first few pages of that thread you linked to, you will see that was an actual DnD game run on the forum for new players. What you're looking for is a free-form role play, not the same thing.

[Jedi_Sauraus]

I think it's a great idea but hard to implement. I'm no great story writer but what the hell, I'll give it a shot.

ok

char name: Jedi
Profession: Sorceror
Level: ?? depending on rest of team

stats:
STR 12
DEX 18
CON 16
INT 18
WIS 10
CHA 12

[Siberys]

Originally Posted by Jedi_Sauraus

I think it's a great idea but hard to implement. I'm no great story writer but what the hell, I'll give it a shot.

ok

char name: Jedi
Profession: Sorceror
Level: ?? depending on rest of team

stats:
STR 12
DEX 18
CON 16
INT 18
WIS 10
CHA 12

Umm....not only are there no rules to this free-form idea of a text RPG, but there's no story to begin with, so why even bother starting a character in the D20 format?

[Crenshinibon]

Yeah. First you need to pick a DM, who will create a storyline. Then you need to develop your character (if I was DM I'd require either an entire character sheet or a post with all of the information that would be on the sheet.)

The information that you provided is next to nothing. I suggest you take a look at a standard character sheet. I believe that the campaign should start with all characters being at level one.

Also, might I ask as to why your Charisma is so low? You do know that Sorcerers use Charisma instead of Intelligence, right?

They way you have it, you won't be able to cast spells past the second level.

[Sator]

umm well *my* stats were just an example.. And i believe he was thinking of a 2ed sorc (which still uses int). That does raise the question which ruleset are we going to use (if we ever get to do this thing). IMO if it's going to be a BG setting, it should be the 2nd ed rules. But I'm fine with 3rd ed as well, the only unfamiliar set for me is 3.5.. In any case, let's see just how many people are interested and do we have a DM.. Also i suggested that we discard dice rolling and such, since anyone can LIE about what they rolled, i don't know how the rest of you feel about that.

EDIT: Yeah, about the story.. I originally suggested we use the BG storyline. Maybe the protagonist will be a NPC, so it's more interesting. As i said, i got the idea while imagining what would it be if a real DM controlled ol' fiery Firky and not the retarded game AI..... And yes it's a free form rpg, but that doesn't mean we can't establish some rules at least..

[Kipi]

Originally Posted by Sator

umm well *my* stats were just an example.. And i believe he was thinking of a 2ed sorc (which still uses int). That does raise the question which ruleset are we going to use (if we ever get to do this thing). IMO if it's going to be a BG setting, it should be the 2nd ed rules. But I'm fine with 3rd ed as well, the only unfamiliar set for me is 3.5.. In any case, let's see just how many people are interested and do we have a DM.. Also i suggested that we discard dice rolling and such, since anyone can LIE about what they rolled, i don't know how the rest of you feel about that.

Well, basically if we discarc dices, then we cann discard other rules undependable of the rules we are using...
This is because the rules of D&D bases mostly in dices, so without dices there won't be any reason to use D&D rules either...

just my point of view...

[Siberys]

>>>>And i believe he was thinking of a 2ed sorc (which still uses int).

Sorry, but no, that isn't true. Second edition doesn't even have sorcs IIRC. They have mages, which use int because it's based off of wizards.

[Crenshinibon]

That's why I wanted a dice system on the forums, so that everyone can view the result of the roll.

Again, I can make the program but not the GUI.

[Sator]

Siberys am i missing something here, or does Baldur's Gate 2 have Sorcerers, they use Intelligence as their primary statistic and it's all based on Second Edition D&D rules? (also called AD&D) I could be wrong on one of these points, i admit... But I'm pretty darn sure my BG2 sorcerer uses INT as his primary stat.

About a GUI - I'm not sure what exactly is needed, I've done some work with flash and Dreamwaver and I can draw buttons and such with Photoshop. So if you think i could help, let me know.