creation of a hardcore role play ''ironman'' mercenary group

[magiuss]

Alright so me and my brother has been talking about this idea for a long time. we wanna try and gather a 8 man group or more for a hardcore role playing experience

the whole idea behind this is to try and put as much realism in to the this kind of RP as possible, what will happen is 8 people or more will create lvl 1 toons that arrives to Cormyr together as a band looking for mercenary work, they will play together doing jobs from either quest or dm's, now the thing that might scare away a lot of people now is.

This Group will accept perma death as one of the criteria's for joining. I will give an example of what my thoughts on this subject will be.

the group is out doing a job and one of their comrates fall. they have 0 options of a raise and the person is forced to respawn then the char is permanently dead. now every person in the group will have the choice of how long the soul can be away from the body before it can't be returned to the body.. now people how ever can feel that they can get raised by the running for a scroll. that is up for every person how Strick they wanna play the perma death on this.

the reason I wanna enforce perma death in this new group of mercenarys is to reach a higher fear of death and a better strategic way of engaging enemies. If people fear lich's demi lichs and other stuff that is very hard cause they don't want to lose gold and XP imagine the fear of losing your Toons

Now when a Toon is perma killed. The items that the entire group has aided in getting to the player will be shared amongst the rest of the group. this can not be considered breaking a Rule on the server as the entire group has been gathering all the gold that has bought these items/potions/healing kits what ever the toon has on him.


Now if a toon wish's to leave the group at somepoint cause they don't want to play with the group anymore, the Verdict should be perma retirement of the toon. I don't see any IC reason why this band of brothers who have traveled for many years coming to cormyr and then just leave them if not for retiring to a quiet little life or dyeing amongst comrades.. either way.


Now I wish to point out something that I think is very important for the function of this group both IC and OOC. that If one decides They wanna be a part of this. People need to make up with them self's if they are People who gets insulted OOC easily. Cause the most important thing o this group in my eyes is people Staying with their char no matter if it seems mean.. if your a Evil alignment rouge and your comrade dies.. you wouldn't want to waste ''money or scrolls out of your share to save someone'' unless their was a bigger and better benefit from it..


So anyone who can live with such criteria's as stated.

1: perma is on the table [can you live with losing a toon.. no matter what level he/she is
2:if you wish to leave the group the toon go's on retirement.
3: Do you get easily offended OOC by actions In game [then you probably shouldn't do this]


it could be fun to hear maybe some more input to make it more realistic or improvements.

[malleus]

im down for this..

ill be playing a healing cleric.

love the idea of perma death, it makes the fear of death more real for me.

losing exp and gold is one thing, lose your toon....thats hardcore..

[Grozer]

I am interested in this but not sure if I can join in unless I know more about the times the group will get together. A couple of other points to ask/comment on... specifically with regard to the second point, its a mercenary group and I could definitely see that over time perhaps a rift develops and certain characters cannot get along or they have a major disagreement which might result in one or more PCs leaving the group. I dont think this should be a forced retirement at that point.

More specifically are you expecting that all PCs will be close in alignment or have linked backgrounds, i.e. hailing from the same lands prior to Cormyr etc.?

[Kiyohime 🐍]

I might be up for this. I just need to have an idea of the group's background, so I can think of a character. She will probably be a rogue, though.


Edit: Also, I agree with Grozer's statement about not retiring the character if they choose to leave the band of brothers.

[PhatDorf]

I'd be up for this, issue is as always times/days if we're playing together a lot. Will be able to say when we're clearer on that side of it.

^ may as well 3rd that retirement thing, part of being a mercenary is that you might drift around, between places and people.

[magiuss]

Dec 12, 2013 14:30:45 GMT -5 Grozer said:

I am interested in this but not sure if I can join in unless I know more about the times the group will get together. A couple of other points to ask/comment on... specifically with regard to the second point, its a mercenary group and I could definitely see that over time perhaps a rift develops and certain characters cannot get along or they have a major disagreement which might result in one or more PCs leaving the group. I dont think this should be a forced retirement at that point.

More specifically are you expecting that all PCs will be close in alignment or have linked backgrounds, i.e. hailing from the same lands prior to Cormyr etc.?

well the first of, awesome to see interest so fast after the post was made was afraid the idea would be shot down.

It doesn't have to be a Mercenary group Per'say.. but a band of Adventurers who has grown in numbers over many years of traveling.. the back ground story would be up to each individual to make.. but at least ½ a year of IC time Role play histories should be made in my opinion. race's can be random as alignment can.. they can have met up with the group along the way.. was wounded in a battle and found and the group helped the person.. whatever people fancy for a story

I can see what you mean.. and yes RP can escalade to a point of a rift in the group, in that case that people wanted to leave I would be fine with them leaving if the Perma death part remained with them..

now for the time.. it will be Incredible hard to maintain a huge amount of people for the same time I hope that the people who wants to be part of this we'll try to maintain the Group within the same level, and to a maximum of 1 level away from the others. and we should try to make it mostly on Weekend.

All these things can be thought of when we see if this has any interest amongst the people on here

we would together make a suggestion of a background Storie for the group aswell as finding a ''suitable Name'' for a forgotten realms brotherhood

[Deleted]

I would call this a formal, player run, role play group. Since, our group 'The Refugees,' has had 12 successful meeting, perhaps you would find some value in looking at what we have done. I offer three major points for your consideration.

First, time zones are a bitch, finding the time when everyone can play is a giant hurdle. Plan on losing a few along the way.

Second, consider the theme of the group. This is a background that the whole group shares, and perhaps something about what the group hopes to accomplish. So far the idea of extreme realism might fit into your theme.

Third, consider the group rules, which are really just agreements on how play will proceed, or how they will achieve elements of the theme. Perma- death is the (loosely defined) rule which will, hopefully, lead to the extreme realism you are seeking.

[Grozer]

For reference the best times for me to play consistently would be late evenings / nights on weekends. I am PST, so around 8pm PST Friday and Saturdays. There are other times but during the week my game time is limited to an hour here or there.

Not sure what type of character I would play, though I am open to seeing what others would prefer and then fill in a gap if needed. Of course that assumes I can make whatever timing you decide upon.

[Kelitayu]

Ohh! I would be up for this as long as it fits in with my time zone and doesn't get in the way of the Refugee group. I love this kind of thing.

I would be happy to play as anything, though my initial idea would be a sorceress perhaps.. will see what everyone else is going with first.

[magiuss]

Dec 12, 2013 15:08:41 GMT -5 Grozer said:

For reference the best times for me to play consistently would be late evenings / nights on weekends. I am PST, so around 8pm PST Friday and Saturdays. There are other times but during the week my game time is limited to an hour here or there.

Not sure what type of character I would play, though I am open to seeing what others would prefer and then fill in a gap if needed. Of course that assumes I can make whatever timing you decide upon.

if you know what time that is in European. for us fools who don't know your west east central Pm/am times

[Grozer]

Haha! So I know or at least I believe I am -8 GMT, depending on daylight savings time or not (I used to play pretty regularly with folks from Europe) and timing was always tough since it was the middle of the morning when I could play. More specific to your question 8pm PST is 4am GMT unless I miscalculated. If most of the group is European I will go with the majority and try to keep up with the time you decide on.

[malleus]

Hmm what are we in Denmark ? -1 GTM or something ?

[lucesi]

I'd definitely be interested in this. Would have to think about the character I want though and how it fits in with the others in the group.

[Deleted]

I am unclear on what you mean by your perma-death rule. Are you saying raise dead scrolls are frowned on but optional? What about crashes? Would you consider something like each player gets one mulligan per every 5 levels, or a total of 3 or 5 respawns (or raise dead scrolls) total? The thing about rules- they need to serve the players. You may wish to figure out the final details after the group comes together.

Dec 12, 2013 14:30:45 GMT -5 Grozer said:

...I could definitely see that over time perhaps a rift develops and certain characters cannot get along or they have a major disagreement which might result in one or more PCs leaving the group. I dont think this should be a forced retirement at that point.

Regarding retirement, what about a variation on 'Blood in, Blood out.' I think it fits with the theme of extreme realism. If anyone wishes to leave the 'gang,' they donate all their gold and equipment to the group, or else the gang will hunt them down to take it!

[Kelitayu]

I'm GMT.



I'm busy Saturday 10PM onwards but the rest of the week is open for me.

What kind of schedule were you thinking of, how many adventures a week? Once a week or more?

Is it "You can only gain xp when with the group" or are players free to gain xp by themselves / with others?

Are we to keep to roughly the same levels?

[Fluffy the Mad]

I believe he said to stay within one level of the rest of the group. I assume that means someone can level up independently if they miss a meeting. He also suggested just doing weekends, which would be one or maybe two meetings a week.

Lastly, if you need yet another, I'm in for trying a hardcore group, despite being one of those filthy CST people.

[Deleted]

I have a further suggestion for this. If enough people are interested in this sort of "hard corp" RP, then there could be two groups that have an inherent, though not necessarily automatically deadly, conflict between the two groups, and the two could work at some sort of cross-purpose relative to each other. This would put people in a position to balance both their own character's respect for death, as well as having some respect for the fact the player on the other side is also losing a character if you kill them. The advantage to the second group is that it involves more people, if more people are interested, and it gives both groups something to do to direct their activities, rather than just attacking animated monsters in dungeons. What I'm envisioning for "rules" over this, kind of in addition to what was said in the OP, is:

1 - A PVP death to a member of the other "one death per character" group is permanent, period, even with raises available.
2 - No surprise ambushes in PVP without some level of prior role play with the target. If we're playing for permadeath, give the other *some* chance to participate in what could be their character's final scene.
3 - As a guideline, but not a rule, try to further role play with a potential PVP target with less extreme actions, rather than ending that character's part in the story forcibly through death.

Examples of conflicts that are not necessarily lethal could be things like hard driving Tyrran "lawyers" vs. chaotically minded vigilante types, both competing to bring justice to a criminal in each their own way; two groups racing to be the first to find a cure for a disease, one through knowledge of herbalism and rare plants, and the other through necromancy or deals with infernal beings; two groups both trying to win the favor of some NPC for some purpose; etc. The main point here being conflict ideas that could potentially boil over into fighting, but that don't inherently lead to it like a "Tormtars must kill the Cyricist" sort of conflict would. Of course, there could be a Tormtar in one group and a Cyricist in the other, but that wouldn't be the overall conflict.

About crashes and clearly OOC causes of IC death, I would recommend that grace be given for circumstances that are clearly purely OOC.

Even without the PVP element, I would love to play in this group if times match.

[iangallowglas]

I'd be interested in this, and weekends are good for me (friday/saturday nights and sunday). I'm central standard time (US), late nights generally aren't good for me, but I can do early mornings (as in 4am early on saturday or sunday if necessary) so that may or may not work for everyone else. As far as what I'd play, I'm up for anything and any alignment.

[quelunia]

If I may make the suggestion, Perma Death would also mean that potentially the group wouldnt always have access to healers aiding us and what not could we use that in the RP that brings us together?

Lets look at the state of affairs in Cormyr as they are and they are rife for many many things to take place by evil groups of people. Cormyr is overrun with refugees, food supplies are likely being stretched in some areas, nobles are watching taxes be increased for the Crown to pay for said food for people without a job and unable to pay for it (refugees), the forests are being hunted game is getting scarce. The Malarites are being told to help the refugees, and not to hunt people of Cormyr, Banittes are run underground, the Red Wizards have crossed a line and been reprimanded by the Crown, and how many other things? A Bone master running around. The list can go on, these are just the thoughts I had.

Would it not stand to reason that perhaps we are members of one of these groups and arent willing to be brought to a healer and possibly captured? So a Sembian Silver Raven group, Knights of the Shield trying to gain a foothold and become information whores selling secrets? Or perhaps Zhentarim agents trying to exploit the weaknesses. The characters would be to afraid of one of their own being captured or in a fit of pain talking in their sleep saying something that could get everyone killed ? How about Fire Knives, exiled Cormyrian Nobles that have come to take over finally? There is that execution coming up and it would be a very nice explanation for the Fire Knives.

Or a rogue group of Malarites wanting to form a Hunt ... To take back the hunting ground. Perhaps the hunting to feed all these people has depleted hunting grounds that we used to hunt. These explanations could be the impetus for the Perma restriction and have a valid RP reason as to why we cant/wont.

[Deleted]

Or we could just decide to play like death is death.

[PhatDorf]

With an overall perma-death attitude, give and take a bit for every player, who likes to do it in their own way (within the limits) then I think it'd work just fine.
Some people will maybe die off upon bleeding out, some may only die if there is no way to be raised in the time they have that session. Some may die for a few weeks, then finally get rescued by magical means later.

...Just make sure you ask if the person will accept that raise dead, before you force them

[Munroe]

The only problem I see with this is that you cannot force permanent retirement on another player's character.

If they join, then decide to leave the group later to continue the character on their own, and you insist they be permanently retired, you have no grounds at that point to insist that, nor that they return the gear they acquired while adventuring with the group, if it's their gear. They're under no obligation to stick to the original agreement. Ultimately the character belongs to the player, not the group.

You can, of course, excommunicate someone from the group if their character dies, but once they decide to walk away with their character it's not up to any players but the character's player if their character is perma-killed or retired, short of pregnancy.

[malleus]

I dont think the perma death Will be a problem. We are alle grown people and hopefully alle that sign up for this Will be true to there words.

[magiuss]

I wanted this part to be part of the original post. but somehow it didn't want to print it in there

I personaly will perma kill my char If the group has 0 scrolls on them and have to run to town for 1, the soul will have been gone from the body for to long, Even in the event of a DM going rampage on the group and killing me. I will not return even though the DM raise's me ''Unless lets say im a moradin follower'' and Moradin him self brings me back for a IC role play purpose.. lets say a quest.. for lets face it.. how many normal persons who just follow a deity who dies ever gets brought back for just the point of returning in forgotten realms. ''0''

[magiuss]

Dec 13, 2013 0:34:36 GMT -5 Munroe said:

The only problem I see with this is that you cannot force permanent retirement on another player's character.

If they join, then decide to leave the group later to continue the character on their own, and you insist they be permanently retired, you have no grounds at that point to insist that, nor that they return the gear they acquired while adventuring with the group, if it's their gear. They're under no obligation to stick to the original agreement. Ultimately the character belongs to the player, not the group.

You can, of course, excommunicate someone from the group if their character dies, but once they decide to walk away with their character it's not up to any players but the character's player if their character is perma-killed or retired, short of pregnancy.

Munroe I know I can't ''force anyone '' to retire a toon leaving. that is why I hope when people sign up for this Experiment that they will honor the ''code of conduct''

and as I stated above.. if people wanted t leave I would be fine with it. as long as they Kept the Perma death for their toon to remain afterwards as well.

we are all here t have fun. and I wanted to try and create something that brought a little more realism in to it.


that being said.

I will let the post be on the forum for a weeks time Period before we proceed with seeing what time we can make work on this project. to give more people time to look it over and think about it.

when that week has passed we will proceed with finding time and see how we can make it work with as many people as possible.
when that is done we will proceed with what Toon **race, alignment ** people would want to play. **that said you can still go around and think about it until then ** I have at least
then we will try and find a ideas for what the back ground stories for the group will be and people can add in a ½ year or more RP time of them joining the group t their toons personal history

Ps. I had an Idea about traveling expenses. lets say we bring an outsider of the group along with us. the group will take 20% of the loots share to cover expenses as raise scrolls and healing supplies stuff like that.. the rest of the share will be shared evenly amongst the members and the outsiders along with the group what you think about that ?

[magiuss]

Dec 12, 2013 16:33:40 GMT -5 @titillandus said:

I am unclear on what you mean by your perma-death rule. Are you saying raise dead scrolls are frowned on but optional? What about crashes? Would you consider something like each player gets one mulligan per every 5 levels, or a total of 3 or 5 respawns (or raise dead scrolls) total? The thing about rules- they need to serve the players. You may wish to figure out the final details after the group comes together.

Dec 12, 2013 14:30:45 GMT -5 Grozer said:

...I could definitely see that over time perhaps a rift develops and certain characters cannot get along or they have a major disagreement which might result in one or more PCs leaving the group. I dont think this should be a forced retirement at that point.

Regarding retirement, what about a variation on 'Blood in, Blood out.' I think it fits with the theme of extreme realism. If anyone wishes to leave the 'gang,' they donate all their gold and equipment to the group, or else the gang will hunt them down to take it!

in the case of an obvious Crash death.. a ''toon just stands there doing nothing to survive and died'' there will not be a perma death. this is after all a game run over the web and crash's can occur. so OOC deaths like that will not be considered part of the perma death setup

Edit: the blood in blood out idea is awesome! they could have sworn a bloodoath joining the group

[Kelitayu]

Here's a concept I was thinking of earlier, assuming the team decides to take the path of evil:

Gender: Female
Race: Half Orc (Or maybe Human with some sort of horrific facial disfigurement)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Class: Sorceress (Did consider multiclassing as Blackguard and then remembered it's a banned combo here. It's a shame though, could have really fit into her back story well.)
Faith: Sune (Lady Fire Hair)
Voice Set: White Thesta
Focus: Evocation and Demonology
Appearance: She always wears a specially crafted helmet that covers her face and is almost impossible to remove even if she's unconscious. It's pretty much permanently attached to her face.

My character knows the dark and sinister truth about Sune. She is infact an evil devil of vanity and jealousy. Sune is the fairest in the realms and anyone who threatens to match or surpass her divine beauty will have to have their face flayed off.

[gainreduction]

Yes, I'm keen.

[magiuss]

here what I have been thinking for my own char

I would not chose o play a 'leader' of any kind.. in my thoughts that would be a warrior type. perhaps priestly.. I have always seen the Wizard as a *right hand man* the go to for knowledge. they never really are seen leading such. i'll more see my self as a scout for this adventurer

gender: male
Name: walter ''hawkeye'' Grey
race: human/half-elven

Class. Ranger *Pure blood archer*
Faith: not sure yet. (need to look up if rangers can be faithless, since they have divine magic at some point)I really would like the concept of a Faithless one

Apperance: brow/gray/green leather, dirty green cloak with a hood, rich brown hair with brown/green eyes

[Kelitayu]

That's a good question.

You need to have a nature deity if you want to cast the ranger spells, they have to come from somewhere. However, and this is where I might be wrong.. I've always been under the impression it's okay to take the first 3 levels of ranger as they don't receive spells at those levels. Or I would say it would be okay to go higher as long as you didn't cast any spells, but I get the feeling that might be a no-no on this server.

PS - You could leave your wisdom at 8 or 10, that would remove your spells.. of course that's also probably gimping yourself quite a bit.