Looking for project leaders

Looking for Project Leaders

When I started the 3.S project I was the only person involved. Now the project is growing (we get on average one new project member every day) and I've found that I can safely pass on leadership of certain Builds to other people.

With that in mind I'm looking for people that can take over the overseeing of certain Builds...well, most of them actually.

Now that I can rely on people to help, it is in the best interests of the project that I hand aspects over to people better suited to running them; people with more knowledge on the fandoms being used as the Builds and with more experience on playing and GMing.

Currently looknig for new leaders are the following Builds: -

Silent Hill,
Bioshock,
Pokemon (though I'll be waiting until I've finished working out the basic mechanics. I'm determined to finish working this out an I'm almost done.),
Legacy of Kain, &
Naruto.

I've decided that I want to keep overseeing the Kingdom Hearts Build, seeing as I'm the most familair with the mechanics of it (seeing as I've written a majority of them) and it's the fandom I most enjoy doing the rules for.

In addition, I've also started work on a new Build, but I'm keeping the details of that under wraps. I'm doing this for a number of reasons, which I wont go in to right now. People are welcome to get involved but you'll have to PM me because that section of the forum will be hidden. If you want to be involved, you need to be open minded and not easily offended.

Anyway, that's all I'm saying about that for the time being.

Mission Statements and Whatnot

In other news, I was asked why I'm going through with this project.

At first I wasn't even sure myself but I've come to realise that it's not just altruism that's motivating me.

The truth is that I find working on rules fascinating. I don't know why; I just enjoy working things out and doing these rules gives me a tremendous amount of scope to play with. I suppose it's the same as people enjoying doing maths. It doesn't make much sense to the likes of us but they get something out of it. I imagine it's the same thing here. It helps me to take my mind off of things and it focuses me...as well as relieving the odd spout of boredom.

So while I'm busy creating I realised that the stuff that actually worked could benefit the D&D and D20 community. I realised that I wanted to put this to good use and with the introduction of 4e (which everybody hates) I thought I'd do my best to come up with something better.

And you know what? It's working. There's been a naysayer or two (negative folks with no imagination) but every day we get another addition (on average) and people are getting involved and liking what we can do with this.

So I want to thank every indivudual who is contributing, no matter how big or small.

Even those people who only come for the Roleplay or the General chat are building a community, a good community of imaginative and friendly people.

Everyone, in one way or another, are contributing to a wonderful project; a project that started as an errand thought and is flourishing in to something for everyone, by everyone.

Worlds are being built, friends are being made and ideas are being woven.

I had doubts, but the people involved have banished those entirely.

I want to finish with an open letter to WotC that I found on their forums which made me glad we're doing this: -

An open letter to Wizards of the Coast - by "drewnchick"

I've not engaged in the discussion on these boards, silently lurking and listening to everyone's responses, both pro and con. I waited, I hoped, I even read the books. Now...I am responding with what I hope is a thoughful letter to the Wizards.



Dear Wizards,

We feel spurned, WotC. So many companies had licenses revoked--er, not renewed...feels the same, WotC--and that wounded or killed a number of them. A hundred thousand readers of Dragon and Dungeon had their lifetime subscriptions forceably suspended, and THAT hurt a lot of people.

WotC (or Hasbro...makes no difference to us), your obvious drive to gather in everything for yourselves seriously offended nearly everyone. Yes, it was your right to do so, and maybe it even made good business sense from a bean counter's point of view. But business is NOT just about money; it's also about the relationships with customers, and you managed to tick off, worry, or confuse just about all of them.

We all see through the guise. Yes, we were complaining about a few aspects of the game. But no, we did NOT ask for 4E. Some of us will like it, and some will give it a chance. A few will even begrudgingly make the switch. But those are the exceptions. A strong and vocal majority of us--individuals and small companies alike--have followed you through the TSR days all the way to Seattle. We gave you all the support any company could want, and we really feel like you have treated us badly in return. We will NOT be following you anymore.

If it was your purpose to wipe the slate clean of all your "old-school" customers and start all over with a fresh and innocent generation, then I applaud your brilliance. If you intended to lose the "dead weight" of the past while boldly storming into the "future of gaming," then you have succeeded. But we feel the sting of your slap to our faces. We loved you; we supported you; we even held out some hope that 4E would NOT be the disappointment we saw coming. Nope. You slapped us all pretty hard, WotC. The final slap in the face would be you dedicating 4E in memory of E. Gary Gygax, who voiced his displeasure with your direction and decisions. Oh, wait...you actually did that.

So...we feel spurned, WotC. But there remains a ray of hope for us. Paizo Publishing is a-courtin' and we're becoming all too happy to switch loyalties. We know when we're not wanted anymore, but we also see a bright future for this company who WANTS us "old-school" gamers, who LISTENS to our collective voice, and who COOPERATES with other companies for the betterment and enjoyment of all who truly love D&D more than money.

Well, I hope the lesson you learn from this isn't TOO painful. I really hope you learn it. Don't say we didn't warn you.


Signed: A fed-up, old-school, pen-and-paper, tabletop gamer.

Project Updates: The Era system, Roleplaying and Free Stuff (as competition prizes)

The Era system

The first draft of the Era System is complete (all except one part but we can do without it for now). We can now begin applying the 3.S system to any world we feel like, which means no more separate rules systems for medieval and modern settings. There's still a lot to do, such as price modifiers for things, class restrictions due to era and diplomacy modifiers and whatnot (not unlike Ravenloft's system) but we've got enough to need a review and we really do need people to opine on this.

Roleplaying

We're also beginning to build the worlds the game will be based around. One of our staff is heading up a Play-by-post Roleplay to build up the world in a creative way. How it works is quite simple:

You create a character and write his/her backstory. There are little to no limits on what kind of story you can have. These details are factored in to the story and the roleplay begins.

As the story goes on, elements will be used to form the basis of the D20 Synergy world. Some aspects of the game will be left in, some won't.
So this is a good opportunity to not only roleplay, but have you and your character achieve a sense of immortality. Your character could very well be featured in the games of untold numbers of people for a long time to come...and how cool is that? Each roleplayer will also be credited in the book once it's released and if there's enough to go round, you may get a free hard-back copy.

Competitions for Free Stuff

There'll also be competitions with prizes, such as t-shirts, mugs, hats and all sorts of other unique and cool stuff. Things like best roleplay and best character will be awarded with other awards being added later. So if you're good at roleplaying and have a good imagination, join here and claim your immortality and free stuff.

They wont be the only prizes given out though. We're going to be giving away prizes for all kinds of contributions. Things like; best artwork, best NPC, best spell, best story fluff, and more will be rewarded. Every member of the forum is eligible for a prize, whether they've posted once or a hundred things. It's quality we award, not quantity.

So come and have a look. I've also opened up the "general" section so that guests can respond to topics and give their thoughts. Guests still can't start topics or polls and if bots start turning up, this feature may be stopped, but in the meantime you can now get involved with some discussions without having to join.

In other news (though not as important) I'll be away for a week or so due to technical issues (and it's all PC World's fault) but the forum is being left in good hands and the community will still be as active as ever (being rambunctious in my absence perhaps?)

So, until later...

Have fun folks

HMR

Potions and their spell limits...

During the course of writing the rules for D20 Synergy, we've had to make a few decisions. Some come from a blatant dislike of the rules as they were for D&D 3.5 or D20 Modern and some come from house rules that were good enough to include. Over the course of the project's development, I'll post the more pressing questions here for your consideration.

In this particular instance we are discussing the spell limit for potions.

In the rules of Dungeon and Dragon's 3.5, the highest level a spell could be that could be made in to a potion was 3. For a variety of reasons, the option of changing this limit or removing it is being discussed.

Below is the discussion as it has played out at the time of printing.
(Please note - I've had to shrink the display so that it fits on the screen...)

Author	Topic: Potion spell limit? (Read 33 times)
HearMeRoar Administrator Overlord member is online Joined: Jun 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 113 Karma: 101	Potion spell limit? « Thread Started on Jun 28, 2008, 9:50pm » I've been going over what is likely to be included in the updated rules and I'm mulling over the rule that potions can only contain up to level 3 spells. I'm of the opinion that this is ridiculous and I want to do away with this rule. After all, as long as the cost to make and purchase the potions increases accordingly and the experience to make it increases, then where's the harm? What do you all think? HMR Link to Post - Back to Top Logged
FireFALL Staff Mm? What's that, my boy? member is offline Is There A Doctor In The House? Joined: Jun 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 14 Location: Here......Why where are you? Karma: 10 [ Exalt | Smite ]	Re: Potion spell limit? « Reply #1 on Jun 29, 2008, 4:08pm » I'm with you dude, as long as the cost to make it increases then why shouldn't you be able to have potions which contain over lvl3 spells. Link to Post - Back to Top 77.96.71.124 Man can hardly even recognize the devils of his own creation
HearMeRoar Administrator Overlord member is online Joined: Jun 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 113 Karma: 101	Re: Potion spell limit? « Reply #2 on Jun 30, 2008, 7:31am » Of course. The DM's handbook in 3.5 has a formula for working out the cost of magic items. The cost of one use items is rather simple (and it uses a potion as it's example) so I mistakenly took my cue from that and didn't impose a limit on the spell level of a potion and used to formula to work out the value. It's a shame my campaign ended because Nailo has a potion that would turn her in to a giant warforged titan. ^_^ Methinks those kinds of potions make a noon-limit worth it. The question is, should we let epic level spells be potions? It'd make things interesting, of course, but I wonder if it wouldn't be too powerful. Link to Post - Back to Top Logged
fallennorth New Member member is offline Joined: Jul 2008 Gender: Female Posts: 7 Karma: 1 [ Exalt | Smite ]	Re: Potion spell limit? « Reply #3 on Jul 3, 2008, 9:33am » I was looking forward to see that potion put in use to, it would have been hilarious. We did fine with out limits, so I reckon we shouldn't be too concerned about the spell level, though you're right some Epic spells could be to powerful to be available in potion form. Maybe thats where you should call you limit. Link to Post - Back to Top 91.111.117.224
ori New Member member is offline Joined: Jul 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 5 Karma: 0 [ Exalt | Smite ]	Re: Potion spell limit? « Reply #4 Today at 8:54am » The whole point of level 3 potions and below were that anything above it gets progressively too powerful to take a long. The biggest problem is when you start giving the warriors of the party the wizard self buffs that make them combat gods. It simply breaks the combat system. (even the level 4 spell of stoneskin would make your bog standard warrior a shed load tougher) The only exceptions I'd make were more potent healing potions. And even then, only if the party doesn't have a cleric along for the show, which means it's the GM supplying the party with such potions. Link to Post - Back to Top 92.20.0.32
HearMeRoar Administrator Overlord member is online Joined: Jun 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 113 Karma: 101	Re: Potion spell limit? « Reply #5 Today at 10:11am » Today at 8:54am, ori wrote: The whole point of level 3 potions and below were that anything above it gets progressively too powerful to take a long. The biggest problem is when you start giving the warriors of the party the wizard self buffs that make them combat gods. It simply breaks the combat system. (even the level 4 spell of stoneskin would make your bog standard warrior a shed load tougher) The only exceptions I'd make were more potent healing potions. And even then, only if the party doesn't have a cleric along for the show, which means it's the GM supplying the party with such potions. That's an interesting point. In my experience of dealing with my players it didn't make that much of an impact though. I still think that it should be allowed, but with this point in mind I think we may need to figure out a better way to balance it. As far as I can tell, the system for working out the cost of such items is fair enough (though I'll review it again). In the meantime, progressive feats allowing a potion crafter to make progressively stronger potions (one that allows level 6, the next allows 9...or something) would mean that the players have to pay the cost of a feat to do it...and any other ones are at the discretion of the GM to give out. The thing is, it's possible to have the same thing with Runes and they work in the same way as potions. All one needs do is use them and they carry no spell limit (in fact, their cost is worked out using the same system as potions). I shall explore the rules further... « Last Edit: Today at 10:14am by HearMeRoar » Link to Post - Back to Top Logged

So far the general consensus has been to raise the limit. Personally, I'm inclined to go with allowing all spells except epic-level spells...or at least making epic potions ludicrously difficult to create.

If you want to have your say, head along to the forums and cast your votes and opinions.

HMR