Alright guys, in an effort to make things more cohesive, this is where I want character ideas. Once they're there, I'll start giving go's and no-go's on things. One thing I'm looking for are characters that are pretty accurate to how they're portrayed in the books, as far as races go. If you're a dwarf and the book says dwarf societies are a certain way, stick to that. If you don't have the book, try to look it up or as someone who does.

I've gotten this question a lot so I'll say again:

-Starting at level 1
-Using stat arrays from the player's handbook or the point buy system
-Each character starts with 100 gold. You use that gold to buy the gear you need. Whatever gold is left over is the gold you have in your pocket.
-As far as where you start inside the city, we'll discuss that as you show your general back-story.
-Please try to make your back-stories a bit general. Tell me what your character is, and how they are. Make that detailed. As far as where they are and what they're doing, we'll work that out together to make sure it fits into what I've done, so far, cohesively.

Back in previous posts are some more detailed notes on restrictions and whatnot but yeah, shouldn't be a problem. Looking forward to seeing what you guys come up with!

~Andrew

"The world of Telain has changed. Over the centuries, the gods have watched the mortals walk the lands of their dominion. They watched the mortal beings below; some protecting them, some looking to bring discord, violence and strife, and yet others were rather indifferent. Even with these different views on the small creatures beneath them, the gods agreed that laws need be made. Since the beginning, one law was paramount amongst the gods. That law was that no mortal shall ever touch magic. Magic was powerful; it was something the gods wielded and it was something woven into the very fabric of the world itself. Mortals were not to even know of its existence. It was this way for a millennium. That all changed one day.

Of the gods, Sylian, god of magic, was a particularly strong figure. Now, what many mortals didn't know is that the gods rest as well. In his sleep, he left the observance, maintainence and oversight of magic to his apprentice, Joraedin. Now, Joraedin was an interesting one. He did his duties diligently and without complaint. The problem was that the gods were used to deference and respect and in that security, they had grown complacent. It was only a matter of time before someone took advantage of this....

Joraedin stepped into the essence chamber. At the center of the chamber, there sat a crystalline decanter filled with what one would assume to be wine. But, if one moved closer and peered inside and looked closely, they would see something truly wondrous. The contents were not solid but nor were they entirely liquid or gas. They swirled even though they were undisturbed. If you watched it, you would notice lightning crackle across the surface, sometimes leaping out of the dark mass into the air. This was magic, in its most raw form. It was the enabler of things great and small. All living things had, at their heart, the most minute piece inside them, a piece that, if looked for would be invisible. This gave them life. But the mortals did not know.

Joraedin had looked down on the mortals in his time above and had seen them. In his mind, the gods existed for the mortals. If the mortals did not exist, the gods would have no reason for being and in his mind, he thought that power should be theirs to touch, if they sought it, not barred to them.

So, with that thought, Joraedin took the decanter and left the the citadel of Sylian and walked out to Sylian's Watch; the end of a stone outcropping that stretched out into the expanse of air over the world below. Joraedin held the decanter in his hands, looked down to the world below and whispered "Now you will know true wonder...."

He tipped the decanter over and the dark form inside, flowed out. It flowed in a crackling, swirling stream of mighty brilliance down, down, down to the world below. Joraedin held the decanter until every last drop, every last bit of the contents had fallen to the world's floor.

Magic hit the world with a noise of thunder multiplied upon itself a hundred fold. The energies spider-webbed across the planet, interlacing through itself, wrapping the world in a wondrous embrace. These lines became known as the threads of power.

Things changed. Some animals were transformed, some people were transformed, some became the other. Trees grew and changed; some even walked. The world became a new, different place.

As Joraedin watched this, enraptured with the same wonder he'd just delivered to the waiting world below, he did not see Sylian approach. The god was not understanding. The god was not pleased. The god was not merciful.

"You have broken the law." said Sylian in a voice that rumbled like a falling mountain. "For this, you will be punished. You will roam the earth amongst those below and you will have no power. You will not perish, but instead, you will exist and see the empires fall. You will see the ruin you have brought on the world and you will know that the gods know best. Joraedin, you have betrayed me. Be gone from my sight."

And with that, Sylian cast Joraedin from where he stood, down to the earth below. Joraedin fell down, down, down and hit the ground with such force that a crater formed miles wide and a half mile deep. It is now known as The Crater of the Fallen.

Joraedin picked himself up and knew that things were different. Aside from him being unable to die, the power he'd been given by Sylian as his apprentice had been stripped from him. He was now as the mortals were. But the wonderful thing about the living beings is that they can always surprise you and in some ways, the gods are sometimes the easiest surprise.

And so it was that Joraedin, the Bringer of Wonder, fell from The Heights and brought magic to this world as a gift to all those in it."

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This is one of the first major events in Telain's history. The rest of the pantheon has yet to be created, but that will be something I'm going to tackle soon.

This is Telain's geographical map. There are mountains, both regular and snowy. There are forests, both regular and snowy. Along the horizontal center of the map is supposed to be very warm, possibly even desert.

This is Telain's boundary map. Civilized boundaries mean that there are people there with some semblance of civilization or organization. Uncivilized boundaries denote that the region, if populated, has nomads, barbarians or some other manner of uncivilized beings in it. Also, it could be devoid of any sentient beings. This is up to the imagination.

Any islands or large bodies that have no boundary lines are considered to be unsettled, at least formally. This map is according to the cartographers of the world as it is and there are places they have not gone, so they may not know what lies inside a certain area. If you think of an idea, such as a race or culture that resides in a certain place, post it and most likely, I'll be able to use it.

Any questions are more than welcome and I very much look forward to seeing what you guys come up with!

So, in a recent post, I asked for more ideas for new "Takes". The response was good and there were a few ideas that really stood out to me. One of them was by my buddy Chris, who wanted me to touch on the idea of making a game FOR the players, making them feel like they're driving the game, instead of being in a story where it seems, for the players, that "any" hero could have been plugged into the spot and the adventure would have theoretically gone the same way.

I think this is a great idea so I'm going to tackle that right here, right now.

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A personal experience is one that really caters to the individual. You've got players, who are people, who all have their interests and preferences. You've also got a GM who has his own ideas and experiences he wants to create. With this comes some really great meshing of personalities, but also some conflicts.

When it comes to running a game, there are certain ways you can go about this. They usually fall under these two categories.

Using a published adventure / campaign arc - Wizards of the Coast constantly cranks out pre-made campaigns, dungeons, stories, etc that can be used for a game. A lot of these can be tweaked to suit whatever needs you may have. Some of the adventures may be sub par, some might be fantastic. Usually you can go to places online, such as Amazon, where you can purchase the products and read reviews.

Using a home-brewed setting / game - In this situation, the campaign, adventure or just the session is played within a setting that is made completely by the DM (usually); it's usually created by someone who will be playing in the game and it's usually not formally published. This tends to be an option that's widely used as it allows for adaptation and greater manipulation of the world and more custom stories (although using just a published campaign setting).

That said, how do we answer the question "How do I make this a personal experience?"?

Well, the question, really, is a matter of tailoring and cooperation. If the DM is the only one taking part in crafting the game then it would make sense that it wouldn't feel as much about the players, since they had no part in creating the game.

The Dungeon Master's Guide 2 touches on the idea of cooperative world building. This generally consists of the players being given homework, giving them some of part in creating the world. The players are encouraged to think of interesting things to put in the world, interesting encounters, etc. It's saying to the DMs "Don't take it all on yourself, delegate some of it!"

Secondly, I truly believe in character backstories. Like, very very strongly. Figure out who your characters are (at least you PCs. NPCs can be a bit more vague as the story doesn't focus on them). Know your character's strengths, weaknesses, foibles, faults, motivations, likes, dislikes, hatreds, sense of humor, past jobs, family history, etc. Know where the character comes from. This will give your character a firm foundation in reality and make him very believable.

Also, you want to have a specific goal. Have something that your character is aiming at; be it finding his father, becoming the worlds greatest archer or even just becoming the world's richest man. With a goal and a focus in mind, that gives you a line to roleplay from that stretches from the backstory to the goal. Your character treads that line and it gives you a large point of reference that you can then use to guide you in your role playing.

This factors into making a game just for the PC's in this way. No matter what you do, DM's, if you are the one to make the game, it will always be your game, the characters playing second fiddle to your creation. If the players engage, you know what they want.

A story will always be a story. A series of events in an order that describe events. The characters of the game are, generally, the main characters of the story (although I suppose that one could run a game where the players are secondary characters to major events going on and if done right it could be really interesting). What the players need to do is work WITH the DM in working their backstories into the game.

If I make a place and say "Ok, you're all here and this is where I want you to go" (like most games tend to be some form of), it won't feel as player focussed as if the players immediately choose what they want to do.

In the end, it comes down to planning and the level of involvement that the players want to have. It's kind of neat that, in this way, helping design the game will in turn be it's own reward because the DM will be running a game that has elements that have been tailored just for your (the player's) desires. It requires a lot of communication and involvement on both sides of the DM screen.

Another thought I had is that DM's (myself included); we gotta start thinking of stories differently. If we keep them as "I'm taking your from point a to point b" it's going to lead to a feeling of helplessness, as far as the character's level of influence goes. Instead, I've been trying to think like this:

I come up with a place, be it a city, be it a country, be it a world, and I populate it with options. Yes, you don't want to make the whole thing right away usually, as that will usually take an incredibly long time and there will always be more to do BUT; you can make a place with a few options, little hooks to see what the players tend to gravitate towards. Maybe there's a thief who's been knocking over local businesses, but there are also goblin raids hitting caravans on the road outside the city as well as an underground slave trading ring. Perhaps they run into a few NPCs that just happen to play very well and the interaction is memorable and you come up with a direction on the fly and let the story carry itself.

A thing I realized in playing and running games is that D&D is very much not like other mediums in that it's not so much about the end result. It's about the journey. It's about memorable moments. It's about comaradery. It's about getting there. Who cares if, at the beginning, "There" is a vague concept. The question is "Will you have fun today?" If the answer is "Yes", then you're doing it right.

To make a point, I was playing a role playing game way back in the day, when I was in high school, and it was the first game I'd played in. Due to some choices my buddy and I made, we ended up in jail for about 4 hours of the session, trying to find my way out. At the end of the game, the game master was like "Guys, I totally didn't expect you to do that stuff. I didn't plan to have you stuck in jail for so long but it just went that way." And you know what? We didn't feel bad one bit. It was fun! We got to get creative, there were some neat roleplay opportunities and things were interesting and we felt like things were going the way they were going because we made them go that way.

Giving the players power is ok. When a player asks about the deep gnome society in the world they're playing in and it's not defined, why not say "You tell me!" And let them design it. For all you know it'll come with hooks already laid in there, just purely by virture of the fact that a player made it and it has things in it that interest that player.

One of the biggest keys I find is using all your resources. Give everyone a job, let everyone give an idea for at least a few parts of the world they'll be playing in.

=======================

Now, in an effort to be the first to practice what I preach, I'm going to do something interesting. I've created a world called Telain. It has a brief history. Not much to it, but some to go off of. In the next post, which will be called "Building Telain", I'm going to post links to my map and one with political boundaries on it. I'm going to be asking you, the players, to design some peoples for some of the regions on the map. Some cultures, if you will. Post them as comments to "Building Telain) and I will look at them (although I may alter them a bit to suit the world as I may need it to be) and integrate them into the world. This, in turn, will give me certain things to build off of. I hope this excites you guys as much as it does me and starts you all on the track to player involvement, deeper immersion and new heights of fun!

~Andrew

This post is dedicated to Chris. Thank you for a truely intriguing question!

Hey all you Taken out there,

If you're interested, I've just finished the geography for Telain. You can go check it out at:

http://saintknight.deviantart.com/art/Telain-Geography-137938881

I'll just leave it at that. Tell me what you think in your comments!

~Andrew

Alright, I think it's time for another one of these bad boys. It's that time when I ask you guys, the readers, what you'd like to see some Takes on. Give, in a comment, any request (or requests) you may have for Take subjects and I'll write them down and use them in the blog (or I'll do my best to get them all in there). The last one was a smashing success and I look forward to seeing what you guys are looking for. Let the comments fly!

~Andrew

So recently I've been thinking about World Building. It's, at once, a daunting task and at the same time, really exciting. I've been doing research and getting back into my artistic mindset, busting out forests, mountain ranges and expanses of land where the peoples of this fictional world can live. As I was thinking about doing this, as well as executing it, it made me realize something. The use of reference in gaming.

In art, the use of reference is invaluable. I'm sure there is nary an artist out there who can honestly do better work without reference, than with it. Now, granted, this is somewhat of different context, but bear with me. I find that, when dungeon mastering, things are much easier, much better and much more fun if I have something to reference. I can write out a list of buildings and cities with different peoples in them, but it still isn't visual. You read it and still have to vaguely imagine "Ok, this is here, that's over there, etc". With a map, you can see "Ok, this place is near this place, that means that the crowd for this place is near the other, this impacts these other places around it, etc."

Learning this, I went to the effort of making a map, which is still in the process of being made, of a world that's been sitting in my head. Seeing it come to life on the page (ok, the digital paper) really makes things pop. You get to look at it and go "Ok, we're gonna have it cold here, hot here; there are gonna be civilized folks here and barbarians here, etc." and it really makes it much more real.

So, that said, I believe that having a map, and some point of reference is really good. I recognize that not everyone feels that art is their forte, but if you ever have the inclination to give it a try, you deffinately should try your hand at some fantasy cartography. The software I hear most use for these efforts are Gimp, Photoshop and Campaign Cartographer 3. Gimp and Photoshop are more advanced and are made to do photo editing and whatnot. CC3, on the other hand, is made specifically for building campaign maps and whatnot, for use in fantasy games. It's worth a look, if you're interested in the subject.

Alright, that's it for this little bit. Thanks again for reading!

~Andrew

Alright guys, brief update on the game I'm planning on running. It's on hold for a bit for a few reasons.

1) I'm still trying to flesh out the contents of the city, figure out what I want where, who's who, etc.

2) I've made a foray into fantasy map cartography. This is to say, I've wanted to make a great map for a campaign for a long time and learned how to do it, so I'm in the process of not only creating a city, but a world, complete with political boundaries, natural formations such as mountains, lakes, forests, etc; that I'm trying to make look as high quality as possible. I will post it on my deviantart account (saintknight.deviantart.com) as soon as it's done. Ohdd is going to be a part of this world, I think. We'll see, but that's what I'm thinking.

3) I want to give you guys time to figure out what your characters. I'll have you all starting in Ohdd, but as far as what kind of things your character is into as far as hobbies and whatnot, their personalities, their quirks and character flaws (and every has flaws, remember), is still all up to you. I've got a place in the city for most things, and if there's not something there, we can make something or I'll get creative.

4) I want to make sure that this has the potential for more than I was originally thinking. Yes, I would like a lot of the game to start in Ohdd. Perhaps containing all of heroic tier, maybe even some of paragon. That said, I want to make a city you can go outside of, although I don't plan on sending you beyond it right away. That said, I'm trying to make a world that's robust to the point of the forgotton realms. Maybe not with the MASSIVE history behind it, but different cultures for sure and cities, sights to see, etc. I've got a lot of ideas that I'm rolling around in my head and I'm trying to make a world that's the pro-quality I know I'm capable of.

Thank you guys for your patience and I'm still very interested in your ideas! If you'd like to e mail me, you can reach me at paintknight@yahoo.com. Thanks again!

~Andrew