Overview
The Wyrmsblood campaign uses the 1981 Basic/Expert (B/X) Dungeons & Dragons ruleset, specifically the reformatted version known as Old-School Essentials. These rules are lightweight and easy to learn while also being robust enough to provide for countless hours of fantasy roleplaying.
What Do I Need to Play?
For new players, the minimum expectation is to have downloaded and read the Old-School Essentials Basic Rules, available for free here.
For regular players, it is recommended to purchase the Old-School Essentials Classic Fantasy Rules Tome. The Rules Tome is available as a PDF on DriveThruRPG here or as a physical book (with PDF) from Exalted Funeral here.
For veteran players seeking more options, it is recommended to purchase the Old-School Essentials Advanced Fantasy Player’s Tome. The Player’s Tome is available as a PDF on DriveThruRPG here or as a physical book (with PDF) from Exalted Funeral here.
It is further recommended that players acquire a notebook and pen for use in the game as well as a standard seven-piece roleplaying game dice set.
Additionally, players should familiarize themselves with the House Rules used for the Wyrmsblood campaign.
Etiquette
Attendance
Players are expected to attend a session, and be on time, when they say that they intend to be there. If you cannot attend a session you signed up for, or will be late, let someone know. Regularly no-showing for sessions or frequent extreme tardiness will have you removed from the game. Respect other people’s time.
Limit Distractions
When playing online, do what you can to limit distractions. Do not have music or a TV playing in the background (at least that other people can hear). Try to play in a space where you will be uninterrupted. Use headphones to limit voices echoing, and consider buying the highest quality microphone you can afford. Please do not burp or loudly eat or drink into the microphone.
Cooperation
Dungeons & Dragons is a cooperative game. It is your responsibility to give your character a reason to cooperate with the rest of the party. If you don’t know why your character would travel with the party, play another character who would.
Players are expected to work cooperatively with other players. Player versus player combat and theft is not allowed unless all players involved agree. Players may not steal from other player characters without consent, including keeping looted items for themselves without sharing with the rest of the party. The DM reserves the right to veto particularly disruptive actions taken by a player character.
Metagaming and cheating, including referencing monster books to gain an edge against opponents in combat, are also prohibited. Players are allowed to roll their own, physical dice while playing under the expectation that they will be honest about their rolls. This is a cooperative game and there is no reason to cheat.
Courtesy
Be courteous with other players. Do not talk over other players when you can. Allow other players to play how they like without coaching or ridiculing them. Be kind and respectful to everyone involved.
Graphic Content
This campaign features content that would be considered R-rated. Violence and gore, strong language, and adult themes are common. Some sexual content may also appear but will often be left to the players’ imagination (“cut to black”). The DM reserves the right to skip past certain moments when necessary.
Note that sexual violence of any kind will not feature in this campaign. A character will never be subject to this kind of violence. No player character may engage in sexual violence.
Expectations
Genre and Setting
The Wyrmsblood setting is designed to be a human-centric, pseudo-medieval world where magic and monsters are known to exist but are not commonly encountered by most people. There are few non-human player races, limited to elves, dwarves, and halflings. Furthermore, to keep the game rooted in the feeling of the medieval era, do not expect to find things like gunpowder or steampunk technology, robots or rayguns, or some prehistoric creatures like dinosaurs.
Exploration Focused
The primary focus of the game is exploration. Dungeon crawling and overland travel are the main modes of exploration in the game. Exploration is the means by which characters interact with the game world. Explore and find monsters to slay and treasure to collect. You are an adventurer!
Naming
Players should, to the best of their ability, give their characters names that are original. This means no halflings named Frodo, no magic-users named Gandalf, and so on. Character names should fit the tone of the campaign as much as possible. The DM reserves the right to veto any character names.
Alignment
A character’s alignment is determined by what part of cosmic struggle between Law and Chaos they side with. An alignment is not a personality type. Characters should be of Lawful or Neutral alignment whenever possible. A character may be of Chaotic alignment with DM approval.
Loot and Treasure
Monetary treasure must always be divided equally. This includes coins, gems, jewellery, and any art objects taken as loot. If a character decides to keep an item instead of sell it, such as a gem, it still grants full experience points but the gold cost for that item comes out of that character’s share. Loot is automatically assumed to be sold upon returning to civilization.
Magical items should be distributed fairly whenever possible. One character should not hoard every magical item for themselves. All items and treasure, including coins, kept by the party can be considered safely stored once they have been brought to town. This is handwaved as having been stored in a bank or a hidden stash.
Gameplay Style
Open Table
The Wyrmsblood campaign is intended to accommodate a revolving door of players and characters from a single gaming community. To accomplish this, the campaign uses an open table setup, which is a campaign structure that promotes a “pick up and play” attitude. The DM posts when they are running a game, and the players sign up accordingly. It is not expected that each player attends every session of the game. With a large enough pool of players, it is likely that the selection of players and characters available each session will be different.
Episodic Adventures
A key aspect of the open table is the episodic format. Each session of play is its own self-contained adventure. Players choose an adventure hook, rumor, or quest to pursue, assemble a party of characters, and play that adventure to its conclusion. Every session ends with the player characters returning to civilization.
If the adventure cannot be concluded in a single session, such as when it is part of a larger adventure module, the plays may agree to temporarily freeze their characters, allowing them to pick up where they left off while also locking those frozen characters out of other adventures while the freeze is in effect. If the players cannot find another time to play within a reasonable amount of time of an adventure freeze, their characters are unfrozen and may be used in other adventures as usual.
Troupe Play
This campaign is designed to encourage “troupe play,” meaning each player has several characters. At the start of each session, each player chooses which of their characters to play for that session. A player may play up to 2 characters in a session, in addition to any retainers those characters may have accompanying them. Playing multiple characters at once is a good idea for low level parties and when a party is expecting to encounter a particularly difficult enemy.
The advantage of troupe play is that players have several backup characters in case of catastrophe and have more flexibility in the level and type of character they can bring to any session. Having a troupe of characters is not required for each player, but it is highly recommend.
Sandbox Environment
The Wyrmsblood campaign setting is intended to be used as a sandbox environment, where players are given the freedom to be creative and choose what to do and where to go in any given session. This means that players should decide what they’re doing for a given session, and if possible, let the DM know in advance.
Adventure hooks in the form of quests and rumors are presented to give players specific objectives to complete. The setting is designed to be reactive to the players’ decisions. The more the players poke, the more the world pokes back.
