Skies of Arcadia [??] - Recruiting Now

[Dracos]

I welcome you to a land where men are men, women are women, and ships fly across the high winds battling for a hint of glory and wealth.

I welcome you to an age of buccaneers.  Of swashbuckling young men and boomerang flinging women.  Where dashing speeches are a requirement, bards are welcome, and if the cook spits in your food, that's seasoning.

I welcome you to a world where a prison break is before breakfast and having an armed cannon duel with towering monsters does not halt for tea.

I welcome you to fly the Skies of Arcadia.

Recruiting now.

This would run late on Saturday my time.  Probably about 6-10 PST (9-1 EST).  Either Weekly or Biweekly.  We'll see.  If Biweekly, it might start earlier for a good 5-6 hour chunk per session with me getting more plotting time between sessions and possibly board stuff going on during the weeks between them.  This would be primarily an irc game.

We will be running in either D&D 3.5, D&D 4, or Hero.  Probably D&D 4 to beat Eb to be the first 4E game and to cause a hernia or three.  I have a promise that we'll get a whipped up Awesome Char Sheet of Awesomeness that will handles keeping character generation time to a minimum if we do 4th.  Votes from players welcome.

This game will start in two weeks and will run until we either get sick of it or you guys have moved from sky pirates to space pirates to spell jammers to to having tea cozies with gods going over the universe for the next wonderful adventure.  There may be plot tokens to find, ships to build or tear down, and various massive expenditures of resources for decoration.

I'm aiming for 4 players.  Maybe five.

Possible Recruits right now:
Merc
Kotono
Brian
Olguin
YOU!

Actual Places Locked In:
Brian
Merc
Iddy
Edward
Jon

There will likely be a starting tutorial section (regardless of system) in which you break in your first few levels under a wily ol' sea dog before getting your first ship.

Post if you want in. :)

Okay, I think I unless craziness happens with our first few sessions, this'll go 4e.  Sorry, Ko.  Next time.  We'll start after I'm ready to go with DMing a few sessions with some tutorial stuff leading into the game proper.  Up through tutorial we're going to be really trying to feel out the party dynamic as well as the system for both combat and ship combat.  We have 5 so it might be a bit hectic for me at times. :)  We'll see.  ^^

[Iron Dragoon]

I be interested, ya scurvy dog of a worthless captain!

If my times match up, that is.

[Edward]

I'd be interested.  The time works and the setting is interesting.

But I'm not fond of level-based systems and I don't want to have to buy new books in order to play.  So I vote Hero.  (Or Gurps, or BESM, or Savage Worlds.)  Or maybe port in the 7th Sea system, it's one of the best for swashbucklering.

[Dracos]

Edward:

I am interested in hearing of this system.  Partially the reason 4E is at the top is the system balancing 'almost no one knows it enough to hate it' and some preaching of folks who strangely went from 'hate' to 'love'.

As far as buying books?  *Cough Cough* no, none of that needed.

[Dracos]

Also, note the game I'm drawing concept from.  It will be sort of light/high piracy rather the gritty.  There won't really be scurvy, people get scars, not lose limbs, pirates amazingly survive more than a year.

[Jon]

I can has?

[Anastasia]

I may play depending on various circumstances, like we talked in IRC. Lemme know how it shakes up?

[Dracos]

Okay, current statistics say we've got some heavy preferences of folks for differing systems.

I think right now 4E and Seven Seas are the front runners.

[Brian]

Post of intent of playage.

[Brian]

I support 4e.

Here's a character sheet which anyone can use (this time I stole it, instead of making it myself).

[Jon]

I support 4e, or 3e, or 7th Sea, or Spirit of the Century, or HERO. Or Bunnies and Burrows, but I figure that one is probably out.

[Brian]

Here is my own character sheet, which was demanded WITHIN AN HOUR.

Hm.

[Dracos]

Okay, the heads up is I think I'm going to run this 4th.  In both leading cases most folks needed to learn a new system, but it seemed 4th would've been slightly more fitting and I won't have to be custom designing every encounter (just most :)).  Assuming the tutorial section goes well, we'll continue with 4th.  Jon has books provided for all who need them.

Brian provided a pretty awesome character sheet.  We're not quite going to be using it though.  We're going to make it better first. :)  No rush with the characters quite yet, though feel free to claim: A)Class, B)General concept.

You will all start as young teens working under the same pirate captain and (pending any particular requests) coming from the same pirate village built from a mishmash of recruits, rescues, long time pirate familes, etc (E.g. there's an excuse for any kind to be there).  If I see a party of four elves, I will throw dice through the screen at all of you. :)  There may be room for ONE exotic foreigner to be rescued in the beginning of tutoria.  ;)  One.

How many are not familiar with the setting I'm proposing and are simply coming because I shouted Air Pirates?  As far as using that setting, yes, we'll use some of it.  Possibly a lot of it.

I'm going to be adding some skills.  As pirates, all of these will be acceptable as trained skills, though you don't need to pick one.  I'm going to be working up some ship to ship combat (We'll also try it out during tutorial).  Comments will be welcome, but basically, I don't see being air pirates without the ability to order your crew around and engage in piratical combat.  Sure, you won't start with a crew, but that'll be part of the fun :)

Currently aiming for a start date of Saturday the 21st. :)

[Edward]

Okay, the heads up is I think I'm going to run this 4th.

Then I will need some help.

How many are not familiar with the setting I'm proposing and are simply coming because I shouted Air Pirates?

I paid some attention during the cut scenes when my roommate was playing.  :p  So I wouldn't say I'm familiar or unfamiliar.  I would have come if someone had just shouted 'Air Pirates'.  :)

Currently aiming for a start date of Saturday the 21st. :)

I'm going to be out of town and away from my computer from the 14th through the 21st, though I might be getting back early enough to play.  We could always have my character recovering from a 'wee bout of shore leave' to explain me being late or missing the first section.

[Dracos]

Or simply have it start a week later. :)  No harm.  Trying to get a feel for what needs covering early. :)

Edward, talk with Jon and get the books for starters.

For Jon/Edward/(Iddy?)'s benefit, the world of Skies of Arcadia is a high adventure, romanticized take on piracy.  Pirates are more the heroic buccaneer take rather than the 'arrr, we're going to kill everyone' take.  Reputation is a big thing, and towns and cities are generally isolated aside from what airships bring in and out.  Pirates have duels and fly around seeking treasure.  The cast is generally a youthful bunch of hopefuls with nary a dark thought on their mind.  The devil may care style that you...  Okay,  Remember Princess Bride, Dread Pirate Roberts?

They're like that.  Engarde, honorable fighting, smile on their face the whole time while they're robbing you blind and swinging out the window with the gallant royal guard on their tales.  They don't get angry, they get even and then some.  You don't quite have to match this, but gritty only describes what's under their boots and that is in a fair part what I'm aiming for thematically.  Your characters will do brave things and make daring thefts.  You'll smash through walls and kidnap princesses for a kiss, then swipe the royal crown off their father's heads.  You will have rivals and all that sort, but there's little/no darkness to it.  It's not an examination of the darker parts of man's soul or a reflection of what people become when they're stripped down to their core and rob and pillage for a living.