Snow Way Out: A Gritty Survival Game in Icewind Dale

Creating your character

I would like to do a session zero to create characters, because there is a "Secrets" element in this campaign that will affect your backstories. We will likely make the characters in DND Beyond, starting at level 1. You can feel free to bring in subclasses from official D&D books, however you will likely have to manually write in some stats because DND Beyond will only let you make basic subclasses for free. I allow my players to use one of two methods for stats: 1: Balanced Array - You get 8, 10, 12, 14, 15, and 16. Put each of them in whichever stats you prefer for your character! 2: Yahtzee! - Roll seven D20s. Re-roll any nat ones. Remove the lowest dice. Take the remaining six and put each of them in whichever stats you prefer for your character! High risk, because you could roll several dice under 10 and have negative modifiers - but maybe it's worth it for the chance for a 17, 18, 19 or 20 to work with!

Preparing for the session

Please join discord, DNDBeyond and Roll20. I prefer you use DndBeyond for your character sheets because it makes it easy to level up, and keep track of abilities, spells and inventory without needing a Players Handbook. I use Roll20 for combats, because I like the visual battlemaps. However the voice chat in D20 is not great, so I prefer to use Discord for our voice chat.

What Drew brings to the table

I will bring the music and ambiance, and even some battle maps for Roll20. I do the voices, but don't judge me if some of them are inconsistent or not good at all! I typically stick to the rules, but they can be broken if you come up with something very clever and fun. I like a character driven story. I want all of my PCs to get their chance to be the main character for a while. No matter how much you give me for your backstory, one of my specialties as a GM is finding clever ways to work character stories into the main story arc of the campaign. I want all my players to have a full character arc over the course of the campaign!

Homebrew rules

If you want to homebrew anything special about your character (weapons, spells, abilities), run it by me and I will consider. I have my limitations though! My critical hit rule is different from the guides, cause nothing worse than critting and still rolling crap on your damage dice. All crits should hit hard. My rule is "Max Damage + an extra damage dice". For example, if your weapon is 1d8+5, you get max damage (8+5) and then an additional D8. So it becomes 1D8+13. I use Matt Mercer's Critical Role resurrection rules as well: If a character is dead, and a resurrection is attempted by a spell or spell effect with longer than a 1 action casting time, a Resurrection Challenge is initiated. Up to three members of the adventuring party can offer to contribute to the ritual via a Contribution Skill Check. The DM asks them each to make a skill check based on their form of contribution, with the DC of the check adjusting to how helpful/impactful the DM feels the contribution would be. After all contributions are completed, the DM then rolls a single, final Resurrection success check with no modifier. The base DC for the final resurrection check is 10, increasing by 1 for each previous successful resurrection the character has undergone (signifying the slow erosion of the soul’s connection to this world). For each successful contribution skill check, this DC is decreased by 3, whereas each failed contribution skill check increases the DC by 1.

How Drew creates a safe table

We will follow the standards set by StartPlaying. Lines and Veils will be privately stated to the GM to avoid anything triggering. This campaign has very dark elements, so it's important that you tell me if there are topics that you want to avoid. I will remove them from the story, no questions asked. X, N and O cards are encouraged in the private chat to me during games. I'm an open book for aftercare. If anyone has concerns I'm happy to listen, show compassion, and make changes when necessary. Only voice chat, so you don't have to worry about being seen on camera. I welcome anyone who wants to play, but problematic players will be removed if need be. The general content of this game will be similar to a PG-13 movie.