🦇 The Curse of Strahd 🦇 | fast paced pbp

Creating your character

I'll provide a link to a dndbeyond campaign with loads of content to share AND we'll roll for stats together (4d6, drop lowest, take any array rolled by any member of the party) in our session 0. However, if you'd like to get started by using Standard Array as a placeholder, here are the other character creation guidelines: 👻 Classes & Subclasses: any official or third-party subclasses available on dndbeyond that you or I have access to are fair game, have at it! For classes, we'll stick to the official 12 plus Artificer. Wizard, Paladin, Rogue, Druid, Fighter, and Cleric are especially flavorful for this adventure! 👻 Species: All 5.5e Core Rules species are good to go. For third-party stuff, just ask first. I'm less worried about the power level than I am about the tone and vibe. Human, Elf, and Aasimar are especially encouraged for Curse of Strahd! 👻 Backgrounds: any official or third-party backgrounds available on dndbeyond that you or I have access to are good to go! 👻 Feats: same as Backgrounds, AND everyone will get an extra feat at level 1 (on top of the feat you get for your Background and on top of the feat a Human gets -- so Humans will start with three feats). 👻 Spells: all official spells are good to go. For third-party stuff, go ahead and take what you like but if a spell starts to significantly overshadow the rest of the party or encroach big time on another player's role I will (politely!) ask you to (please!) select something else. 👻 Equipment: Starting equipment OR gold (and you can use the gold to "buy" your own equipment before we begin). Two notes specific to Curse of Strahd: 👻 we'll start out backstory lite: a few sentences at most, with ample opportunity to develop meaningful backstory during play that's directly relevant to the action/stakes/themes (e.g., using flashbacks, campfire roleplay scenes, tarokka readings); 👻 the tone of Curse of Strahd works best for everyone when the characters are grounded and begin the story closer to a low fantasy or grimdark style: humans encouraged! (But not required.)

Preparing for the session

You need: 🧛🏻 a free D&DBeyond account; 🧛🏻 a free Discord account; 🧛🏻 a collaborative spirit and willingness to get a little spooky and have some laughs. That's it!

What Dr. Nah brings to the table

🌫️ Original AI-free narration written with great love and care, a vibrant and responsive world with living, breathing (...uh, mostly) NPCs, and a collaborative table working together to tell one hell of a story. 🌫️ Dndbeyond content sharing, including third-party material. 🌫️ Rewards for inspired roleplay, tactical and challenging combat as desired, and atmospheric writing. 🌫️ Help using the Avrae bot for dice rolling and Tupperbox for posting. 🌫️ Guidance at any stage for anyone new to D&D or ttrpgs in general!

Homebrew rules

🦇 At Ranger level 5, Hunter's Mark no longer requires Concentration. At Ranger Level 13, Hunter's Mark is a Free Action to cast. 🦇 Monks, Rogues, and Barbarians get an extra General feat (from the 5.5e feats only, please) at Monk/Rogue/Barbarian level 6. 🦇 Death saves rolled in private. 🦇 We're using 2024 rules so potion guzzling is a bonus action by default!

How Dr. Nah creates a safe table

This is a horror campaign! The most important safety tool is for you to decide whether you want to play a horror campaign in the first place! Bad things happen in the horror genre. My games will never, ever feature SA or genocide "onscreen" and Curse of Strahd does not feature these in an explicit way in its lore. Still, please do look over the content warnings carefully and if you're unsure of anything, send me a message! 🟥 I have tried to indicate any element that could, conceivably appear in some form in the story -- not elements that MUST! 🟥 In session 0, I'll ask you to fill out a Consent in Gaming form to establish lines and veils. A major advantage of pbp is that anyone can easily step away from the game at any time! If we accidentally hit on something NOT covered in the Consent in Gaming form that you'd prefer not to appear in the game, please communicate ASAP! Whether that's in the group chat or privately to me is up to you. But: if you do not want something bad to ever, ever, under any circumstances happen to the character you make, then this is not the campaign for you!