Welcome to Fódlan!

The continent of Fódlan said to be protected by a revered goddess has existed since time immemorial three ruling powers now control the land in the south lies a region long held by a more than 1,000 year old dynasty the address the Empire beyond its borders to the frigid north is the home of the holy kingdom of Faerghus ruled by the royal family and it's Knights to the east a league of nobles that heeds no king nor ever rules what is called the Leicester Alliance once consumed by a tempest of war and turmoil Fódlan and these three mighty powers now exist in relative harmony

TLDR D&D is a group game, have fun but not at the expenses of other players!

Campaign Preface

I think it’s important to manage your expectations and let you know the kind of campaign we will be playing.
So here is some information on my GMing style and what you can expect from this campaign.

The Golden Rule

Always remember everyone is here to have fun, and that your actions will impact the entire group. Be considerate and courteous. For example, if another player is talking to an NPC and you’re growing bored, don’t just kill that NPC, have your character say that all this talk is getting nowhere and suggest an alternative (that alternative might be suggesting killing the NPC to intimidate them – but don’t just go ahead and do it right away.)
Feel free to engage with each other's goals and backstories. It's a shared narrative and y'all are a team.

The GM’s Role

I think sometimes players can feel like the GM is their enemy and is only there to put obstacles in their path and try and kill them. This couldn’t be further from the truth!

I want you to succeed. And more importantly, I want you to have fun. At the end of the day, if you’re all having fun, I’m having fun!

But, that being said, that doesn’t mean things will always be easy. Your enemies will behave like intelligent creatures and act appropriately (unless they have no intelligence). So wounded enemies will attempt to flee or raise alarms, sometimes enemies will try and take you alive if there is some benefit to them doing so, and sometimes they will fight to the death, tooth and nail.

Setting

Your adventures will take place in a wider world where events are always moving and the clock is always ticking. If you find 3 plot hooks, the plots that you don’t follow will progress over time, and the evil doers could achieve their plans because you haven’t stopped them. This will, of course, lead to new possible adventures, but don’t always assume an adventure you skipped will still be there waiting for you when you decide to pursue it.

Don't feel like you have to do everything though. I will often throw out plot hooks to see what most interest the players.

In general you may feel the world is much larger than your characters early on, but I promise I do this entirely for a sense of progression. By mid tier levels you will all feel like you have a more significant impact on the world.

Characters

You're free to make most types of characters using any of the main D&D books. With that being said there are some races/classes that are more common to the setting so what you play will have a significant impact on how certain NPC's view your characters.

Races

Banned Races: Aasimar

Important: Below shows the spread of what's common and not common. My preference is for you all to play common or uncommon races. Common races to Fódlan: Dwarf, Half-Elf, Human, Tiefling, Wood Elf

Uncommon Races: Dragonborn, Elf, Gnome, Halfling, Orc (use either half-orc, or eberron orc stats), Satyr, Genasi, Bugbear, Firbolg, Goblinoids, Lizardfolk

Virtually Nonexistent Races: Goliath, Tabaxi, Triton, Yuan-ti, Tortle, Warforged, Shifters, Gith, Centaur, Loxodon, Drow, Minotaur

Classes

Common Classes: Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer,Wizard

Uncommon Classes: Artificer, Druid, Warlock, Blood Hunter

Mostly Nonexistent: Gunslinger

It is your responsibility to know your character’s background, personality, and rules. Copy all the rules that relate to your character and keep them to hand so that they’re easy to find.

Alignment

The only restriction I am placing on your alignment is that you cannot be Evil. You can fall anywhere else on the alignment spectrum, so long as you are not evil. You are a band of heroic adventurers, not a group of murderous thugs!

That being said your actions define your alignment not the other way around. Follow your character motivations as needed. Alignment is fluid.

Encounter Types

There are lots of ways to play dnd/Pathfinder, and not all of them are going to appeal to everyone, so I wanted to kind of give you an idea of the sort of games I would like to run and get your feedback.

For me, the biggest draw to roleplaying games is the roleplay itself. If you just want to slash monsters there are numerous games to do it in, both board and video games, but I think the coolest thing about roleplaying games is becoming another character.

So my games are going to be fairly heavy on the RP side of things. There’s still going to be plenty of fighting and loot-grabbing, but there will also be a lot of encounters where you do battle with your words and your wits and not your swords.

Ideally, I’d like a nice 50/50 split of combat encounters and non-combat elements such as puzzles, riddles, speaking to NPCs etc. If you don’t really want to do that, you need to let me know as soon as possible – because there’s no point in me adding in layers of non-combat elements if you all just want to chop heads off!

Combat

As mentioned above, the goal of the enemy NPCs is not to be fodder for you. They are going to behave as realistically as possible and they will have goals and desires.

Because of this, they will do things like summon reinforcements, or attempt to flank you and pick off your lightly armoured party members, or even use the world around them to give themselves an advantage.

Enemy NPCs want to win. Always keep that in mind.

Creative Solutions

Never assume that there’s only one way to approach a problem. Even if I’ve only written a single way for you to approach a task, I want you to talk and come up with inventive ways to get around the problems I put in front of you.

I might set up an encounter where it just looks like you need to assault a tower and fight your way up. But if you want to retreat and contact the local engineer to build a trebuchet you can wheel up and use to bring the tower down – go for it!

I might be caught off guard and need a couple of minutes to work it out, and we may need to play just using a battle grid without a map for that encounter, but I will try to say “yes” to as much as possible.

This also applies for some encounters that cannot be won through strength of arms. Just because there’s a demon guarding the door, that doesn’t mean you should or even could fight it. It could be you have to bargain with it or lure it away to proceed.

Be aware of the types of creatures you can comfortably handle in combat, and be wary of rushing in against something that’s obviously more powerful than yourselves.

And this applies generally too, feel free to think outside the box and suggest radical things. It might mean that all the material I’ve prepared for the night is useless, but we’ll figure it out and roll with it.

Roleplay

Similar to thinking outside of the box, I encourage you all to get into character and roleplay as much as possible. It can be awkward at first and you may just want to speak in 3rd person
“Grogg attacks the kobold.” But over time – when you are comfortable doing it – I’d love for you to embrace and become your characters. Act how they would act and make decisions they would make, even if they aren’t decisions you would make.

Once we’ve played some games and settled in, I will be rewarding players who try to RP (try being the key word. You don’t have to be amazing at it, it’s the willingness to try I’m looking for).

Character Death

Sooner or later, one or more of your characters is probably going to die. Remember that enemy NPCs want to win, which means in most situations they are trying to kill you. If you go into an encounter unprepared or end up separated and surrounded, you could die.

Character deaths aren’t the end though, and a character dying certainly doesn’t mean the campaign is over. If you have sufficient contacts or resources and a character dies, the party could decide to take the body and seek out a local cleric to bring you back. Or they may decide to journey into hell itself to bring you back. A God might even intervene and grant you your life in exchange for your service.

Or you could just be dead.

Don’t assume that your character will be brought back to life by some mystical means if you charge alone into a room without doing any recon and get stabbed to death by goblin children.

What happens to that character after their death is going to be a combination of your party’s ingenuity, and how the story of your death played out.

If you died valiantly holding a corridor against a swarm of undead so your friends could escape, there’s a greater chance a God might pay attention to that action.

90% of the time though, a character death is going to mean that character is dead and gone, and the player will need to roll a new character. This character can be connected to your previous one somehow (an avenging family member) or could be totally unrelated, it’s up to you. Once you’ve made your new character they will be introduced to the party in the most natural way possible, and everything will continue as normal.

But remember that death is always a possibility, but it doesn’t have to be the end of the game. :)