My Upcoming Lion & Dragon Campaign

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I have reached my limit. I can contain it no longer. I've been staring at it for months now, just licking my chops and praying for the day to come. No more.


It's time for this to finally happen. I don't care if I'm running this son of a bitch for only 2 players. Daddy's been eating his vegetables running 5e D&D for over 2 years now. It's time for pie. Or steak. Or whatever it is I really want to be eating instead of 5e in this metaphor.

Lion & Dragon has everything that I want in an RPG right now. Between the core rulebook, the Dark Albion setting material, and the supplementary rules that offer tons of additional tools to enrich the "Medieval Authentic Role-playing" vibe, I can run a kick ass game that would've taken months of research, homebrewing, and preparation otherwise. So why am I writing this?

I'm basically going to spread this to anyone interested in playing so that they have an idea of what I can offer. The pros say that a campaign pitch should be no longer than a page, so here it is:

The Dark Albion campaign Pitch: It is a medieval-authentic War of the Roses England campaign with mild fantastical trimmings. It uses Lion & Dragon, a Basic D&D powered ruleset with major changes in how the system works to shift the focus from High Fantasy to Medieval Earth But With Demons Fantasy, not unlike Game of Thrones in many ways.  The game will strongly try to mirror medieval life but with adventuring and political intrigue. Social class is important, etiquette is important. Combat is fast and deadly, so tactics, quick wits, and discretion are vital to survive. The campaign will begin with every player creating two PCs and being exposed to a dangerous situation. You will not control both PCs all the time, but will have a main PC and a back-up PC. If one of your PCs dies, you'll get to roll another and we'll work them into the group.

System-wise, how will it be different than standard D&D is primarily in how magic works. Clerics in L&D have miracles they can perform that involve making a Prayer Check rather than requiring spell slots or memorized spells. There are no Wizards in L&D, but there are Magisters who are Lore specialists. In their studies, they can uncover the means to create many potions, magical items, and even perform powerful combat magic rituals. One of their most intriguing features is how they can summon and bind Demons to do their bidding. Another major difference is that HP does not increase substantially as characters level; HP totals stay quite low, which leads to very deadly combat. Also, I will be making use of critical hit tables to add more flavor to critical hits.

My style as a GM: I don't focus on tactical combats and I don't tell stories. I run games to (with the help of the players) create an experience. I reward creativity, but I focus on immersion. If the players make terrible choices and character death is inevitable, I let the dice fall where they may. That said, I try my absolute best to make sure players are properly informed to make the best choices they can. I don't require "talking in character," but I want you to tell me how you'd like to do things and not just roll a target number.

The Schedule:

Tentatively, I'd like to start the campaign on Monday, April 27th at 6:30 PM Central Time. It'll likely be run using Discord for voice chat (mic required). I'm considering using Roll20 for maps, tokens, dice rolling, etc, but I'm not completely set on it. Lion & Dragon is best played in long campaigns, so I plan to run it for a long time. That said, the nature of the game means that I can keep it rolling without specific players as long as people keep coming to play.

Who Can Play:

Players of all backgrounds, skill levels, etc. My games are LGBTQ/PoC/Women friendly, and I state that explicitly so everyone knows that prejudicial treatment against other players will not be tolerated. Even though Dark Albion is a quasi-historical campaign setting in Medieval England, everyone will have the opportunity to play their character without fear of being tossed out for conflicting with the prejudices of that time period. In short, your character can be gay, trans, a woman, a PoC, and NPCs will not be out to ruin you for it. Heretics, on the other hand..

If all this works for you and you really want to play, hit me up.


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